Luxury multichannel retailer Matchesfashion has unveiled plans for a new creative hub in East London to house its photography, video and editorial teams in a state-of-the-art facility.
Located at the Here East Studios at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the 24,000 sq ft hub will be home to 20 photography bays and video sets and will enable the business to increase its capacity for products shot and uploaded onto its site by 50% to 2,000 per week. It will also enable it to create new and innovative ways of displaying product on its site, such as 360-degree videos.
Chief executive Ulric Jerome said “storytelling” was central to the business’ proposition. “This move to Here East, and our investment in a new creative hub, will help us to achieve our plans to generate even more innovative and engaging content for our brands and our customer, as we continue to scale Matchesfashion.com,” he said.
The presence of Matchesfashion in the Here East development is a boost to the Mayor of London’s plans to create a “fashion cluster” in the area. “The new state-of-the-art studio in the East London Fashion Cluster is building on Here East’s reputation as an area synonymous with innovation, and showing the world that London is open to business, talent and creativity,” said Justine Simons, deputy London mayor and head of culture and creative industries.
Matchesfashion’s investment, which will create 150 new jobs in the next four years, is a the latest in a line of similar announcements from tech-led fashion and retail businesses. At the end of last year ASOS announced it was expanding its Camden HQ to create an additional 1,500 jobs over the next three years while Yoox Net-A-Porter (YNAP) recently unveiled its new tech hub in White City that will be home to 500 staff.
Amazon too has pledged to create more tech jobs in London after opening its new HQ in Shoreditch. The e-commerce giant said it would increase the number of R&D staff from 450 to 900.
The news breaks as Matchesfashion is the subject of speculation that the business has attracted the interest of a number of major PE houses, who are interested in buying all or part of the business which is said to be valued at around £600m.
