Truworths: 11 Interesting Facts You Might Not Know

Truworths is a Cape Town based clothing retailer. If you’ve been to a shopping mall, you’ve probably seen one of their stores. There’s a probably a lot that you don’t know about this retailer, but today my aim is to change that.

Here are 11 Interesting Facts You Might Not Know about Truworths

1. Truworths was founded as the Alliance Trading Company in 1917.

2. The business changed its name to Truworths Fashion House in 1935.

3. The company listed on the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) in 1946.

4. The brand is synonymous with superior quality and aspirational fashion and is complemented by a portfolio of some of South Africa’s most desired apparel brands which have been developed over the past four decades.

5. The 1980s saw the rapid expansion of the brand portfolio with the launch of Daniel Hechter under a long-term licence agreement (1984), Inwear (1986), Truworths Man (1988) and Truworths Jewellery (1989). In the 1990s further home-grown brands were launched, namely LTD (1992), Identity and Truworths Elements (1999). Ginger Mary followed in 2004 and Hey Betty in 2011.

6. Organic brand expansion has been supported by the acquisitions of Young Designers Emporium (2003), Uzzi (2006), Earthaddict, Earthchild and Naartjie (2015), while the acquisition of Loads of Living in 2017 introduced the Group into the homeware market.

7. Truworths International expanded into the Northern hemisphere retail market in 2015 with the acquisition of the Office fashion footwear chain in the United Kingdom. The acquisition spread the Group’s customer base across developed and emerging markets, and diversified the Group’s product offering, sales, earnings and country risk profile.

Office has 129 stores in the UK, Germany and the Republic of Ireland, including 16 concession outlets in high-profile department store retailers.

8. The retailer employs over 11,000 people and generates over R18 billion (+/- $1 million) in annual revenue.

9. The retailer has 758 stores in South Africa and 36 stores outside South Africa.

10. Account facilities are offered to customers across all brands in South Africa, Namibia, Eswatini (Swaziland) and Botswana. The retailer has 2.6 million active account customers.

11. The company offers perfumes, shoes, bags, homeware products, clothing and footwear for ladies, men, teenagers and kids. It also provides skincare, makeup and accessories.

Well, there you have it, 11 Interesting Facts you might not have known about Truworths. If I’ve left out something important, feel free to comment below.

If you’re living in South Africa and you don’t have a Truworths account yet, sign up today and get R1000 in fashion vouchers.

Watch this space for updates in the Facts category on Running Wolf’s Rant.

Like what you just read? Buy us a coffee to enable us to bring you more content like this.

You're also more than welcome to subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.

Feel free to explore our website or check out our Featured Articles.