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1998-
The Analog outerwear label was started in 1998 as an offshoot of Burton (founder Jake Burton Carpenter), a snowboarding company from Burlington, Vermont. Carpenter was persuaded by head designer Greg Dacyshyn to bring fashion to their outerwear with Analog, described by Dacyshyn as a 'style lab, where our more progressive riders and customers were willing to go'. Snowboarders Jeffy Anderson, Trevor Andrew, Jason Brown and Gigi Ruf were associated with the line. They expanded into streetwear, surf and skate gear in 2003 and launched ATF (Analog Technical Fashion - streetwear inspired snowboarding clothing) in 2010. In 2012 Burton re-focussed the brand on snowboarding.
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Wenslow was registered as a trademark in 1956 by Wenslow (International) Limited, 74 Mortimer Street, London W1 for articles of clothing for men and children.
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1979-1982
In 1976, Edward Sexton bought Tommy Nutter out of the business. The contract for the ready-to-wear collaboration with Austin Reed was held between 1979 and 1982 for their Cue label.
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1986–present
Self-taught Austrian designer Helmut Lang (b. 1956) showed his first womenswear collection in Paris in 1986, followed by his debut menswear line in 1987. From 1988 both men’s and women’s collections were shown together on the runway. Lang is widely credited as being the pioneer of the rise of designer denim with the launch of Helmut Lang Jeans for Spring Summer 1997, which were produced under licence by GTR Group SpA and distributed by Onward Kashiyama USA Inc. In 1997 the company moved its headquarters from Austria to New York and started showing at New York Fashion Week. In April 1998 Lang became the first designer to debut their collection online rather than a traditional runway show. The collection consisted of a fifteen-minute video and photographs of eighty-one looks which could be viewed online at helmutlangny.com. Selected fashion editors were also sent a CD-ROM.In 1999, with sales of around €100 million, Prada acquired 51 per cent of the Helmut Lang company. By 2003 sales had dropped to €27.7 million; however, Prada bought the remaining 49 per cent of the company in 2004 and Lang exited his eponymous label in 2005. Prada sold the company to Japanese company Link Theory Holdings in 2006, who appointed Nicole and Michael Colovos as the new creative directors for the brand. After eight years, the duo left Helmut Lang in February 2014. Rather than appoint a new creative director, the company appointed Isabella Burley, then editor of Dazed & Confused magazine, to the new post of editor-in-residence in 2017, and Shayne Oliver of Hood by Air as its first guest designer. In January 2018 Burley was replaced by Alix Browne, founding editor of V Magazine, together with Mark Howard Thomas as creative director of menswear. Browne left in January 2019 and Thomas in October 2019. Thomas Cawson was then creative director until April 2020. In May 2023, Peter Do was appointed creative director of the brand. In 2010 Helmut Lang personally donated his archive to twelve museums worldwide, including MAK in Vienna, Austria and the Fashion Museum, Bath, England.
Sources: Booknoise.net; New Vision; The New York Times; WWD.
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1864-1985
Hepworths was a Leeds-based multiple tailor specialising in the manufacture and retailing of men's tailored outerwear. The company was started in 1864 by Joseph Hepworth (1834-1911) when he established a woollen drapers' business with his brother-in-law in Briggate, central Leeds. Shortly afterward Hepworth went into wholesale clothing manufacture on his own and expanded rapidly, moving into retail in the 1880s so they could sell their tailoring direct to the public.
Along with another Leeds-based company Blackburn, Hepworths were pioneers of the multiple tailoring model of menswear. Multiple tailors specialised in made-to-measure tailoring (though they also made and sold ready-to-wear). Men would go to one of the hundreds of high street shops owned by the company and be measured for a suit based on the catalogues and fabric samples provided. The details were then sent to the company's factory where the suit was hand cut by a tailor and machined (either in Leeds or elsewhere in the north of England). The completed suit was then collected from the shop a few weeks later.
The period after the First World War saw rapid expansion with Hepworths increasing their branches from 250 in 1926 to 313 in 1945. The company changed its strategy from the late 1940s dropping outfitting and concentrating on quality made-to-measure tailoring. In the early 1960s Hepworths innovated by contracting couturier Hardy Amies to design a range for them. This began a hugely successful partnership which lasted until the late 1970s.
After significant turmoil in the British clothing industry during the 1970s Hepworths innovated again in 1981 by working with George Davies and Conran Associates to launch a label aimed at fashion-conscious young women. Named Next, the first shops were opened at the beginning of 1982 and quickly attracted consumers. Just two years later, in 1984, Hepworths launched Next for Men which also marked the beginning of the end of Hepworths as in 1985 the last of the 350 Hepworths stores closed. By this point the company had completely rebranded as Next and had relocated all of their head office operations from Leeds to Leicester.