Next launches new label under Lipsy brand team

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 15, 2022

Next is putting a major promotional push behind its ‘new’ brand, Friends Like These, which it soft-launched last year.

Now the company is ‘officially’ launching it with a full suite of PR and marketing plans plus a push via social media.

The brand — which targets the “fashion aware” 25-50 year-old woman — has its own design and buying team, some of them sourced from another of Next’s standalone brands, Lipsy.

PR is also being managed by the Lipsy team that will get involved in marketing and events, as well as the social launch on February 28.

The aim of the brand is to create “trend-relevant” pieces with a feminine edge. The offer includes day and evening pieces such as versatile tops, skirts, knits, dresses, and denim, much of it available in sizes 8 to 20. And it’s all being sold exclusively on the Next website.

The launch comes as the retailer continues to move away from its roots as a monobrand fashion and homewares retailer to a much more sophisticated business model that takes in a huge third-party brands operation, licence deals such as those it has with Gap and Victoria’s Secret, and directly-owned and operated house brands like this one.

And the company isn’t only launching its own labels in fashion with the recent launch of the Woah vegan beauty brand showing its ambitions are much larger.