Can you give us a few examples of how broad your specialisms are these days?
Well, with significant expansion outside of our previous nightwear expertise – in the last five years in particular – our materials, finishes, fabrications and embellishment game is super strong… It’s something we’re so proud of.

Has this broadening of focus also strengthened the areas you guys were previously best known for?
Absolutely – all our handwriting is now very trend driven, including nightwear, which looks the best it ever has. This fashion lens is all thanks to the trend forecasting our design team are undertaking. This work is to support our daywear handwriting, but we can utilise that across the business. All departments are now elevated.

As well as working on terrific character-led ranges, I know you also work with some great corporate brands. Can you talk me through some examples?
Yes! Our design team is really enjoying working on some more sporty shapes on the Wrexham AFC collections. We’ve expanded our sales team to service that area… We see such a huge opportunity to open further retail accounts which suit this great brand and others within our portfolio.

Coca-Cola is another fabulous piece of IP to work on; it has such dynamic style guides – and retail appetite has been so strong for this partnership.

Sticking with Wrexham AFC – what have you worked on with this IP?
It’s such a fun brand – so varied. We see significant growth potential for Wrexham as a football club, a lifestyle brand and content-driven IP, with a big following from the TV show. They’re super collaborative and we really enjoy working with them! Our team took a fresh approach to the design solution with these ranges.

We concentrated on the US market for influences on shape and styling on Kids and Adult across full cross-category solutions, including accessories, over a three-tiered approach – good, better, best.

Digging into your relationship with retail, what makes for a fruitful retail collaboration these days?
A collaborative approach is the only way! Obviously, we take our lead from the licensors as to what the focuses are, but we’re always guiding and informing the retailer… We’re the glue that holds it together – and it’s not a position we take lightly.

Each of our account managers works hard to build and maintain rock-solid foundations with their retail accounts, so that they trust us when we make suggestions. All the lovely licensors we work with trust this process, while respectfully adding value and layering onto retailer conversations with a franchise focus.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, what are you excited about?
We have a Babar campaign launching across departments at Primark which is really fresh and cool. We’re also expanding our offerings for Wallace and Gromit and Paddington, which are both due to land big at retail in the coming months.

Looking further forward into 2027, we’ve got some big plans for Shrek 5, while Bad Fairies from Warner Bros. looks great for a really core fashion demographic. The Bluey movie is going to get parents and kids in a frenzy too – and we’re excited to have recently renewed our contract with the BBC… Their new trend packs look great, so it’s all looking super!

The post From Wicked to Wrexham: Robyn Cowling – Head of Licensing at Aykroyds – talks recent highlights and what’s next appeared first on Brands Untapped.

It’s been a fantastic experience with Coca-Cola and we’ve had some fantastic retail conversations resulting in a great spread of listings across Coke for Christmas and the fruity drinks for Spring/Summer. Our design team have absolutely loved working with the vast amount of assets and the results are some fabulous ranges that we’re really proud of.

What makes BLE such an effective place to unearth or facilitate these sparks?
Face-to-face time is absolutely key in an industry which really values connection. BLE is a really important chance to connect brands, retailers and licensees and a great opportunity for us to see industry friends, longtime collaborators and nurture existing relationships too – if that’s done at the bar, then even better!

Ha! And if you could wave a magic wand, which product or partnership do you hope will be kickstarted at BLE this year?
We’ve had serious FOMO with all the fantastic Oasis collabs out this summer. Perhaps there’ll be another iconic band touring next year who are looking for a fantastic apparel partner!

We’ll see! Thanks Robyn – see you at BLE!

The post It Came From BLE… with Aykroyds’ Robyn Cowling appeared first on Brands Untapped.

When I started, we had 18 designers across Kids and Adult. I’m still hiring, but we’ve now got 34 including talent from H&M, and colleagues that’ve worked on style guides. More recently, we’ve onboarded some fantastic graduates to bring us innovative ideas – they’ve settled in so well. What’s more, the industry is recognising that our work has evolved.

What do you think is key to crafting successful licensed apparel?
It’s all about storytelling. It’s capturing that brand, its essence and really understanding it. We’ve made some of our team ‘licence champions’ – they’re tasked with knowing the do’s, don’ts and brand values of IP we work with across the portfolio. It’s key that we know these brands inside out.

