After Oxford Street, Footasylum opens two new stores, with more to come

Sports fashion footwear and clothing retailer Footasylum is sprinting ahead with its store expansion strategy. Fresh from debuting a new flagship store on London’s Oxford Street, two more have been added to the list: an upsized unit in the Bullring, Birmingham, and a new store in the Atria shopping centre, Watford.

A larger (6,400 sq ft across two floors from 4,000 sq Ft across one floor ) store in out-of-town location Fosse Park Leicester will also be open in November, in time for Black Friday.

The new Birmingham store is located on the ground floor of the Bullring shopping centre in the site previously occupied by New Look. It also features Footasylum’s new design concept, first launched in Lakeside, Essex earlier this year and followed by Oxford Street.

It “uses advanced digital capabilities to create a mobile-first customer journey that seamlessly connects Footasylum’s online and in- store offerings”, the company said. 

The 11,000 sq ft store dwarfs the previous 2,500 sq ft unit and has an extensive men’s and juniors offering across apparel and footwear, with a dedicated basement floor exclusively for women’s apparel and footwear. It also employs an additional 40 members of staff, taking the total headcount to nearly 80. 

The Atria Watford store is spread across more than 6,000 sq ft, employing 35 people. It also follows the new store design concept, like a smaller version of the Oxford Street flagship, the retailer noted.

These three store openings come as the business “continues to go from strength to strength under the ownership of Aurelius”, which acquired Footasylum in August 2022. 

Other recent store openings include Westfield Stratford City and Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex.

Barry Bown, Executive Chairman and CEO, said: “2023 has been a transformational year… and these latest openings are further testament to our team’s amazing ability to deliver state-of-the-art stores for our customers across the country. They take our tally for 2023 to six openings or upsizings, with more to come next year. Our expansion strategy has seen us enter a number of prime locations across the UK including Oxford Street [where our] flagship store is performing strongly since it opened in September.” 

He added: “Our aim is for our unique and extensive branded streetwear offering to be widely available across the country, and having bigger and better stores is a key part of that ambition. There has been a notable increase in customers looking for women’s apparel and trainers, which our bigger stores perfectly cater for. 

“We are looking forward to a successful Black Friday and Christmas trading period and announcing more exciting Footasylum developments in 2024.”