Kevin Stanford: how clothes made the man

Fashion tycoon Kevin Stanford made a fortune by selling his share in Karen Millen, the womenswear chain he co-founded. Photograph: Rex Features

Kevin Stanford's business life started soon after the 20-year-old engineering student met Karen Millen, a fashion graduate, while both were on holiday in Morocco. By the following year they were in business together selling stylish work clothes for women. They married and by 1983 opened their first Karen Millen shop in Maidstone, Kent.

"I was never the driving force behind it. It was always Kevin," Millen said at the time. "He's the ambitious one. I've just gone along with it."

The business grew to more than 60 outlets and by 2001, after Stanford and Millen had decided to separate, the two founders agreed to sell almost half of the company to an Icelandic consortium led by Kaupthing.

Around the same time, Stanford met shop assistant Katla Jónasdóttir, 18 years his junior, at a launch party for a store franchise in Iceland. They went on to marry and set up a second home in a smart district of Reykjavik.

Having realised a tidy fortune, Stanford bought a £2.5m home in Kent where guests marvelled at his fast cars and enjoyed clay pigeon shooting and trout fishing on an estate where peacocks and midget ponies roamed.

According to one source, he spoke of introducing wallabies, too. Adding to the air of eccentric extravagance, guests were invited to drive round the property on a decommissioned fire engine.

By 2003 Stanford was keen to invest back into retail, teaming up with Kaupthing and the property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz to put together a takeover offer for the Selfridges department store.

That offer fell apart but Stanford was undeterred. A year later he had built his personal fortune further, selling his remaining stake in Karen Millen as the business was merged with Oasis, a business backed byBaugur – another Icelandic firm with bold ambitions in the UK – creating Mosaic Fashions.

Thereafter the fashion tycoon stayed close to the Icelandic investors, chiefly Baugur boss Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, with whom he shared several passions, from fashion retailing to fast cars. So close was Stanford's investment approach to Baugur that he took a stake of more than 8% in the business.

Also in 2004 Stanford joined a Baugur-led buyout of Big Food Group, the company behind cash and carry business Booker and the Iceland frozen foods stores. Subsequent property disposals and demerger deals were said to have generated substantial returns for investors.

A year later, Stanford appeared to cement his image as one of the retail sector's smartest investors, making £11m within a few months on a stake of 1% in Marks & Spencer.

In 2006 he joined another Baugur-led buyout, this time when department store group House of Fraser went into private hands. The situation was reversed when, that same year, Stanford invited Baugur to invest in All Saints, the fast-growing fashion chain he had acquired a year earlier.

Through Icelandic vehicle Unity Investments, Stanford and Baugur also built stakes in listed companies such as Woolworths, French Connection, Debenhams and Moss Bros.

Outside work, Stanford and Jóhannesson entered the Gumball 3000 rally, indulging their passion for fast cars. Business and pleasure seemed to converge in 2008 when All Saints was unveiled as a sponsor of Formula One team Williams, its logo appearing alongside Baugur-owned Hamleys and mydiamonds.com, a business arm of the Baugur-backed Aurum jewellery group that owns Goldsmiths stores.

It was a dream realised for Stanford: "I'm probably one of only a handful of non-professionals to have ever driven a Williams car and I'm thrilled to be able to sponsor such a great British team," he said. "This deal offers fantastic international exposure for All Saints and fits perfectly with our ambitions for the brand."

Eight months later, many of Stanford's dreams were shattered, much of his far-reaching investment empire laid waste in Iceland's system-wide financial crash.