Joe Browns: New chairman sees international expansion on horizon for 'remarkable' Leeds clothing firm

Truluck left the role with the French retail giant earlier this year to be able to spend more time with his wife and two teenage daughters, as well as launch the next phase of his career by building a non-executive portfolio.

He has now found a job much closer to home as the chairman of Leeds-based fashion and home retailer Joe Browns – a company he sees as very much having its own jet-setting potential.

Meeting The Yorkshire Post at its newly-opened Leeds store in the White Rose Centre, Truluck admits his previous schedule had a work-life balance that was “actually quite crazy”.

"I’d wake up at 2.45am every Monday morning, get a 3.30am car journey to Manchester Airport and a 6am flight to France and that was 10 years doing that every Monday. I would walk into the office near Lille at 10am French time. I was Monday and Tuesday in France then Wednesday and Thursday another country as we had different offices all around Europe.

"My kids are 15 and 18 so when I started they were five and eight and I lost a lot of those years.”

During his time with the company, La Redoute transitioned away from the catalogue shopping it was well-known for to become more of an ecommerce brand while also going through ownership changes that culminated in the sale of the business to Galeries Lafayette in 2022.

Truluck says it became a natural point for him to leave so he could see more of his family but admits it was a big decision.

“It was a great business I loved working in. I wouldn’t have done that type of schedule and that amount of time if it wasn’t something I absolutely loved.”

Originally from South Africa with a half-English father, Truluck moved to the UK when he was 18 and got a finance job working for Vanity Fair publisher Condé Nast where he met his future wife Charlotte.

When they decided they wanted to start a family, they moved North to be closer to her parents in Yorkshire.

He says he fell in love with Yorkshire after moving up here.

"It was a big change. My first job was at Peter Black’s in Keighley in an old mill building. I’d gone from Vogue House in London, with glitz, glamour and supermodels coming through reception every day, to an old mill building where when the wind blew it came right through the office.

"But it was a great learning experience and a really great company.”

He was there for around four years in accountancy roles before moving in 2007 to the La Redoute group.

As he rose through the company, the family decided to stay in Yorkshire rather than move to France largely for family reasons – but there was also another motivation at play.

"I really like Yorkshire,” Truluck smiles. “Yorkshire is a great place to live. In Ilkley we have countryside nearby, we have cities nearby and the North of England has had a huge amount of regeneration that has been really good to see.”

He says Joe Browns’ business model has many similarities to La Redoute and he believes he can assist in moving it forward while still retaining its most popular elements.

"Joe Browns is a great business. It has still got a very large catalogue heritage behind it. From a La Redoute perspective we did a massive migration away from catalogues, we were a very catalogue-driven business and became an e-commerce business.

"However, paper still has its place. You can bring the product to life a bit more than you can on a website and you drive more customer loyalty off the back of it.”

Truluck says he can also offer the company insight into how to grow an overseas presence over time.

"It is still early days. The first thing to look at is can we get our home market growing even more. In terms of brand awareness, we are sitting about 40 per cent in the UK. There’s 60 per cent of people that don’t really know us.

"I would focus for the first few years on what we do locally in terms of the UK. If we can get that going all guns blazing, then we need to look where we go more internationally. The obvious places are continental Europe but I wouldn’t be averse to going further afield because the brand is so distinct.

"The word that is used internally is ‘remarkable’. I think there is something there that we could use in other countries to really expand the brand outside the UK market.”

Leeds is the fourth Joe Browns store, following on from Meadowhall, Windermere and an outlet store in York. There are plans to open a first southern store early next year as part of its ongoing expansion efforts.

Truluck says: “The brand has so much potential to grow – the fact we only have 40 per cent brand awareness in our home market shows that potential is really there."

The majority of the firm’s customers are female and while Truluck says age is “irrelevant”, he also sees an important role in how the business can help its customers with its bohemian designs.

"It appeals to the type of customer that wants that bit of colour, that extra sparkle. Something that has been in the press recently is about ladies getting slightly older in life feeling invisible. As a brand, we can do something to break down that invisibility.”

The firm has been celebrating its 25th anniversary during 2023 and Truluck has a simple vision for where he hopes it will be by the time of its 30th.

"In five years time, we want to be bigger, better, more well-known and more international.”