London — J Sainsbury, the supermarket that’s been selling Britons their bread and baked beans for more than a century, is looking beyond the grocery aisles for a competitive edge in a tough market, seeking inspiration from the catwalks of Los Angeles and Milan. The retailer has created a team of 30 fashion spotters who scour runways around the world to gain inspiration for its Tu clothing range. By identifying trends like denim frill tunics, which Sainsbury’s sells for £20, and two-tone skinny jeans (£18), they’re adding to mounting pressure on the UK’s more established apparel sellers, including Marks & Spencer (M&S) and Next. "We decided we needed to compete more with the high street," said Sainsbury’s commercial director James Brown, "both in terms of the pace at which clothing was changing through the season, as well as on our quality and the trends we sell." While retailers like Wal-Mart, Carrefour in France and Tesco and M&S in the UK have long sold food and clothing under the...
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