On Monday night Topshop, part of the Arcadia group, became the first high street name to stage a catwalk show in London Fashion Week. The exercise, in front of an international audience of media and store buyers, was aimed at establishing Topshop as an international brand.

Now Mr Green believes that he can build sales of the brand, both through flagship overseas outlets in big cities and, much easier and faster, through online retailing.

Topshop Unique, the chain’s slightly higher-priced line, which was showing its wares in the Berkeley Square marquee, is already due to go on sale in New York through an arrangement with the city’s Opening Ceremony boutique. Jane Shepherdson, who runs Topshop, says that she will consider allowing other appropriate boutiques around the world to stock the Unique collection, but more as a way of continuing to lift the profile of the Topshop brand than of bolstering profits. The real boost to those would come from expansion into big new stores abroad and from increased internet sales.

The online contribution to Topshop’s sales grew by 140 per cent last year, but it has been hampered by a battle for ownership of the name, which another organisation had registered in the United States. Mr Green has bought back the name and is about to start pushing Topshop online globally.

This year the brand is on course to deliver profits of £100 million to the privately owned Arcadia. Ms Shepherdson was already working there when Mr Green took over the publicly quoted Arcadia in 2002, but he gave her the title of brand director and increased authority to run the business.

It was her idea to show at London Fashion Week, a risky strategy in the eyes of some rivals, but it fitted with her strategy of not trying to fight on exactly the same territory as the discount retailers, such as Primark, who concentrate on price.

Topshop believes that its selling point is fashion and that its customers will pay a little bit more for distinctive designs such as those that were hanging off the bones of some very skinny models on Monday night. Fashion writers gave the show a relatively positive reception. The fashion-orientated policy seems to be working and, while other clothing chains are struggling to hold on to sales, Topshop continues to grow.

Apart from the scope for overseas expansion, it is adding new stores in the UK, often substituting much larger stores for those it has outgrown. The Oxford Circus store has just been expanded to a massive 90,000 sq ft.

The product range is constantly being widened. Three years ago the business started designing its own shoe ranges. More recently, it launched a made-to-measure service, which now has a six-month waiting list. It is the fastest-growing part of the Arcadia empire.

Shareholders who sold to Mr Green in 2002 will recall that he paid them just £850 million for the entire company. The plans for developing Topshop alone now make that look even more of a bargain.

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