Store 21, a new high street fashion chain, offered to give away £50 of free clothes to the first 21 customers who turned up wearing nothing but underwear for the opening of their Daventry store.

A band of hardy shoppers – undeterred by the wintry weather – gathered outside the Foundry Walk store on Saturday, minus their outer clothes.

A spokeswoman for the shop said take-up of the special offer had been slow at first, but more people took advantage of the free clothes once they had seen what was going on.

She said: "It was really good fun. There were lots of people watching what was going on. People just turned up and we had a real range of people.

"It was a bit slow at first: there were only a couple of people. But when other people saw what they were doing they said 'well why not' and joined in."

The Foundry Walk shop is one of the first Store 21s to open in the country.

The company behind it, QS, plans to open more than 200 shops, which sell men's and women's fashion, by the end of next year.