Alongside a ramp-up in its beauty ranges, the closure and hopeful relaunch of Sass & Bide, bigger loyalty deals, and the merging of Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Dotti and Portmans into the group portfolio, Myer is making another strategic bet for future growth: rejigging its private labels.
The ballooning group designs, produces and stocks five owned fashion labels, being Blaq, Basque, Grab, There After and Regatta, which means Myer is now looking after over 13 different brands (Marcs and David Lawrence, too) on top of its 56 department stores and over half a dozen websites. Approximately 26 per cent of sales are now generated by owned or exclusive brands, according to its FY25 Annual Report.
As part of what Myer executive chair Olivia Wirth calls a diversified model, the group has spent the last year refining how it produces its private labels – or what it calls Myer Exclusive Brands (MEBs).
In fact, Myer chief product officer Simon Schofield, the former boss of Witchery, Trenery and Cue Clothing Co, says the Myer team has been working on the MEB relaunch even before he started in the role nine months ago. And that began with a very significant piece of research with its customers.
“We actually learned that a lot of the women's brands in particular just did not resonate with the customers anymore, and that the customer in general had grown older with those brands,” he told Ragtrader.
Another private label brand at Myer called Tokito – which is believed to be phasing out – was originally launched as a young, hip brand. Up until recently, Schofield says it was being shopped by 50 and 60-year-olds. As some customers told Myer, no young person wants to dress exactly like their parents.
“We'd actually found that it almost morphed into one. When we looked at the product, you could almost find exactly the same style in three or four of the other exclusive brands. So much similarity and crossover, it crept in over time.”
After learning this, Myer began to sell down its MEB inventory to make way for new products, culminating in the official relaunch of the brands in 2026. Schofield says this includes expanded pads across its store fleet, new fit-out concepts in trial stores, and prominent rollout across its online channels. The group also went live across its own social media accounts to promote the relaunch.
“We're already working on evolutions as we start to work on summer later this year,” Schofield says. “We've just signed off swim for summer 2026-27, which will be going into all five brands.
“We're particularly excited about spring eventing and how we can make these brands sit at the heart of the Myer offer. We know Myer is the go-to destination for spring event dressing. So how do we make brands like Blaq and Basque, in particular, really anchor that offer within our Myer brand portfolio?”
Schofield also confirms that footwear will launch shortly across stores, aligned with all five MEBs, with an expanded range of accessories to follow. “We're already thinking about how we can grow and expand them.”
The Myer Exclusive Brands portfolio has around 20 in-house designers who create styles across the five brands, all sitting under Schofield’s remit. Myer's modern slavery statement for the FY25 period confirmed it had engaged with and sourced from 303 private brand suppliers across 10 countries. Of these, 59 per cent supply apparel goods and 29 per cent supply home goods, with a majority based around the Southeast Asia region, including China and India. Three-quarters of its total private label spend (77 per cent) was made in China.
When asked if the revamp of the MEB portfolio has seen any major shifts to staffing, Schofield says he has tried to upskill from everywhere – from visual merchandising through to the marketing – “because trying to treat these like specialist brands within a department store portfolio has meant a pivot in ways of working across almost every area of the business.”
Ultimately, these exclusive owned brands also mean Myer has complete control over the aesthetic, as well as how they are made and produced and later shown to customers.
For Myer boss Olivia Wirth, fashion still remains a key focus, despite the department store doubling down on beauty, which has been seeing a sales surge compared to its fashion categories.
“We're one year into a three-to-five year journey, and that is all about providing sustainable returns for our shareholders,” Wirth says. “This is a growth strategy, and we're very much focused on delivering sales, but improving operating gross profit over time, and making sure that we have a business that is resilient despite any macroeconomic headwinds that we may have.”
Alongside the rejig of its MEBs, Myer also continues to integrate the Apparel Brands – Just Jeans, Jay Jays, etc – into the group, with Wirth highlighting sourcing capability upgrades and store network optimisation. On top of this, the department store is attempting to strengthen its competitive advantage with its Myer One loyalty program relaunch, which included rolling out the program into Apparel Brands in a bid to gain raw data on how customers shop there and what they like.
“It's very obvious that each of these is a very distinct brand, and their journey as a brand is going to be very different and distinct depending on the customer that they're attracting,” Wirth says.
“Just jeans obviously accounts for close to 38 per cent of the sales. That's where we've started with testing, learning and making changes/investments in their fleet.”