Jeanswest CEO: Mark Daynes

What's your previous experience in the industry?

With almost forty years’ experience both here and in the UK, I learnt my trade with the biggest names in the UK fashion retail world. Starting way back with the old Burton Group that became Arcadia, finishing up as Brand director for Topman, then working at Asda supermarket developing the George range alongside George Davies before becoming MD at Littlewoods, the biggest mail order business in the UK at the time. Target brought me out here seven years ago, before I joined Jeanswest, 4 years ago as CEO.

What's your day to day role?

As CEO no two days are the same, but I spend a lot of my time developing my team, as well as creating the vision for the brand. I have a very fortunate position in that I get involved in every aspect of the business, from attending photo shoots, range sign offs, store visits, property discussions as well being involved in the tactical trading decisions. I love my job.

What's the most rewarding aspect?

It has to be the people and seeing them grow and develop. Our brand has changed dramatically over the past four years and the people in the business have made that possible by working extremely hard in delivering my vision. I love spending time with our team members, be it in our office in Melbourne or out interstate with our stores teams, it's the people that make the business.

And the most challenging?

My biggest challenge is the out of date brand perception. Jeanswest has been around for over forty years and people still remember Cloe Maxwell and ‘fits best’....but we have moved on. Landlords think because we have jeans in our brand name then we must be a young brand but the majority of our customers are mums with growing children and we no longer just sell denim. While it’s still very important to us we have developed a full quality fashion offer. For example last year we sold over 65,000 silk dresses. Not bad for a denim business. 

What's an initiative you are most proud of?

The work the team has done on the improvement in quality with the introduction of premium fabrics and yarns. We sell silk, cashmere, linen, European denim, as well as introducing Australian cotton and wool into our ranges. As a brand we decided that we didn't want to keep working to make products cheaper, instead we wanted to make them better and our customers reaction has been amazing.

What's the biggest change you've seen in the industry?

Having been in fashion retail for almost forty years, there is always a major change in the industry, that's why I love it. When I first went to Adsa from TopShop/Topman everyone thought I was mad. But George quickly became the UK's biggest fashion volume retailer. So the threat of supermarkets then was the big thing. The one thing that excites me is that in retail you have to keep innovating to keep growing. Nothing stands still, change is the one thing you can guarantee.

What change do you see coming in the future?

The biggest future challenge in my opinion for the industry is not technology, new entrants or online but is something a lot of people have ignored and that is our ageing population. Designers and retailers should consider the key market segment, the forty and fifty years, not the teens that seem to dominate their focus. It's the grey dollar that will be the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity.