Desmond & Dempsey are a rapidly growing retailer of luxury sleepwear on a mission to own ‘the pyjama’. We make products that make every day feel like a Sunday, launching with women’s pyjamas designed as ‘his shirt for her’. In a sleepwear market full of impractical silk pyjamas at extravagant price tags we have successfully identified a gap in the market for quality fashion forward pyjamas. Through our website alone we have sold over 2,000 pairs & generated £196k revenue to date. We’ve been covered extensively in prestigious press outlets from Vogue to the New York times & secured repeat orders from top international retailers such as Selfridges & Bergdorf Goodman and are ready to scale.
D&D has launched with women’s pyjamas designed as ‘his shirt for her’. In a sleepwear market full of impractical silk pyjamas at extravagant price tags, D&D offers 100% luxury cotton pyjamas at accessible prices. By focussing on cotton and developing unique prints in house, Desmond & Dempsey has been able to produce pyjamas at far more accessible price points, yet maintain the quality and value associated with top end luxury brands. We are positioned alongside the high end silk brands offering extremely favourable value comparisons. For Christmas ’16 we will launch a our first mens collection. Future products include bed linen & childrenswear. Ultimately we aim to ‘own the bedroom’.
The opportunity for Desmond & Dempsey, is to fill a significant gap in the £12bn sleepwear market. With retailers reporting 34% increases in YoY sales, pyjama dressing has cemented itself as a fashion trend that is here to stay.The market is polarised by two types of brands. High street brands offering pyjamas as part of their wider product assortment, competing on price. At the other end of the market, there are labels offering impractical silk pyjamas (dry clean only) retailing for £250+ and appealing only to very select group.
Currently, no brand owns the vertical. In the same way as Vilebrequin has cemented itself as the go-to high end swimwear brand, D&D wants to be the go to PJ brand.
E-commerce & direct to consumer currently accounts for 80% of our sales and we estimate it will continue to make up no less than 70% of our sales mix. Currently our gross margin is 65% through e-commerce & we predict this growing to 75% – 80% as we scale up production volumes. Our average basket size online is currently £130 and repeat customers account for 35% of our revenue.
Wholesale are planned at 50 – 60% discount, yet still expected to bring bottom line results. Wholesale plays an important role in establishing brand awareness, positioning the brand & reaching an international audience. Wholesale also allows us to boost production volumes to boost GP.
Based on our projections and comparing recent exits, Desmond & Dempsey predict an enterprise valuation of +£8 million within four years and a business exit, likely via trade sale, within 5 – 7 years. Recent exits include the purchase of comparable beach lifestyle brand Vilebrequin by G-III apparel for $114m and a significant rise in fashion IPOs from accessible luxury brands Michael Kors ($3.7bn – 44x earnings) and Salvatore Ferragamo ($380m – 24x earnings). Barney Battles, our FD has an exit history of over 20 trade sales and 4 IPOs and his corporate finance experience will be extremely valuable as we grow the business.