OPERATOR PERSPECTIVE
FRAME
One of the trailblazers in London’s boutique scene, Frame has returned to profitability and is gearing for growth – including via franchising – says co-founder Joan Murphy
How has London’s boutique scene changed? When this report last came out, in 2018, it was boom boutique studio time in London. There were lots of boutiques opening, meaning strong competition for any space and very high property prices. It was also a more prosperous time and people were in the office five days a week, so consumer demand was high. The big disciplines back then were indoor cycling, bootcamp/HIIT and various forms of yoga. Boxing and barre were also up there. Post-pandemic, we’ve seen a shift. Yoga has suffered the most as people are still doing this at home, following a favourite instructor they discovered during lockdown and with plenty of free content available online. We’re seeing lots of yoga studios either becoming multi-discipline or else converting to another discipline.
Boxing has also struggled to come back, not helped I suspect by government messaging around COVID that’s made people concerned around sharing equipment such as gloves. Indoor cycling is coming back fairly strongly now, as is treadmill-based HIIT, but I don’t see as many consumers returning to other forms of HIIT. The hot trend now is unquestionably reformer pilates, with a number of different variants appearing on the market. Even here, I’m not seeing many brand new sites opening yet, but quite a few existing boutiques are either converting to reformer pilates or adding it to their class portfolio. STRONG Pilates is definitely a brand to watch, though: an Australia-based reformer pilates franchise that’s a newcomer to the UK. It has just one London studio so
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LONDON BOUTIQUE STUDIO REPORT 2023
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