North East fashion label sizes up with £250k investment

A North East fashion label is scaling up after winning a six-figure investment from the North East Growth Capital Fund.

Sports-contemporary and urban wear fashion brand Fresh Couture currently sells its growing product range through more than 50 retailers, including JD Sports and Foot Asylum, as well as via its own website.

The North Tyneside-headquartered firm has worked with regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers to secure a £250k investment which it is now using to bring more of its product design, marketing and web design work in house.

It is also planning to greatly increase the size of its menswear range over the next four seasons, from around 40 to 180 items, and will also soon be launching its first ever women’s clothing range.

The management team is aiming to quadruple the business’s turnover over the same period and expects to create at least four new jobs as it implements its development plans.

Chief operating officer, Dale Parr, commented: “Bringing more of our design work in-house gives us greater control over the creative processes and will enable us to implement more of our ideas in ways which we know will give our customers what they want.

“We’re now beginning on a dramatic expansion of our menswear range which will be driven by a detailed understanding and appreciation of what our customers want from us, and this knowledge will also translate into the women’s range that we will soon have available.

“We have ambitious targets to hit, but we’re very confident that increasing our capacity through creating new North East jobs and delivering more of the quality products on which our success has so far been based will enable us to achieve our business objectives.

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