1985 BYMAIL
In 1985 after a copyright dispute with Warehouse the Mail order company Freemans proposed a more formal arrangement. Jeff created Warehouse Bymail a “Specialogue” as it was called. It contained forty eight pages of Warehouse clothing, different from that available in the stores but with its own handwriting and formulae of affordable great fashion items. This grew to three catalogues for high fashion, one for men and one for more classical women’s clothes. All were enormously successful and at one point had over 1.2 million subscribers and live customers. This was to become the pre-cursor of catalogues such as the Next Directory. The young man in charge of this ‘specialogue’ operation in Freemans was Mike Hawker who subsequently went on to become managing Director of Empire stores, Grattan and also a director of the mail order giant in Germany Otto Versand. So successful was the association with Freemans that to protect their interest Ralph Aldred the then Managing Director proposed a takeover of Warehouse in 1987.
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This was to provide the next push forward to a forty stores financed by Freeman P.L.C. In 1987 Freemans arranged the distribution of Bymail in America with the Sears group U.S.A with Bymail going out to 17 million customers in the U.S.A. In 1988 Michael and Maurice resigned in dispute with Freemans and Freemans itself was the subject of an unwelcome takeover bid by the UK retailing giant Sears (nothing to do with the American Company). Warehouse became a division of Sears’ retail and apart from substantial growth in womenswear, also opened nine menswear shops on the back of Bymail men that was enjoying great success. The entrepreneurial spirit of Jeff Banks and Sears however did not match and in 1989 Jeff Banks resigned from Sears and began a new direction.