International fashion house might launch in Mongolia

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ As booming fashion chain Karen Millen heads up-market with new stores for New York’s Fifth Avenue and London’s Knightsbridge, it comes as a surprise to hear chief executive Mike Shearwood also talk enthusiastically about a launch in Ulaanbaatar. A Britain-based website thisismoney.co.uk reported about it on last Sunday. It seems an odd choice, but Shearwood is convinced the newly wealthy women of Asia are a key market. ‘I had no idea where Ulaanbaatar was until one of my team came up with a proposal to open a shop there,’ he admits. But he believes Mongolia fits well with the strategy of targeting the world’s shopping elite. ‘In emerging markets there are a growing number of independent women with access to money – and they want to wear brands like ours. In any country with natural resources in abundance, there’s newly generated wealth,’ he says. The edge of the Gobi Desert marks an extraordinary new direction in the history of Karen Millen, but it is a firm that has never failed to beat the odds. Its founders, Karen Millen and Kevin Stanford, set up the firm in 1981 with a loan of just £100, selling shirts to friends. A shop in Maidstone, Kent, followed and in 20 years it had become a household name. ‘We chose the location to represent us in the UK as it is heavily shopped by international customers. They come here and want to see the true evocation of the brand and we’ve never really been able to give them that until now,’ Shearwood says. ‘We probably have too many locations to retain the level of exclusivity we desire. So we’ll look to slowly reduce that and get a balance between shops and online,’ he says. But he insists the new flagship stores are not just about prestige. ‘We’re not in a position to have vanity stores. Our pockets aren’t deep enough. They all have to work and they all have to make money.’ Including the one in Ulaanbaatar.