Topshop owner Arcadia goes into administration
Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins owner Arcadia has gone into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk. The High Street giant has hired administrators from Deloitte after the pandemic “severely impacted” sales across the group. No redundancies would be announced immediately, it said in a statement. And Arcadia’s stores will continue to trade as Deloitte considers all options available to the group. Read the full article via the BBC.
The inevitable collapse of Arcadia is a cautionary tale for British capitalism
Philip Green wasn’t much cop at capitalism. That may sound a strange way to describe a very wealthy man who lives on an ocean-going yacht moored in the tax haven of Monaco. It perhaps sounds doubly weird given that Arcadia consists of some of the best known names on the high street: Topshop, Wallis, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins among them. But even a halfway decent capitalist should have seen that the writing was on the wall for large swaths of traditional bricks-and-mortar retailing years ago. Read the full article via The Guardian.
What does the demise of Arcadia and Debenhams mean for British fashion?
There is nothing good about the news that Arcadia, the group which owns Topman, Topshop, Burton and more, has gone into administration. Combined with the rapid disintegration of Debenhams, it’s a body blow from which the British high street as we knew it, pre-COVID, will struggle to recover. Some 25,000 jobs in total may be lost and the giant buildings which housed these equally titanic businesses – former hubs of community and commerciality in the country’s most prosperous cities and towns – will be left empty. Read the full article via GQ.
Topshop: how the once trendsetting brand fell behind the times
The legacy of the Topshop women’s fashion chain started in Sheffield and London in 1964, in the basements of the Peter Robinson department stores. The aim was to sell fashion made by young British designers. Crucial to the brand’s early success was Topshop’s buyer Diane Wadey, who was known in the business for having a keen eye for young talent. Read the full article via The Conversation.
What the demise of Topshop means to me & other millennials
A decade ago, the idea that Topshop, the jewel in Arcadia’s crown, could be on the brink of collapse would have been unimaginable. In the mid 2000s, Topshop was at the peak of its popularity, collaborating with titans of fashion and music, from Kate Moss to Beyoncé. In an effort to prove that it was creating its own authentic trends, rather than being simply another catwalk copycat, the brand had its own much-anticipated spot on the London Fashion Week schedule. Read the full article via Refinery 29.