Austin Reed (retailer)

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Austin Reed was a British fashion retailer founded in 1900 by tailor Austin Leonard Reed. It sold clothing, bags and accessories and had a flagship store on Regent Street in London. In 2016 the brand was bought by Edinburgh Woollen Mill, which now owns the trademarks.

Austin Reed’s history includes the founder Austin Reed (1873–1954). The company bought the retailer Country Casuals and rebranded it as CC. In 1937, an NKVD officer, Vladimir Pravdin, wore an Austin Reed suit bought at Regent Street and fled to a Swiss hotel after assassinating Ignace Reiss. The brand also appears in British television history: actor John Inman, who later starred in Are You Being Served, once worked at Austin Reed as a tie clerk in the early 1950s.