MAMAS & Papas, the maternity and babywear business popular with singer Gwen Stefani and designer Stella McCartney, has announced plans to open four new stores as part of a major expansion programme.
The first of the new stores will open at the end of the year in Belfast. The three others are due to be unveiled in London, Birmingham and Cardiff in the first months of 2009.
The four stores will create more than 150 jobs.
Marek Laskowski, ma
naging director of the retail arm of Huddersfield-based Mamas & Papas, said the move had come after sustained growth and a 46 per cent increase in fashion sales for the 2008 spring/summer season compared with the same period last year.
"This new phase of launches represents the ambition within Mamas & Papas to build on current success and meet the ongoing demand by our customers.
"Mamas & Papas are bucking the high street downturn."
Mr Laskowski added that further stores will follow in 2009
as demand for the brand increases.
Mamas & Papas, which has 1,100 staff, more than 2,500 products and turnover in excess of £130m, began as a tiny pram and pushchair boutique in 1981.
Dissatisfied with the pregnancy and parenthood products available to her in the UK, Luisa Scacchetti, who had come to England from Italy as an 11-year-old, started importing high quality, high fashion prams and pushchairs from her native country.
Now, after witnessing double-digit growth year on year, the family-run firm has 32 stores in the UK (excluding those due to be opened shortly), as well as eight others in places such as Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait City and Doha.
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