Agnes b to open menswear store

Fashion brand agnes b, favoured by celebrities such as rock stars David Bowie and Liam Gallagher, is to open its first standalone menswear store in April.

The 135 sq m shop will be in the former Duke of York's barracks on London's King's Road.

The specialist menswear shop will be the retailer's sixth store in London and its seventh in the UK. At present, only three of the stores carry the agnes b homme menswear range, although it has been available since the 1970s.

A spokeswoman said that menswear has taken off recently and now is the ideal time to exploit its success.

'We haven't had a menswear store before and it's the way men prefer to shop,' she said. The store will be branded as agnes b homme. However, she said there are no plans for further openings. 'We will see how this goes first,' she said.

As well as its high-profile London stores, agnes b has a shop in Oxford.

There are now more than 100 stores internationally in Japan, the US, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

The first agnes b store opened in France in 1975 and was followed by the first international shop - in New York - in 1980. The English subsidiary opened in 1987.