I Saw It First: How fashion brand worn by Love Island stars with Boohoo links followed in Missguided's footsteps

This week brought the news that another of Manchester's online fashion brands had been snapped up by one of the UK's largest retail groups. Frasers Group, the giant whose chief executive was Mike Ashley until very recently, has acquired I Saw It First for a currently undisclosed sum.

As a listed company, Frasers Group is likely to reveal the exact sum at some point in the future. Regardless, the news means that a second online fashion brand headquartered in Manchester has been bought by the owner of Sports Direct and House of Fraser in the space of as many months.

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It now joins a stable of brands owned by the group that also includes Game, Jack Wills and Evans Cycles. I Saw It First also follows in the footsteps of Manchester-based Missguided which was rescued out of administration by Frasers Group at the start of June in a £20m deal.

In a statement announcing its latest deal, Frasers said: "I Saw It First will benefit from the strength and scale of Frasers Group's platform and from the integration with Frasers' recently acquired business, Missguided."

I Saw It First was set up in 2017 by Jalal Kamani, the brother of Boohoo co-founder Mahmud Kamani. He was a founding director of Manchester-based Boohoo and previously served as its trading director.

But he also has a range of other business interests and in 2018 he invested a six-figure sum in Manchester-based fashion and footwear agency Crème Creative, taking a 50% stake.

Launched by Emma Nattrass-Daniels and her wife Katie, in January 2017, the former Boohoo staff had a roster of clients including Footasylum, New Balance, Lacoste, Mallet Footwear and Koi Footwear.

According to documents filed with