Dear all,

Sadly, we have to announce that the howies Carnaby Street shop will be closing at the end of this month.

We recently had our lease review with the landlords, where we were expecting the usual annual rent increase of around 5% and we were ready to sign a lease for another year. Instead, we were handed a surprise increase of over 30%. A rate which is simply too much for us to bear as a business.

It was always gratifying to have a howies shop in such an iconic location. It felt like we’d ‘made it’. But the harsh reality is that due to escalating rates we can no longer afford to be there.

London’s overheads make it a costly and cut-throat place to trade, especially for a tiny company like ours. And so we have to concede that perhaps Carnaby Street isn’t the place for a small guy like howies to be right now. So on Christmas Eve the doors will close, permanently.

We would like to thank Mark, Jeff, Helen, Naida, Jess, Sinead and all the great people who have worked there, past and present, for the tireless effort they put in to making the shop work. Sorry it has happened at this time of year. Sorry it has happened at all, but it is out of our control. We wish you all the very best for the future. To all the artists, illustrators and speakers who have put on shows there and to all the customers who supported the shop, we thank you too

So see ya London. We’ll be back… one day.

Pete Davies
Head of creative

The shop will close it’s doors on Saturday 24th December.
Until then, there will be a closing down sale, with 50% off all items in store only.
(This offer is not available online or over the phone). Thank you.

That is a real shame because I like your stuff (I’m wearing an item right now and several on the go) and i really prefer to feel the fabric and check the fit when buying clothes. So hopefully you will reopen somewhere cheaper, around Bloomsbury (Condor etc), Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Islington, Hackney would seem logical.

Carnaby St has been an amazing success in recent years with new bits being added and pedestrianised etc and there are few voids so i guess rents wiull go up.

Were your customers people that knew the brand and hunted you down (like me) or was there much passing traffic?

Good luck either way.

Darn, one of my mates is the shop manager there. I’m gutted for him and for howies. Was a cool shop. No need to go to Carnaby st anymore.

you wouldn’t believe the rents that can be achieved in top locations in London*. Its a real shame that when the smaller traders create an attractive location because of what they offer there are still some landlords out there that treat them like international brands when it comes to rents in a short-sighted attempt to maximise rent roll.

There are, however, some landlords that treat key independents as “attractors” much like landlords of shopping centres do cheaper rent deals for “anchor” stores (like M&S, Primark, Next, etc) because of the effect on rents for other mainstream tenants. The mainstream tenants effectively subsidise the rent of the independent because they do bloody well out of the additional footfall that the independents bring.

sometimes I wish I didnt just crunch the numbers for this stuff, because Id love to have a say in just how some strategies can be so short-sighted. 🙁

Im sorry to hear of howies getting stiffed, but there will be new places to make their own that cost much less and I hope they find them (hell, drop me a line and I’ll help them look for space for a fee of a pair of jeans! 😉 ).

* actually you might like to know that per square foot (thats a 12″ by 12″ box) at the front window of a shop on Oxford st or regent street or Bond st it costs you between £400 and 650 a year. Carnaby is 15 yards from Regents street. The deeper the shop the more the rent falls per square foot, but I always visualise how much the waste paper bin (c.1sqft) costs me per year in rent. Then add 50% for local taxes 😉

I don’t think howies are a small brand anymore. They’re owned by timberland IIRC.

They are a small brand owned by Timberland.

its not good news but they don’t need a shop on Carnaby St IMO.

I would prefer them to have a high street presence because its good for them, but ultimately they were made from the small stuff and will continue to be lo-fi, the whole world is in recession so its good to see them being realisitic – they could maintain their ’boutique’ presence by putting prices up elsewhere, but hey ho they offer a good mail order service so maybe they should just stick with that, does it really matter if they don’t make the big time?

I’m aware that they’re owned by Timberland but the fact that Howies’ only shop is on Carnaby Street (and being allowed to close) leaves me in 2 / a few minds about how that relationship works.

pieface – indeed, why do they not have concessions in Timberland stores?

Bit like saying why no skoda consessions in Audi showrooms that. Supply chain and scalability benefits to both parties but try not to blend the brands!

Small company with big ideas that poo poo’d?

I didn’t understand why a small operation would want an “iconic” location like that in the first place.

I’ve been in that shop a couple of times, on every visit the shop assistants were far too busy chatting amongst themselves to be bothered to sell anything. I can’t imagine that they actually sold anything if they treated all their potential customers the same way.

I suspect Howies premium pricing strategy is not helping the business in the current environment – even back in mid 2000’s a lot of people thought they were overpriced.
I suspect the decision to shut the shop is more related to the financials of the business overall that what they have presented in their email which is essentially blaming the landlord rather than saying ‘our business model is broken’
I used to buy a lot of their stuff but I’ve had a few personal experiences with them which led me to doubt the veracity of their whole brand positioning. I reckon I’m not the only one…

carnaby st is for tourists and people from essex/croydon who think it’s sophisticated and trendy.
there are plenty of other retail sites for Howies to rent, seems odd that they wanted to be on the same street as puma/adidas/levis/vans and other mainstream brands.

Love the brand, only shop online or pop into the Cardigan store, allways friendly and helpfull.