Liberty says own-brand is sales driver, beauty is key

London luxury department store Liberty is banking on the success of its own-label beauty products to drive growth and it could even lead to its opening satellite standalone stores similar to Harrods’ H Beauty venture. 

Chief executive Adil Mehboob-Khan has told The Financial Times he hopes its beauty success “can harness the popularity of its Liberty products to expand the business”.

Last year, Liberty launched the LBTY beauty brand selling five high-end fragrances inspired by its famous prints. It now plans to create a full beauty offer alongside its existing own-brand accessories, womenswear, menswear, jewellery and homewares.

Mehboob-Khan said Liberty’s own products were among its best-performing, with the new fragrances “doing phenomenally — we’re struggling to keep up with demand”.

He noted that there was “a lot of demand for [Liberty’s brand] to go outside beyond our e-commerce”, which could lead to the first new stores since last century, and “there was “a lot of pull for that to go international”.

“We will definitely be pushing beauty,” Mehboob-Khan said of his priorities this year. “The jury is out on what the fashion market will do, but we expect beauty and accessories to do well.”

The group spans its retail business (including the flagship store in London), its fabrics arm, and Liberty Brand. The latter is focused on the “development of a luxury goods brand  [spanning] multiple categories that will be distributed on a global scale”.

The CEO added: “I do imagine, under the Liberty Brand umbrella, we will have locations . . . If it continues like this, there will be demand and justification for us to have our own stores of our own brand”.

The Liberty group posted a 23% increase in revenues to £185 million for the year ending January 28 2023, with positive pre-tax profit of £712,000 compared with a loss of £7.1 million the year before as it recovered from the pandemic.