HOLLAND COOPER OPENS UP BOUTIQUE ON FORMER INDUSTRIAL SITE

A former industrial estate outside Cheltenham is fast morphing into the town’s coolest new retail and leisure location thanks to British fashion designer Jade Holland Cooper opening her first flagship store

One of Britain’s most successful young designers is helping to reinvent a former industrial estate at Charlton Kings near Cheltenham.

The project began in 2020 when artisan cidermaker Dunkerton’s moved on to the site.

Then late last year the next stage of the grand plan to develop the site into an upmarket retail destination took a step forward when Jade Holland Cooper opened her store, after more than 18 months of planning.

Here, and for the first time since she launched her brand in 2008, her customers can indulge in the full Holland Cooper lifestyle experience, which includes clothing for country pursuits, equestrian activities and the ski slopes, along with a cute new baby range, Little HC.

Over the last 13 years Jade, 34, has built a British brand from scratch. Holland Cooper is now a multi-million-pound turnover business selling all over the world.

And while the experience of her husband of three years, Julian Dunkerton, founder of the global fashion phenomenon Superdry, will have helped, this is her brand through and through.

After leaving college after just a year, (then Cirencester’s Royal Agricultural College, now a university), Jade’s first step into design was making tweed miniskirts, and selling them at Badminton Horse Trials.

“It was a very cash generative business. I made skirts. I sold them. I made more.”

Jade saw what her customers were wearing and what they wanted more of. Her ambition was to create a timeless brand. While Jade most loves the design and curating of the range, which is at the heart of Holland Cooper, she’s a retail trader at heart.

“Our new store delivers an experience that our customers are already travelling to.”

She predicts that fast fashion is fading. “We all know the value of a human being so it’s no surprise to anyone that a dress produced sustainably, with people and planet in mind, can’t be delivered to your door for £5. And it’s becoming unfashionable to wear products made like that.”

But Jade isn’t discrediting factories overseas, which she also commissions to make her clothing range. “Fashion and good retailing are about finding the factory that specialises in those products. Our outerwear is made in China. They specialise in that. The factories are higtech and the staff well looked after.

“Our denim factory is in Turkey. They are phenomenal at making denim.”

All the wool and tweed which are used to make Holland Cooper’s classic range of garments is bought in the UK and woven in Scotland and Yorkshire.

“It’s about making the right products in the right places,” she said. “Let’s buy wisely and make correctly. There are good and bad factories everywhere.”

The Holland Cooper brand is now going global.

“We sell online all over the world. The next phase is our wholesale expansion,” said Jade.

Holland Cooper is a brand to watch. “We are growing so fast. Everyone’s holding on to the front of the train.”

“I’m a workaholic and I’m married to one. Retail is like a drug. I can’t explain it, but I love it.”

Firehouse at Upton founders extend their foody empire to Cirencester

Sam Edwards and Jak Doggett, the chefs behind Sam & Jak at The Firehouse at Upton near Burford, have opened their second venue, this time in their home town of Cirencester.

The venue, called Sam & Jak, is a wine bar and restaurant split over two floors with a private dining room.

The ground floor is the home of the bar and kitchen, including a large wood-fired oven for preparing dishes like lamb, turnip tops and anchovy pangrattato and red mullet, brown crab with caper and lemon butter.

Sam, 32, had previously worked and trained at The Manor House in Moreton-in-Marsh while both went onto to work with renowned chef – Bob Parkinson of Bibendum, London, David Thompson and a Michelin Bib Gourmand winner in his own right.

Jak, 28, said: “Both being from the town it can be intimidating cooking for our friends and those that know us so well but the reception has been really good and we hope to keep evolving the food and drink offering as we develop.”

When in Rome wine brand goes public with carbon footprint

Gloucestershire sustainable wine brand When in Rome has partnered with CarbonCloud to quantify its product’s carbon footprint.

The CarbonCloud platform helps food brands calculate and improve their climate footprint.

The analysis scopes a Life Cycle Assessment of the wine, analysing greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of the production, from agriculture to distribution, to the point the product is placed on the shelf.

Brands such as Oatly and Tenzing are already using CarbonCloud to demonstrate the climate footprint of their products. This has enabled them to put in place plans and processes to reduce their carbon footprint.

When in Rome styles itself as the UK’s leading alternative format wine brand, with a mission to make wine with a low carbon footprint more accessible.