Irish fashion retailer A-Wear made its UK debut last week at Leicester’s Highcross scheme with a new format.

A-Wear commercial and financial director Mark Naughton-Rumbo said the retailer wanted to create a “high street brand with a boutique heart”. The store features grey walls with pink flashes, sumptuous dressing rooms and visual merchandising focal points. It follows a trial at its store in the Pavilions centre at Swords, Dublin.

The retailer will open outlets at Bristol’s Cabot Circus and Warrington’s Golden Square this year and will launch a transactional web site in mid-October.

A-Wear plans to double in size over three years through UK expansion, after it was bought out by its management, backed by Alchemy Partners last May.