Also, while we’re mainly EMEA focused, anything we now do for Primark is global, so we have to think internationally. With Primark, we’re also looking to be disruptive – create something you wouldn’t expect… Something clever. And that goes for design and the choice of brands we go after.

You’re working with various style guides for different brands… What makes an effective style guide for you?
We need flexibility within the brand guidelines… We really need to be able to add our own assets and icons. We like to do that because there may be a specific trend coming through that we’d like to bring into the design. And if there isn’t a guide, my team will create our own – that can also help make things completely exclusive to a retailer. We do that a lot in our adult team – especially on ladies’ nightwear. I encourage the team to really push things. So it’s about flexibility… When a style guide’s not flexible, it can be hard.

Do you think your work gets enough credit in licensing? Especially when so much attention is paid to things like ‘high-end’ collabs.
If I’m honest, no! We’ve just done a load of fantastic ranges for Primark, like our brilliant Sesame Street range – and these lines are massive. We’re about to drop another exclusive range and the biggest one we’ve done – about 800,000 units. And it’s all from our own handwriting. So yes, I’d say Aykroyds does have a defined handwriting, but we’re not Stella McCartney, so it’s looked at differently. But if you look at what we’re doing, it’s really cool and more elevated than ever.

Absolutely – and we’ll do our best to correct that in our own way! Now, to which ranges would you point as being good showcases for the design approach at Aykroyds?
The Sesame Street range that we dropped for Primark; that was massive and it sold out quickly. We did a terrific Scooby-Doo line for Primark too. We’re having a really interesting time with M&S at the moment and the handwriting there is beautiful. Our relationship with Next is going from strength to strength. We’ve just done a range for River Island that’s bonkers – in a good way, of course!

The shift in our design handwriting has opened up so many opportunities. The Wicked range we did for George and Tesco is another one I’d highlight. We did an initiative with George and the Prince’s Trust that was amazing too… It’s been an exciting time!

Have you seen retailers wanting more ‘design-led’ ranges when it comes to licensed product?
Absolutely. Everyone’s handwriting is changing. M&S’s mantra is ‘dumping the frump’ and they’re looking more and more like the UK high street equivalent to Zara. Tesco wants to be like The White Company, Sainsbury’s wants to be ‘the M&S of the grocers’. There’s a real design shift happening at that grocer level. Erica Davies is doing loads of drops with George and I love her. That’s elevating the grocers. The standards are way up.

What dictates how subtle, or loud, you go with a design?
It’s usually the brand – and comes back to storytelling or trends. With our work on Wicked for Next, we lent into that varsity-preppy vibe. That came from both the movie – with Shiz University – and the varsity design trend… Whereas what we’ve done at Primark with Sesame Street and Scooby was about taking these iconic characters and having fun with them. That felt true to the brands and to the design handwriting of Primark.

What does a brand need to have these days to suit quality commercial apparel?
I think it comes down to flexibility. A good example is our relationship with StudioCanal on Paddington. There are some strict do’s and don’ts – we must use the TV art for kids’ nightwear, for example… But a lot of retailers prefer the more classic ‘sketchy’ Paddington look. We’ve developed the style to redraw the TV art in a sketchy style. That solves a creative problem for us. If we’ve got a problem, or spot an opportunity, we’ll think of a solution and work closely and respectfully with the relevant teams to work on a positive outcome.

The post “The standards are way up!”: Aykroyds’ Louise Hinds discusses why retailers are embracing ‘design-led’ lines appeared first on Brands Untapped.

The deal covers a full suite of rights based on the brand, whose toy characters come with their own scented lip gloss.

“We are absolutely delighted to strengthen our partnership with MGA Entertainment through the Yummiland franchise,” said Robyn Cowling, Head of Licensing at Aykroyds.

“The innovation behind Yummiland will ensure this collaboration delivers – the tried and tested MGA formula for launching successful toyetic brands is sure to pique retailers’ interests.”

Dean Greasley, Director of Licensing at TDP, added: “We’re super excited to be adding the newest MGA property to our offering… Scented dolls who have lip gloss superpowers!

“We are looking forward to seeing the retail reaction to this new sweet treat!”

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