Major fashion brand returns to UK high street with Welsh store confirmed
A popular fashion retailer has returned to the UK high street six years after its parent company entered administration. The well-known British plus-size clothing brand catering to sizes 14 to 32 shut all of its stores in 2020 following the collapse of its former parent company, Arcadia Group, into administration.During its height in the late 1990s and 2000s, clothing store Evans maintained a substantial high street footprint with more than 300 sites across the UK and abroad including multiple in Wales.When Arcadia Group collapsed in November 2020 and sold the Evans brand to City Chic a month afterwards, over 100 shop locations were shut permanently. From superstar gigs to cosy pubs, find out What’s On in Wales by signing up to our newsletter hereAfter the administration and shuttering of the physical shops in 2020, the brand has operated exclusively online.In 2023, the Australian retailer City Chic Collective sold the brand to AK Retail for £8 million.AK Retail serves as the parent company of Yours Clothing and additionally owns Long Tall Sally and M&Co, reports the Express.Following the six-year absence, Evans has now formally returned to physical retail and will once again be available in store.Rather than independent shops, the plus-size brand is now available as dedicated concessions within over 50 Yours Clothing sites across the UK and Ireland, with one in Swansea.Of those more than 50 shops, 36 received a major upgrade to incorporate full, dedicated, permanent Evans-branded areas.Several of the sites include Liverpool, Swansea, Watford, Nottingham, Hempstead Valley and Glasgow Braehead.A spokesperson for Yours Clothing told Fashion Network: "Plus-size women are among the most loyal fashion shoppers in the UK."When a brand gets it right - when the fit works, the range is genuine, and the product reflects real women, they come back."Evans earned that loyalty over decades. And when the brand reduced its high street presence, its customers did not stop looking."Established in 1930 by manufacturer Jack Green, the brand initially debuted as Evans Outsize.It was amongst the earliest high-street retailers in the UK to champion mass-market, fashionable womenswear specifically created for sizes 14 and above.
