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Radley (company)

Radley London
Industry Fashion Retail
Founded 1998
Founder Lowell Harder
Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Number of locations
Aberdeen, Bath, Birmingham, Bluewater, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield.
Products Handbags, Purses, Shoes, Watches, Luggage, Accessories

Radley is a London based, British accessories brand which designs and manufactures handbags, purses and other women’s accessories for UK and international markets. The brand was founded by Lowell Harder in 1998. Justin Stead is the current CEO of the brand and was appointed in May 2015.

Radley founder and current Creative Director, Australian Lowell Harder, began working in the accessories industry as a weekend stall holder on London’s Camden Market in 1984 selling Indian men’s accessories brand Hidesign. Harder began working with the Hidesign design team and together developed new designs for the UK market.

Harder’s business with Hidesign soon outgrew its market stall setting and needed increased investment and infrastructure which was supplied by the handbag company Tula Group in 1991. With the backing of the Tula Group, Harder was able to continue with Hidesign and in 1997, with a new working partner, develop a new women’s accessories brand, Radley.

‘Harder launched it [Radley] in 1998 after becoming “fed up” with seeing bags in the same colours – such as black and navy. Instead she wanted to create something different and colourful,’ wrote Drapers trade magazine in an interview with Harder in 2012.

Initial sales of Radley were low, however through a pre-existing relationship with Department store John Lewis via Hidesign, John Lewis began to trial a selection of Radley designs. Radley became a success for John Lewis, which then led to an interest from other UK based department stores.

In an October 2012 interview with Drapers trade magazine, Radley founder Lowell Harder said of the conception of the brand’s dog shaped logo ‘we were experimenting with different things and one of the designers came-up with it. We hung it off a bag and people loved it.’

The dog logo, which hung from the bag strap, was put on a few ranges in the collection for Autumn/Winter 2000 but was added to most of the range by 2001 because of increased interest from customers. After the departure of Harder in December 2010, the new design team implemented a new version of the dog logo which saw a negative reception from the consumer. In her October 2012 Drapers magazine interview, she explained why the original design of the logo was reinstated on her return ‘He was changed after I left and was made too butch. The idea of him was that he was meant to look cute and fun so we are going back to that…it was important to us that we changed him back.’

With the increased sales of Radley in 2002, Harder led a buyout of Tula Group from its founding members. Tula and Hidesign were maintained as brands


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