M&S has announced a new strategic investment in the fast-growing brand platform ‘The Sports Edit’. Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Nick Paulson-Ellis, the firm has a proven capability in brand curation and emerging brand identification, both of which will provide learning opportunities for M&S as it further grows the ‘Brands at M&S’ platform.

‘The Sport Edit’ offers an extensive range of carefully selected popular customer-favourites, alongside emerging boutique brands. Products are carefully selected with style, strength and performance at the core of collections. Fulfilling customer demand, ‘The Sports Edit’ constantly adds new and innovative brands to the site focusing on premium sportswear, athleisure wear and yoga clothes. Nick Paulson-Ellis will continue to run the company independently as CEO and will be supported to grow by M&S’s investment and access to infrastructure and capabilities, M&S said in a press release.

Investing in ‘The Sports Edit’ is a continuation of M&S’s strategic focus on activewear, a market which is now worth almost £900 million after seeing 35 per cent growth over the last two years - as part of this M&S has grown Goodmove (its activewear brand) in two years to be the biggest in-house womenswear brand at M&S, with a loyal customer following.

M&S has identified ‘The Sports Edit’ as a complementary ecommerce platform well positioned in the growing activewear market, in part due to its highly engaged customer base. As part of its brands strategy, M&S is utilising a range of models including wholesale agreements, exclusive collaborations and investments (including the minority stake in Nobody’s Child) and seed funding for small brands via the True Fund. The brand’s strategy also includes selected acquisitions such as Jaeger and now The Sports Edit.

“Developing the ‘Brands at M&S’ platform is just one example of how we’re shaping the future of M&S. Investing in digital and growing brands is an important way to explore growth categories and ultimately build our offer so we’re relevant for our broad customer base in the future. Nick has created a brilliant activewear business and will continue to operate ‘The Sports Edit’ independently supported by this investment to scale and grow,” Katie Bickerstaffe, COO at M&S, said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)

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