From Supermarket Basics to a 3,000-Line Fashion Empire

Photo Credit Tuclothing

There’s a version of British fashion that doesn’t happen on a runway — it happens in the aisle next to the produce section. That’s Tu, the in-house clothing label Sainsbury’s launched in 2004, and two decades in, it’s become the UK’s third-largest online clothing retailer and its sixth-largest by volume, with 3,000 lines stocked across more than 400 stores.

A brand built to replace a brand. Tu didn’t start from a blank page — it was Sainsbury’s answer to phasing out Jeff & Co, the label designer Jeff Banks had run for the supermarket since 2000. Tu launched in 160 stores that September, with childrenswear built out by Adams, and a homewares line under the “TU Home” name that has since folded into Sainsbury’s separate Habitat brand.

The Gok Wan era. The label’s first real pivot toward fashion credibility came in 2011, when Sainsbury’s partnered with stylist Gok Wan on “Gok for Tu” — a 13-piece womenswear collection starting at £20, rolled out in 200 stores. Wrap dresses and kimonos became the collection’s signature, and the partnership ran in various forms through 2017.

A rebrand, and a name people kept getting wrong. Sainsbury’s re-cut Tu in 2013, narrowing it to clothing only and giving it a new logo: capital T, lowercase u — a small typographic fix aimed at stopping shoppers from reading it as “tea you” instead of “two.”

Betting on new design talent. In 2017, Tu brought two graduating fashion students — Laura Gillings and Amy Vanderwal — onto its in-house design team for a year-long scholarship, mentored by designers Henry Holland and Oliver Spencer respectively. Gillings, a Bath Spa graduate, built a 16-piece womenswear collection off ’60s tailoring; the collection debuted at Graduate Fashion Week alongside Tu’s first pop-up shop at the event, and sized up to a UK 22 to match the rest of the Tu range.

Where the brand stands now. Tu’s current design direction sits with Katie Ballard, head of design since 2023, who joined the brand in 2007 as a childrenswear designer before building out the label’s nightwear, swimwear, lingerie, and activewear lines. Under Ballard, the collections lean into what she’s called “elevated everyday essentials” — a working definition Tu has backed up with size ranges that go up to a UK 22 for women and men’s sizing up to XXXX Large, plus dedicated Petite, Tall, and Maternity fits.

The Tu catalog today spans womenswear, menswear, kids, baby, and school uniform, alongside a roster of stocked brands that includes White Stuff, Regatta, Hush Puppies, and JoJo Maman Bébé — a range that puts Tu closer to a department store than a single-label supermarket rack.

Two decades after replacing a designer label with an in-house one, Tu’s case for itself hasn’t changed much: fashion that doesn’t ask you to make a separate trip.