Revenues of UK luxury fashion brands and retailers are up 1.9 per cent year on year. Especially, brands founded since 1990, such as Lulu Guinness and Stella McCartney, are the luxury sector’s main driver of growth. Turnover at these luxury businesses has grown at an average rate of seven per cent over the past 12 months compared with 0.7 per cent at fashion brands established prior to World War II.

One reason is that younger businesses put sustainability and e-commerce at the heart of their strategies, which has attracted affluent millennial consumers. These faster-growing businesses are changing the perception that British luxury brands are a little old-fashioned and conservative. On the other hand heritage brands are aiming at being seen as truly elite and developing their online retail offering to appeal to younger consumers.

For most British consumers, the luxury offering is closely tied to tradition and heritage. While they have very broad brand recognition, consumers do not see them as being part of the truly elite group of luxury businesses. Being able to move those brands upmarket and grow sales of higher-margin products is the key target for British heritage brands over the next five to 10years.