Christy has been kitting out bedrooms and bathrooms with its silk and sateen sheets and Turkish cotton towels for almost two centuries, but now it is planning to shake off the perception that it is a legacy brand in an effort to target “younger, cooler” shoppers.
Vanshika Goenka Misra, who joined as its chief executive this year, said that tapping into Generation Z — people born in the late 1990s and early 2000s — would help the heritage brand to reach annual sales forecasts of £31 million, an increase of 30 per cent compared with last year.
“Very few brands have the history and legacy we have, but the older generations know us well and we want to target a younger demographic to help the business grow,” she said.
The 173-year-old Christy supplies official towels for players at the Wimbledon tennis championships and once counted Queen Victoria as a loyal customer. The brand is popular among middle-aged and older consumers, who are more likely to be able to afford its pure cotton bed linen.
Founded in 1850 by Henry Christy, a banker and collector, in the mill town of Droylsden, Lancashire, Christy is known for inventing the first industrially produced looped cotton, known as “terry towel”. The company showed its wares at the Great Exhibition in 1851, where it is said to have caught the eye of Queen Victoria. It became a subsidiary of Welspun India Limited in 2006, shifting towel manufacturing from its base in Hyde, Greater Manchester, to Gujarat in 2010.
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In addition to selling towels, linen and bathrobes in its shops and in Marks & Spencer and John Lewis department stores, Christy sells its products in Europe, the United States and Australia.
It was unprofitable in the years building up to the pandemic because it had been investing “too much money in the wrong channels and shut a lot of stores”. However, the brand has been making pre-tax profits for the past three years, thanks in part to the store closures of Debenhams and House of Fraser.
Misra, 30, who runs the Stockport-based business from Dubai, said that targeting younger people would help Christy to capitalise on its recent momentum. “We’ll be communicating more about how [students] should look after their bedding and talk about our sustainability credentials, which is something the younger generations really care about,” she said. A “bed in a box”, with a duvet, is said to be on the cards to help students to “deck out their dorm rooms”.
From the fourth quarter, Christy also will launch its first line of clothing — for men, women and children — which will include beach wraps and pyjamas. Prices will range from £100 to £170.
