The Covid-19 epidemic suddenly came to accelerate the triumph of online fashion in the UK. In eight days, two iconic brands of British businesses, which had gone bankrupt in recent months, were bought by fashion sites present only on the Internet. But only the brands were saved. The stores – and their 23,000 jobs – have not found a buyer.
Monday 1er February, the Asos site acquired for 265 million pounds sterling (300 million euros) brands that were the darlings of the 2000s: Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge… So many gems of the Arcadia group, which filed for bankruptcy in November 2020.
On January 25, Boohoo, a competitor of Asos, had bought, for 55 million pounds, the Debenhams brand, department stores almost bicentennial.
“It is not our model to manage shops “
In both cases, Asos like Boohoo only buy the brands and part of the stocks. The stores will be sold individually to any retailers who still dare to try the adventure of “face-to-face” sales. “It is not our model to manage shops “, explains without appeal Nick Beighton, CEO of Asos.
These two acquisitions are going to have a profound impact on the way the British shop. Fifteen years ago, Topshop stores were the meeting place for young teenage girls, who could spend whole Saturdays there. Its huge flagship of Oxford Street, in the heart of London, was visited by tourists. The brand was at the forefront of the fast fashion, this fashion inspired by the latest ready-to-wear collections, quickly and inexpensively reproducing the successes of the moment.
Debenhams’ triumph dated back longer. Its department stores were the temples of consumption in the 1980s. Their closure marks the end of another world, older, more provincial too.
Huge dividends
In both cases, the advent of the Internet was not the only factor in their failure. Philip Green, the magnate at the head of Arcadia, has used huge dividends. The tax exile, officially registered in Monaco, known for its gigantic yachts and its flowery language, has emptied the group’s reserves. His refusal to invest was accompanied by his blindness to online competition, he who had started at the bottom of the ladder by reselling surpluses and abandoned clothing stocks. For its part, Debenhams has gone through a series of short-sighted financial buyers in recent decades, all of whom have further impoverished the group.
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