Cotton On is an Australian retail chain, known for its fast-fashion clothing for men, women, teenagers and children. It has almost 1500 stores in 12 countries and employs 17,000 staff in Australia and internationally.
Cotton On also operates Cotton On Body, Cotton On Kids, Rubi Shoes, Typo, T-bar and Factorie and owns Supré.
Video Cotton On Group
History
Cotton On was founded in 1991, with the first store being opened in Geelong, Australia. As of 2013, the Cotton On chain has over 1000 stores worldwide. As of 2011 the company employed around 5,500 people.
The company was established by Nigel Austin in Geelong, Australia, at the time it only sold women's clothing. Since January 2006, it had expanded with Cotton On Body and Cotton On Kids in 2007. It expanded to Typo (stationery and gifts), and also Rubi Shoes in February 2008. Natalie McLean is the new chief retail officer of Cotton On Group.
The design team in the company's Australian office controls the steps of production from merchandise planning to establishing specifications, and production is outsourced to approximately 150 factories in Europe and Asia. These facilities are used for horizontal division of labor rather than being integrated.
After the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in April 2013, Cotton On, along with other major Australian retailers, became the focus of a campaign by Oxfam Australia to get the company to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord.
In 2013, Cotton On acquired Australian fast-fashion brand Supré and plans to expand the brand internationally.
Cotton On hired Australian TV personality Lara Bingle to be the spokesperson of their One launch, which offered comfortable cotton basic shirts offered in a variety of necklines including V-neck, scoop and crew. Lara Bingle has also designed swimwear for the Australian Brand under their Body label.
As of November 10, 2016 Cotton On, through the COAR: range, will be the on and off-field apparel sponsor of the Geelong Football Club.
Maps Cotton On Group
Brands
Cotton On also operates 10 other brand names.
- Cotton On Body - women's lingerie,sleepwear and active wear
- Cotton On Kids - children's clothing
- Rubi Shoes - shoes, bags, jewellery and accessories. Most of the items are made from Sifang (China) and Johor Bahru (Malaysia).
- Typo - homeware, craft, stationery and gifting
- T-bar - custom print T-shirts
- Factorie - youth fashion
- Supré - party wear
- Free - tween apparel
- COAR: - activewear and sportswear, acronym of Cotton On Active Range
- Cotton On Foundation: - The Charity run by Cotton On Group
In September 2017,Cotton On announced that it would be expanded to new categories like accessories, jewellery and travel goods.
The company worldwide
Number of stores as of September 2016
[*] - Denotes that it is only a "basic" Cotton On shop.
The Cotton On Foundation
The Cotton On Foundation was launched in 2007, with a mission to develop 20,000 educational places by 2020.
Controversy
In December 2012 Cotton On was fined $1 million for selling highly flammable children's sleepwear misleadingly labelled as low fire danger. The discount clothing retailer, which has more than 900 outlets across the country, was fined $400,000 for selling more than 1000 nightdresses that breached Australian fire safety standards, and a further $400,000 for selling more than 1000 unsafe pairs of girls' pyjamas, between September and December 2010. It was fined a further $200,000 for false and misleading labels on both sets of clothing items which claimed they were low fire danger.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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