High Street giants Greggs and Primark have joined forces for a second time to launch a clothing collection of festival finery.
Newcastle bakery business Greggs announced the 21-piece collection will go on sale next month in stores across the UK, five months after its first collection quickly sold out in February. The initial launch saw an 11-piece collection go on sale in 60 stores, all of which sold out within days – some of which later appeared on eBay at vastly-inflated prices - and also led to the opening of the world’s biggest Greggs cafe in Birmingham’s Primark store.
The new items aim to help fans gets ‘festival ready’ in style and will be launched in Primark stores on August 5, though there will also be sneak previews on selected towns and cities, including Newcastle, Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. The branded collection will feature new items including cycle shorts, bodysuits, basketball jerseys, varsity jackets and fresh new footwear.
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It also sees the return of popular items from the first collection including the Greggs bucket hat and underpants, bumbags and sliders. The range is the latest collaborations for Primark, which recently launched a well-timed Netflix Stranger Things collaboration to coincide with the fourth series, which saw an exclusive Hellfire Club t-shirt sell out in days.
To give fans early access, Greggs and Primark will be launching the collection with a limited pre-sale of selected items and mini festival experience via the ‘Snackfest’ bus which will stop off five locations, including Newcastle.
Jermaine Lapwood, head of innovation and future trends at Primark said: “I believe the best partnerships in fashion are those that are blindingly obvious but never boring or predictable. In a world of collaborations, it is important that we stand out and be different. As part of this drop, for the first time in Primark history we are taking the collection on the road and fans will be able to get early access to our own ‘Snackfest’ tour bus which will pop up across the UK. Keep a look out for some top secret special guest performances and fun competitions.”
Hannah Squirrell, customer director at Greggs said: “The reaction to our first official Greggs clothing collection was incredible and sold out even faster than we anticipated. We’re excited to team up with Primark once again to deliver more fun and unique pieces that Greggs fans will wear with pride across the summer and beyond.”
Former Greggs CEO Roger Whiteside hinted at a follow-up collection back in March, when he said the business would welcome the chance to open more Greggs cafes in more of Primark’s 180-plus UK stores, saying the company is keen to place the brand and its produce wherever it is busy. He also admitted the company never thought they’d ever see Greggs branding emblazoned on hats, sweatshirts and socks on sale on the high street.
At the time, he said: “I can’t say I ever wrote it down as a strategic priority! At the end of the day, what’s exciting for us is we know if you put Greggs in convenient places, which includes inside other shops like Primark, it can be successful. That’s why we’ve done that. Primark wanted to try a clothing range branded Greggs – we don’t know anything about clothing but they felt that would sell so wanted to try a small collection, which we were happy to do.”
