City Chic Collective () (CCC), founded as Miller's Retail in 1992, and rebranded in December 2006 to Specialty Fashion Group, is an Australian retail clothing company. It is headquartered in the
Sydney suburb of
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandr ...
.
Miller's Retail
Miller's Retail Ltd. was an Australian company that distributed women's apparel and accessories and was one of the country's largest retailers. It was founded by Gary Perlstein and Ian Miller in 1992. It was listed on the
Australian Stock Exchange
Australian Securities Exchange Ltd or ASX, is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia a ...
and had a market capitalisation of $360 million as at March, 2006.
It grew in part through acquisitions, including the Katies womenswear chain from
Coles Myer (1999), and
Crazy Clark's
Crazy Clark's Discount Variety Store was an Australian company that operated over 150 discount variety stores in its chain, across Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory and Western Australia. The company also owned and operated a chai ...
and
Go-Lo stores in 2000.
Its sales for the year ending 30 June 2005 were $1.12 billion, with a net loss after tax of $103.4 million. This substantial loss was an unusual event for Miller's Retail and reflected considerable financial restructuring, including the revaluation of its businesses in Discount Variety. At the same time, the company told the market it had excessive inventory levels and pledged to address that, as well as to review buying practices in the future to avoid similar errors.
In its Apparel Division, Miller's Retail traded under the brands ''
Miller's Fashion Club'', ''Katies'', ''Crossroads'' and ''1626'', which all sell women's clothing, with a total of over 700 stores. In November, 2005, it sold its Discount Variety Division, which owned ''Go-Lo'', ''Crazy Clark's'', ''Look Sharp Concepts'' and ''Chickenfeed'', which had a total of 335 stores at the time of the sale.
Miller's Retail sold its interest in the discount variety businesses after a
price war with competitors had a major impact on the profits of the division. Private equity investor
Catalyst Investment Manager
Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...
and CHAMP acquired the group, the new entity being called
Australian Discount Retail.
The company was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1998. Its founder, Ian Miller, left the Managing Director's position in 2003, although continued for a time as Managing Director of Apparel Division and remained an executive director of the company. In December 2006 it was renamed to
Specialty Fashion Group.
Miller's Fashion Club
Millers Retail's core business was the Miller's Fashion Club, a club or
loyalty program
A loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of a business associated with the program. Today, such programs cover most types of commerce, each having varying features an ...
, which had more than 2.8 million members across Australia and New Zealand.
Specialty Fashion Group
In July 2018, the company sold five of its brands; Autograph, Crossroads, Katies,
Millers and Rivers, to Noni B (later renamed to
Mosaic Brands) leaving only one brand, City Chic, in its portfolio. The remaining operations were rebranded City Chic Collective in November 2018.
In October 2019, CCC purchased the
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain mana ...
assets of
Avenue Stores from its
administrator
Administrator or admin may refer to:
Job roles Computing and internet
* Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database
* Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum
* N ...
.
City Chic broadens US reach with e-commerce acquisition
'' Inside Retailing'' 8 October 2019
References
External links
Miller's Retail profile on Linkedin
Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange
Clothing retailers of Australia
Companies based in Sydney
Online retailers of Australia