The Jones Group, the American contemporary conglomerate that owns such brands as Nine West, Stuart Weitzman, and Dockers (plus 32 others), has just announced it has acquired Kurt Geiger, the shoe company, from private equity group Graphite Capital for £215m. This is a big deal.
Not because of the number, which is middling, but because although Kurt Geiger owns a big eponymous high street brand in the UK with 49 stores, more importantly it controls the shoe departments at pretty much all the big department store groups in Europe, including Harrods and Selfridges (UK) and La Rinascente (Italy). It has 156 concessions, which is to say it determines which brands are sold at 156 stores, from super-premium (Alaia, Roger Vivier) to contemporary. Or, as pertinently, which brands get access to the consumers at those department stores. And now Jones controls them.
Vanessa has been the FT’s fashion editor since 2003, and is based in New York, though she lived in London for 12 years.