Laura Ashley blames the ‘unlucky’ weather

Laura Ashley’s struggling fashion range combined with “unlucky” weather to push the retailer’s first-half profits 11 per cent lower.

The sofas-to-wallpaper group blamed the summer heatwave and spring freeze for six months of deteriorating performance, with like-for-like sales falling 2.2 per cent in the six months to the end of July and pre-tax profits dropping to £7.4m.

Fashion sales slumped 6.6 per cent on a like-for-like basis during the half, worse than the 4.8 per cent drop seen across the whole of last year.

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And the retailer admitted there is more to do to reverse falling clothing sales, with a 1.3 per cent drop in like-for-like group sales in the eight weeks to September 21 driven by more “underperformance” from fashion.

Chief financial officer Sean Anglim said: “We know we’ve not got everything right. We are continually reviewing our fashion collection and trends. Fashion operates on quite long lead times.

“But we are comfortable we will get it right. For the second half we have done things better.”

He said bigger rival Marks & Spencer has “thrown a lot at us” with its new star-studded advertising campaign for its autumn/winter fashion range.

The retailer, which has 15 stores across Yorkshire, earns four-fifths of its sales from home furnishings.

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