"Some guy took 51%," Allen says. "That's when it all started going a bit funny. When you get investment, they expect every year to get bigger and bigger sales and our sales started slowing down and we got another investor. Then we started doing retail." The retail store happened after his getting his second investor, a Palestinian businessman who ran a Yorkshire mill, they opened a store in Golden Square. It worked well for Charlie. "It helped establish me as a name. It's easy for the press, they can see you and if you don't have to worry about paying the rent it was great." And it was great, until the backer moved on "He moved into sweets," says Charlie. Which made the backer a huge profit (he repackaged Cadbury's flakes and sold them to the Arab states). From there Charlie eventually started his own store on Upper Street.

The investment deal prior to the one with the chocolate-loving backer didn't work well in the long run, resulting in the loss of his name for three years and his license in Japan. And this was all happening at the same time as Paul Smith's rise, who was also looking for investment. "Paul Smith did the most amazing deal and I signed up with these guys who were just the wrong 'uns. They still have my name [in Japan] to this day". It was during the three years that he lost his name that he went back to the RCA as a tutor. His students included the likes of Aitor Throup and Lou Dalton.

It was the RCA connection that helped when Umbro were looking for a new shirt designer. It was another former student, David Blanch, who recommended Allen. He designed the shirt like it was a bespoke shirt for two reasons; the first being that he's a tailor and the second being that, prior to mass market production, this is how all sports attire was made. "All football shirts at the turn of the century were done by tailors. So if you wanted a tennis shirt in 1902, you'd go to your tailor. I used the same principle designing these shirts". So he had the shirts made to measure, taking chest size, collar size, custom short lengths and darts, "The sort of darts you'd usually get on a suit" He states.

All the extra work and the high percentage of cotton (when most football shirts were made from synthetics) led to a higher price. Unsurprisingly, the price hike wasn't well received by newspapers. "The Daily Mail was the worst," Charlie says. "There was all this mystery about who did it. They said I was 'some tailor from islington'. I was a celebrity for a week, it was great."