Joules clothing has gone bust!

[Zrt]

I just heard on the radio. Don't know what others think but I used to love their brightly coloured pyjamas.

Joules has always puzzled me, I don't know know who it was supposed to be for.
I always thought it was aimed at a more rural crowd who wanted something a bit nicer to muck out or walk the dogs in without going full “all the kit, full of shit” (people down from London) as high end countryside clothing denotes.
Unfortunately they sort of sidestepped into trying to have wider appeal although adult clothes with dogs and butterfly’s is wide of their original market.

Do Boden even have shops? That’s probably what will save them.

I bought a joules raincoat from M&S - much cheaper than in joules own store!
Love it!

I walked past White Stuff not long ago and everything in the window was every colour other than white (and I don't mean grey/taupe neutrals). I was perplexed, I don't understand that brand at all.

Surely if the whole bill was over £100 on the credit card, it's the transaction that will be refunded. Or maybe I am mistaken?

That's what I always thought but having now researched it seems not sadly .
Debit card would have been fine
Just keeping fingers crossed it at least gets dispatched , the website is still taking orders so that's pretty blatant fraud if they aren't planning on sending them out .

I thought the logo was supposed to be a hare not a rabbit?
pointless post but we should have our facts right?!!!

Your completely right, their prints and colour palettes look childish to me, and are impractical, difficult to mix and match.
too “be kind” tickled me 😂

I walked past White Stuff not long ago and everything in the window was every colour other than white

Thinking about it, may have been The White Company 🤔 I don't have room in my life for either.

Do Boden even have shops? That’s probably what will save them.

They have a shop in West London that's become an outlet store (used to also be one in Chelsea but it's gone now), plus a small amount of concessions at John Lewis. Predictably, none of them stock petites in store so it's still online only for anyone who's short or tall. Same with Seasalt. Joules never made petites, that's why I never bought anything from them.

www.boden.co.uk/en-gb/shopping-with-us/boden-shops

Also, why is Fat Face called that? It's not a good name.

DD has a lot of Boden, but almost all of it is second hand. I rarely buy new from them apart from the odd bit in the sale. But I wanted to buy her a nice jumper the other day, and trawled a lot of websites looking for something of decent quality — I thought Boden at least might have something made out of wool or cotton, but no, it was all acrylic mixes despite the prices being £40+ — for a child’s jumper! I’m well aware that the retail environment is challenging right now, but I expected that a few places would still be selling jumpers made of actual wool. But no, it seems.

I think Boden is likely to survive because it has quite an entrenched following, but I can see a lot of the other nautique/holiday/faux posh brands going bust. As I said up thread I did like Joules for childrenswear when the quality was good. Thinking back, they used to do quite small ranges and the items were always a little bit different, like the tutu skirts and summer dresses with seaside prints on — very cute and unusual for girls originally, and they were always all cotton or linen. Their jersey was always heavy and good quality rather than thin and flimsy.

In recent years they made that classic mistake of expanding their ranges too much and not innovating very much with the style, so it always looked very safe. But along with the website issues, they should not have started bulk selling cheaper ranges to shopping channels — it really saturated the market with the cheaper versions of their stuff which didn’t do much for the brand image. They should have dropped the flowery stripe Breton look a few years ago when it started to look dated, and kept the ranges small but more up to date.

I used to like Joules but tried some things on recently and it was all terrible - baggy knees on jeans, weirdly cut sleeves, horrible fabric.

I really am stuck in a rut. Joules, Fat Face, White Stuff were my staples, but want something more classic and better quality as I get older. Any recommendations?

Yeah I used to wander in, wander round and out. Not a style I liked and I'm 55 so not sure who was buying it.

I got jumpers that are predominantly cotton or wool from Seasalt this year postcardpuffin

Thank you, @shinynewapple22
I thought it was a bit cutting but would rather apologise in case I WAS wrong.. x

It’s named (sort of) after a slope in Chamonix.

