High street fashion retailer Select Fashion is set to close 12 branches in the coming weeks with most of the shops affecting the North East of England – it comes as the high street is on a steady decline
A major fashion retailer with more than 100 stores nationwide is set to shut 12 branches in just weeks.
High street retailer Select Fashion will close a dozen branches over the next few weeks, with most of the shops closing in the North East of England.
Sites across Peterlee, Southshields and Ashington will be affected – and follow closures by the store last year. Back in 2019, the British fashion brand – owned by Turkish entrepreneur Cafer Mahiroğlu – fell into administration.
At the time of the announcement, the retailer blamed the unforgiving conditions on the high street. It was later bought out of administration by Genus UK Limited.
Recent filings on Companies House – the UK’s register of businesses – show Select Fashion entered into a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) last summer. A CVA is a method of restructuring which allows a business continue trading by negotiating its debts, such as cutting rent costs with landlords.
Where are the closures set to happen?
Several household names have once been in a CVA, including Caffe Nero and Body Shop. According to the Sun, the list of stores include:
- Southshields
- Peterlee
- Thornaby
- Hartlepool
- Scarborough
- Hull Hessle
- Hull St Stephens
- Ashington
- Scunthorpe
Select has already made several closures this month, including sites in Wolverhampton and Kidderminster – both closed at the start of the year. The news comes as residents in Scunthorpe described the move as another “nail in the coffin” for the area, which has been plagued by closures including Argos, which shut last year.
Previously, the Daily Star reported Ton how the founder of a major high street brand revealed the main reason why they’ll be one of the ‘last standing’ in the on-going shop closure cull.
British streets have been rapidly riddled with boarded up shops and permanently closed shutters as brick and mortar stores fall into a ‘vicious cycle of decline’.
Brands that were once household names have fell victim to the brutality of shop closures, where thousands have lost jobs and streets are readily becoming eyesores.
However, there’s one shop that has been predicted to be the ‘last one’ standing and that’s the fresh cosmetic retailer, Lush.
Last year, we spoke with expert trend forecaster Disha Daswaney who explained: “Lush will be one of the last brands standing because of the way they constantly innovate from a retail perspective.”
As the brand behind the bath bomb reaches its 30th birthday, we have now spoke with one of the co-founders of Lush, Rowena Bird, to understand why she thinks – and hopes – the shop will withstand the high street closure apocalypse.
The business woman exclusively told us: “The thing that we have realised is that you have to remain relevant.
“And that’s the most important thing, to be relevant. If you just keep your brand the same as it’s always been, then people will just think ‘same old, same old’.
“Whereas for us, we are always introducing new product or we’re doing a campaign so will be in peoples faces with that. We’ve also started doing the collaborations now, which is our latest biggest ‘thing”
“By introducing those they will be introducing other people to you. We’ve done ‘Super Mario’ and ‘Minecraft’ so people will think ‘Oh Lush have Super Mario and Minecraft too – it’s got Wicked and Shrek’.