Contrary to general opinion, being a European retailer at the moment is not all doom and gloom. Sales throughout the continent have stabilised after the maelstrom of 2008 and store openings are back on track as retailers have sought to capitalise on a depressed commercial property sector.

This doesn’t, of course, mean unbridled optimism on the High Street. Talk continues of a double-dip recession and although Destatis, the German statistics office, revealed that the economy for the three months to June grew 2.2%, its fastest quarterly growth in more than 20 years, Metro, Germany’s largest retailer, reported that its profits fell 15% during the same period. But consumer confidence has proved resilient enough to help the majority of High Street brands keep their heads above water.

There are, however, a handful of High Street brands as cheerful as dolphins – that have actually continued to grow at an impressive rate during the last couple of years and have turbocharged their international rollout programmes. Japan’s Uniqlo and Sweden’s Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) may have hogged business pages headlines during the summer but there are several other lesser-known – and quirkier – standouts, notably the Barcelona-based fashion group Desigual, the UK’s SuperGroup, which owns street fashion brands Superdry and Cult, and Denmark’s Tiger, which is currently making waves in several territories, particularly the UK.

DESIGUAL

Putting the rest in the shade

Barcelona-based Desigual’s website states that its fashion range is created “without a glance at the current trends.” Luckily, for its owners, the same can be said for the company itself, which has enjoyed 60% year-on-year growth since 2002 – the year its current chief executive, Manel Adell, joined – and turnover increased by 85% in 2009 to €250m. This year, Adell says it will exceed €450m, adding that there is no reason why this shouldn’t continue and that the potential for growth remains “enormous”.

Fun, says Adell, is at the heart of Desigual, which was created in 1984 by a young Swiss designer, Thomas Meyer, who spent his summers making T-shirts in Ibiza. Now in-house designers create around 1,000 garments for each collection every season, all with a colourful neohippy aesthetic. “We are a young brand, but we try to appeal to a wide audience.” So far it seems to be succeeding. There are almost 8,000 points of sale in 72 countries.

More than half of Desigual’s business is now international and the largest market outside Spain is France, which, with Germany, is the focus of 2010. Last year the company opened its first standalone German shop, in Berlin. Another statement of intent was made in August when Desigual broke the record paid for a prime spot on London’s Oxford Street.

Each store is customised to reflect local tastes and staff are encouraged to paint the space and write graffiti on the walls.

Other marketing tactics include the “Kiss tour” – gatherings in which people are encouraged to, well, kiss – and store opening parties where music, sitting around on bean bags and eating fresh fruit all play a part. In the Paris flagship, which opened in June, near the Opéra National, the store was mobbed.

“It isn’t one of the cheapest but our products are not an expensive or premium brand. Our product strategy lies in our quality/price ratio and what we transmit, which is a colourful world full of patchwork and graphic design. We are positive and happy and have a sense of humour, which is all part of our product philosophy,” says Adell.

The other reason for the company’s success, which he says is just as important, is how it has created its teams. “We recruit talent and train people in accordance with our corporate culture. The average age of our employees in this central office in Barcelona is 27, and in the company itself is 24. Our team is also international and includes 30 or more nationalities in the central office alone. The organisational chaos that this development implies could only be overcome with people capable of adapting to change. About 200 people work here at the central office. In all, we are 1,700. Eight years ago, we were 40.

“Of course we’re not recession-proof, but we are a global concept and we do try to make every collection better.”

SUPERGROUP

Retail’s rock star

“Superdry is fast becoming a truly global brand,” proclaims Julian Dunkerton, the chief executive of UK parent company SuperGroup, which owns the hoodie and jeans emporia and also the chain Cult, which peddles an even more ‘street’ look. Overseas, the group recently expanded from 16 to 27 franchises – with new sites in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Indonesia and Venezuela.

Dunkerton is also negotiating deals in the Middle East and China, and says SuperGroup’s franchise partner in the US is in discussions to rebrand a 28-store chain as Superdry.”I think there’s room for 1,000 franchises in Europe,” he says.

Emphasising how the youth market is relatively inured to economic cycles, Superdry was brought to the London stock market in March and has since become 2010’s most successful western European IPO, with shares changing hands at close to double the 500p issue price. When full-year results were made public in July, revenues were up 83% at £139.4m (€168m) from just 47 standalone stores (although there are many wholesale stockists) and pre-tax profits had soared by almost 200%, to £22.9m (€27.6m).

The company says it plans to open 20 stores in the UK this year and 38 overseas – in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East – as well as 16 international concessions.

Dunkerton, who started life as a market trader in Cheltenham (the SuperGroup head office is still in the English spa town), says its new enormous 1,672m2 Cult store, in the UK’s Lakeside shopping centre is “trading its socks off” – or it would be if it sold socks, although this is something the company is currently working on. “Stores of this size allow me develop new brands in the future. This kind of space develops the best kind of profitability in our group. This is very much a work in progress.”

Dunkerton insists that he is not in the fashion industry, but in the clothing product industry, saying that if fashion brands get a season “wrong” they’re in trouble. “Ours is a gentle development of the same product groups – classic products that are timeless,” he explains.

Superdry’s rapid growth has been helped by its celebrity fans, including David Beckham – many of whom are sent samples for free – but the brand has not spent much on advertising and Dunkerton doesn’t believe in paid endorsements.

“If you get paid for wearing something you’re never going to wear it well and you’ll never love it and that will always show through,” he says. “The fact that so many celebrities buy our clothes shows the quality.”

TIGER

Enjoying a roaring trade

Started 15 years ago in Copenhagen as a contemporary take on the old Woolworths format, Tiger sells a broad range of high-quality, inexpensive homeware, toys, stationery and toiletries. Every item is priced between £1 and £20 and 90% of its products are own-brand, having been designed and manufactured to the retailer’s specifications. Think Muji or even Ikea’s Marketplace.

Now Tiger has 62 stores across Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Latvia Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK and stores are planned in several new European markets within the next couple of years. The stores in the UK, Iceland, and Germany are joint ventures, owned 50% by Tiger’s Danish parent company Zebra and 50% by a local partner; Zebra provides goods and marketing, while the local partner is responsible for operations and market development.

While proving successful across Europe, the concept has really taken off in the UK, where Woolworths had flourished for more than 100 years until its High Street demise in late 2008. Tiger was brought to the UK by Philip Bier, a 45-year-old Danish photographer, who opened the first outlet in Basingstoke, England, in 2005. Over the past four years Tiger’s UK business has grown more than any other country, including Denmark.

Five more stores have opened in the south of England and the business is now accelerating its roll-out. It is currently looking to acquire three further sites in London, aiming to be trading from a total of nine locations by the autumn. “Our plan is to have 18 stores by the end of 2011 and 40 by the end of 2012,” says Bier.

This expansion has seen turnover rise from £900,000 after its first year of trading to £4.3m in 2009 and Tiger anticipates that it will reach £6.5m (€7.8m) this year – modest numbers but huge increases by most retail standards, particularly in the current climate. Tiger now employs more than 55 people.

“I think we add something to the high street and there isn’t really anybody out there who fills the gap that we do. We offer a different take on standard products,” says Bier.