On your marks, get set, go - to a new fast-fashion chain that has burst onto the local scene. The chain is Britain-based New Look and it is set to give established fast-fashion names like Topshop, Zara and Mango a run for their money.
New Look's first shop opened here earlier this month at Ion Orchard.
The 8,000 sq ft store is spread over two levels and offers up-to-the-minute clothes, shoes and accessories at low prices.
Check out its floral frocks in on-trend peplum shapes and punk-meets-the-1980s structured jackets coming in two weeks' time. You can pick up a tank top for as low as $9.90 for an instant treat that does not hurt the purse.
But how will it stack up against the cheap and chic names here who have already built up a following?
Sure, New Look offers runway trends at pocket-friendly prices, just like competitor Topshop, for example. However, it says its prices tend to be about 30 per cent cheaper, thanks to a strategy of being trendy but not too ahead of the curve, combined with an emphasis on a fast turnover of products.
The trends it offers are also available in wider varieties than other more fashion-forward labels. If checked shirts are the hot item of the week, for instance, it will offer 12 variations rather than the two available at fellow high-street brands.
New Look's international retail operations manager, Mark Eve, 29, told Urban in London: 'We are not fashion leaders. But just when the trend is at its peak, when all the celebrities are wearing these things in their music videos or on the streets, we will have them in stores.'
New Look is one of the fastest fast-fashion chains around: The process of designing a garment to producing it to getting it into stores can take as little as a week, as was the case when it churned out Michael Jackson T-shirts right after his death on June 26.
Stocks are refreshed daily in British stores and the brand allows its products to remain in them for at most five weeks.
In Singapore, new stocks will arrive weekly.
Things are going to get even more fast and furious by the middle of next year. By then, new products will likely land here three weeks before they hit the British market.
How? The brand's distribution centre in Singapore was set up last year, serving stores here and in the Middle East.
Non-British stores currently order stock months in advance, so they do not get the wares as fast as British stores. But by next year, the facility here will be the core distribution centre for all stores.
Eve says: 'We are a volume retailer, so we can't afford to wait till the customers are ready to embrace a trend. We have the trend lined up just as they are ready for it and looking to buy.'
He adds: 'We try to get our design people to work based on gut instinct. The team has an understanding of what's going on globally so they can forecast trends and colour palettes and we want to do it better than anyone else in the market.'
Even in the realm of celebrity collaborations, an important feature for fast-fashion labels, it tries to look for up-and-coming stars rather than established ones.
British singer Lily Allen, for example, designed a capsule collection of prom dress-style frocks in 2007, just as she was on the verge of hitting the big time.
'We target celebrities that don't have a history of designing, but have a unique fashion point about them. The key is that our customers must be able to relate to them and see them as a best-friend figure,' says Eve.
The brand, he adds, also gets 'a huge uplift as the celebrity we choose gets more popular'.
UP TO SPEED
For a fast-fashion brand that was established 40 years ago, New Look has taken its own sweet time in coming to South-east Asia.
The store at Ion marks its entry into this market, but it is set to get up to speed quickly. The plan is to have 12 stores here within the next three years and a further eight in Malaysia over the next five years.
'There is a wealth of other British competitors in Singapore which have been relatively successful,' Eve says of the decision to enter Singapore.
'We plan to use it as our bridgehead to take us into other Asian markets like China, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.'
It is all part of the brand's self-professed ambition to 'become the world's favourite value fashion brand'.
To achieve that, there are a number of milestones it has to go through, including opening about 300 franchised stores in international locations.
It already has 613 stores in Britain and Ireland and 57 stores in overseas markets such as Europe and the Middle East.
The brand will also soon take over five stores in Britain occupied by bookseller Borders, including a four-storey space in Oxford Street, one of Europe's busiest, densest shopping avenues, adding a further 80,000 sq ft to its trading space by the end of this year.
Indeed, New Look's flagship store, which opened in 2003, is in Oxford Street. It has a prime position at the start of the street which, unlike other famous retail avenues known for their luxury labels, is the headquarters of fast fashion.
In a competitive business, New Look is looking good. For the financial year ending March 28, total sales jumped by 14.9 per cent to £1.32 billion (S$3.16 billion), a growth rate that Eve describes as 'better than typical'.
The key has been the recession.
'We have found new customers shopping with us as their purse strings have tightened,' he says.
'They are looking for other sources to feed their wardrobe and are not prepared to lose their fashion credibility.
'The challenge for the next 18 months, as we start to come out of the recession, is to continue to hold on to these new customers.'
