The fashion and homewares retailer Matalan has announced the appointment of Adele Pickering (née Chidwick) as its new head of creative brand.

Pickering was formerly creative director at Marks and Spencer, in which capacity she oversaw the brand’s online fashion offering and overall creative direction across categories including womenswear, menswear and lingerie.

Prior to this, she worked as global beauty art director at the beauty company Avon for three years, and held various freelance art direction and design roles for fashion and beauty brands and magazines including Conde Nast, House of Fraser, Mango, Topman and Vogue.

Pickering will start in the role in November, leading Matalan’s brand identity across customer outreach, in-store marketing, and digital marketing.

Eilidh MacAskill, marketing director at Matalan, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Adele to Matalan. She brings extensive creative experience across some of the best known fashion and lifestyle brands, and will add real strength to our team.

“We’ve made significant progress over the last year in strengthening our product, brand and customer experience. Adele will play an important role in building on that progress and making sure the Matalan brand shows up distinctively and consistently wherever our customers experience it.”

Matalan has undergone a rapid reshuffle of its senior management over the past few months, amid a long-term transformation programme intended to improve its growth picture.

In August, its chief executive Henrik Nordvall left the firm after just six months in charge, leaving its chair Karl-Heinz Holland to take on leadership responsibilities as its new permanent executive chair.

At the time, the retailer said the decision had been made “by mutual agreement with the board”.

Just over one month later, at the start of September, Matalan’s chief operating officer Phil Hackney said he would leave the company after three years.

In its latest financial statement, Matalan said it had incurred losses of £55 million before tax in the year ending 28 February 2026, an 18 per cent improvement on the year before.

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