Philip Green and Jane Shepherdson – Back Together at Last?
Philip Green, billionaire retail magnate, looks like he’s about to put his own money on the line to buy back UK high street stores – including Karen Millen, House of Fraser, Jane Norman, and Whistles – from beleaguered Icelandic chain Bauger. Wait, Whistles, doesn’t that sound a note of alarm?
Ah yes, it’s where Jane Shepherdson went to after quitting as brand director of Green-owned Topshop: having made the store the reason why the British high street creates the most fashion forward populace in the world. It went from turning over £9m profit from run-of-the-mill print tees and vests in 1998, to turning £110m from stuff shamelessly cribbed from the brains of the fashion elite when she left in 2006.
There was much speculated beef surrounding her departure, ranging from anger at Kate Moss (pictured above with the pair) becoming a Topshop design guru, to Green and Shepherdson just plain disliking each other. Shepherdson claimed her departure was merely “impulsive”; Green smoothed over any accusations of tension between the two by buying her a Nissan Figaro as a leaving present. Doesn’t anyone else find a multi-millionaire man buying a car that looks like it was designed by Hello Kitty, for a woman that made him very rich, just a bit patronising? “Get the cute car. She’s a little woman, she’ll love it”.
Whatever, it looks like Shepherdson might be forced back under the Green wing very shortly, while Green himself will then only have to kill Stuart Rose in order to truly be king of the high street.
Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Hot Money | October 12, 2008 8:40PM |
