Harvey Nichols has been saved by Mike Ashley but I fear it will never feel the same again

It has been announced this week that Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group bought Harvey Nichols out of administration, securing more than 1,000 jobs and keeping its six UK stores, including my local Leeds branch, in business.

It is, objectively, a brilliant outcome - and certainly better than the alternative. Harvey Nichols had warned that without fresh investment it could face having to cease trading. That would have meant so many people would have lost their jobs and our country would have lost a fashion and retail powerhouse. It would have been a huge loss in more than one way.

So, in some sense it is very fortunate that Frasers has stepped in when the luxury retailer, which has an almost 200-year history, was in serious trouble. But, if I’m really honest, learning this does leave me feeling slightly deflated.

That’s because I can't help wondering that although Harvey Nichols has been saved in principle, this will only be from a business and name perspective and the very essence of what that name represents, and has represented for so many generations, is about to be lost.

I should probably admit an important fact here: I am not a Harvey Nichols shopper. I could only hope to have the amount of money to be able to call myself a Harvey Nic’s customer. Or, at least in a meaningful way.

I go in to the Leeds store very occasionally and wander around purely to look at how pretty, glamorous and classy everything is. I hold my hands up, I don’t have the slightest intention of buying anything usually. I treated myself to a lipgloss once from one of the beauty counters with some birthday money, and that’s it.

But I still love it because it’s highly aspirational and just so elegant. There is something about walking through Harvey Nichols that makes me feel as though I’ve briefly stepped into somebody else's life, but that it may be possible for me one day. Everything is beautiful. The clothes are beautiful. The beauty counters are beautiful.

That is part of what Harvey Nichols has always been selling. It wasn't simply handbags, perfume and designer clothes. It was the feeling of entering a totally new and unique, but impossibly stunning, world.

I can remember that feeling particularly vividly from when I was a teenager. That was when I first went into Harvey Nichols and the doorman let me in. I was so pleased about it. In my mind, he was was effectively the gatekeeper to a world of glamour and luxury and the fact that he looked at me and decided I was allowed through the door gave me such a huge confidence boost.

That is the magic of Harvey Nichols that isn’t felt anywhere else, and I worry that won’t be preserved now the business is officially changing hands.

Frasers Group has already said that significant change is needed. I suppose that is inevitable given that a rescue buy-out was needed in the first place. Perhaps there’s just too many people like me who love to look but don’t have bank balances big enough to buy.

Frasers has described Harvey Nichols as needing a substantial turnaround, with the possibility of becoming a smaller business in the short-term. Quite what that means remains to be seen.

Perhaps that is exactly what Harvey Nichols needs. Perhaps the brand has simply become too expensive to run and is too too detached from the way people shop now. Perhaps Mike Ashley is precisely the sort of retail mogul needed to strip away what isn't working and make it commercially viable again.

Ultimately, I hope he succeeds because I want the Harvey Nichols name to celebrate its 200 year anniversary in 2031, and then hopefully have another 200 plus years ahead.

But I also can't escape the feeling that the association with Frasers’ Sports Direct somehow cheapens Harvey Nichols. That sounds horribly snobby when I write it down, I know, but I’m being honest.

Sports Direct is one of Britain's biggest and most recognisable retailers, but it doesn’t exactly luxury or opulence, does it? I say that with the full disclosure that I am not the target customer for Sports Direct any more than I am the ideal Harvey Nic’s shopper. But, still. The two are so wildly different, I just don’t see how the two can co-exist under the same ownership and both keep what they are known for.

And it won’t be Sports Direct to change because that has proven to be a successful business model for Mike Ashley in recent years.

I am well aware that Frasers has built a huge retail empire and has also been moving further into premium and luxury fashion, with brands such as Flannels. But even Flannels is completley different to Harvey Nichol’s for me, even though you could argue they may attract the same customers due to them each selling designer goods.

Flannels, however, has more than 80 stores across the UK. It’s a proper chain store, and they all seem to look the same. Whereas Harvey Nichols only has seven stores across UK and Ireland, at least for now. Not only that, each one has been created to look and feel different, making use of localised interior concepts from the areas they are located. It’s that unique element I also love. I am hoping that Mike Ashley doesn’t apply his Flannels cookie cutter approach design to Harvey Nics, but I fear he will.

This isn’t a criticism of Mike Ashley’s ability to run a business. He’s already shown he can do that very successfully. But, I do worry about what he name association will do the Harvey Nichols brand thanks to the approach he seems to take.

There is a danger, I think, in that in trying to make Harvey Nichols commercially successful, Frasers could remove the very thing that made it special.