[1] He traveled to England, founding Chester Barrie in 1935 and opening a factory in Crewe in Cheshire - midpoint between cloth mills of Huddersfield and the Port of Liverpool.
In 1989 the company won the Queen's Award for Export Achievement, and in 1998 started making the purple label suits for Polo Ralph Lauren.
[citation needed] SRG Group plc acquired the Chester Barrie Brand and worldwide licensing rights, and engage CCC to manufacture top-end bespoke suits.
[citation needed] Chester Barrie ran a number of concessions within department stores across the UK - including Harvey Nichols, Austin Reed, John Lewis and House of Fraser - where they offered their ready-to-wear tailoring as well as a Made To Measure service.
Chester Barrie's then-Buyer, Chris Modoo, doubled-down on the classic English look, bringing in Edward Sexton to help with the development of the brand's "block" ([6]).
However, this alienated the brand from the "mainstream" stores it had concessions in, which saw competitors, and the market as a whole, moving to softer-shouldered garments, a more contemporary silhouette and more lifestyle-led; and in 2017 Chris Modoo was made redundant by Prominent Europe.
There was some initial success, with a bumper year in 2018, as gross sales for Prominent Europe began to soar,[8] however this growth was down to the business having opened more locations in House of Fraser and less about the Chester Barrie brand itself, this was in spite of a £100,000 re-fit of the flagship ([9][10]).
In 2022 Prominent Europe sold Chester Barrie to a UK based private consortium with extensive industry experience and plans for the brand worldwide.