Both fat face and White Stuff started out selling stuff in ski resorts. It’s really interesting how both of those businesses, and Joules (started out with equestrian gear) and Crew clothing (sailing) associated themselves with aspirational sports and that’s why people latched on to the brands: the desire to look as if you were wealthy enough to do those sports, even if you didn’t, and hence belonged to some sort of club. It says a lot about the way we are in Britain, doesn’t it?

All of them, plus Seasalt and Boden, sell apologetic-looking clothes now. As if the aim is not to be attractive but to blend in and make sure that anyone looking at your clothes will be left in no doubt that you are middle class. Actually Boden used to make some interesting shoes and reasonable coats, I’ll give them that.

Agreed when Boden first came into the market it did used to have interesting shoes and reasonable coats! I had a lovely blue rain/trench coat but nothing like that there now.

Agreed with the apologetic looking offerings from other similar brands. Fairly easy to copy in China too if you want. You can tell and could always tell Seasalt, Joules easily when worn.

When I worked in Wimbledon and went to the Village for a browse approx 10 years or so ago there was a Joules and another shop maybe Jack Wills there plus same concessions in their local department store. Wimbledon village types can be very fickle though and love eg Joules etc one day and change the next. Also tend to prefer quality.

Interesting that the Wimbledon yummy mummies loved H&M but would also go into Divided (H&M) for different, younger offerings to main H&M.

It's really sad for the staff involved and hope they can be bought albeit in a different format.

I feel like the regular sales and random 20% off weekends haven't helped. Its a bit like Laura Ashley used to be- why buy anything full price when you can just hold out for discount weekend.

I feel like Joules/crew are in an era from 12 years ago where everyone was buying the belted Barbour jackets.

I've recently got back into riding and the fashion in riding clothes has really changed and is much more athleisure based now.

I don't think Joules have kept up with fashion in their original market let alone mass market.

Nobody is going to buy the company as it stands. It has run out of cash and can’t meet its obligations. Somebody will buy the brand, and the stock, and the shops will close. It’s what happens. The head office, if owned, will probably be converted to housing.

Re the regular sales thing damaging the brand: that’s all consumer-led. Our fault, in other words. The public have decided that clothes should be cheap, encouraged by Primark and supermarket fashion. And the dreaded Boohoo and Shein. You see threads on here all the time, moaning that a T shirt in M&S is ‘extortionate’ at £15 when Primark are selling them for £3.50. We’ve accelerated the race to the bottom. It’s been accelerated by so much disposable income being sucked into housing over the past 15 years: that’s why there are so few decent high street shops, but that’s another story.

And THAT in a nutshell is how they lost their way. Selling to people who don’t know the difference between a rabbit and a hare! 😂

@Iamthewombat I don't think it's our fault for wanting more affordable clothes, the problem is wages (employers, governments). Those in power hold all the strings when we aren't paying their prices they let their own workers and products suffer before they jeopardise their profit margins. Vicious cycle but I don't agree with blaming customers. People pay what they can afford.

🤣🤣🤣hadn’t thought of it like that but yes!!
IT’S A BL**DY HARE 😆

To echo the majority, no matter what your thoughts on the products, it’s just sad to see another brand and it’s stores close.

I agree with that. It’s expectations of massive profits and growth to consider a business successful and worthwhile.

People don't pay what they can afford. People would just rather buy 5 things for cheaper than 2 more expensive things. Most people own far too many clothes and fast fashion is to blame - consumers constantly want new styles and different colours when they already have plenty of clothes to wear. That's why brands have declining quality - what's the point of making something quality to last when the average wear time of an item is declining. Some clothes are so cheap people buy them and never even wear them.

@Iamthewombat Interesting. The main reason I shop at Boden is because they make petites, and their jersey dresses fit well on curves. I found out about them by googling petite clothing. Then Seasalt added their petites a few years ago. Some of us don't get the luxury of being able to choose our style - I'll give a chance to practically any company that makes petites, and it means I end up looking at shops that I would never have otherwise chosen for the style. I even have a couple of things from Land's end. It was a real loss when Precis closed down a couple of years ago as it was the only place to buy good quality winter coats with a high content of wool that actually fitted me properly.