Photo from Hello Magazine showing a range of Alice Temperley clothing modelled by Kate Middlton
ICSM Rag Trade Business News: High end fashion houses struggle as consumers cut back while the collapsed Temperley brand that owed £31m has done a phoenix and is already losing millions
By Harry Mottram: As the cost of living rises so personal budgets for buying clothes shrink. That stylish jacked for £250 might have to be binned in favour for something for a few pounds in a charity shop. Everyone – well not everyone as Kate Middleton the Princess of Wales was reported to have spend £176,664 on clothes last year – is having to cut back. Budget clothing stores and supermarkets that sell a basic range are doing well.
Writing for the Daily Mail’s business desk Adam Luck penned a piece entitled ‘Catwalks littered with losses for the Queens of Fashion.’ He reported on Stella McCartney’s £32.7 million pound losses – enough to break any company unless there’s some help from backers – and on the shocking losses at Alice Temperley who notched up £31 million in losses before performing a phoenix and setting up a new Temperley firm that is already posted £2.3 million in losses.
Adam Luck reported: “When Alice Temperley announced last January that she was intending to take her son to Sri Lanka to be ‘immersed in another culture’ it is unlikely creditors of her fallen empire were impressed. Only a month before it was revealed that her fashion brand Temperley London, a favourite of the new Princess of Wales, owed £31million when it went into administration in April 2021.
“Temperley simply set up a new company using a pre-pack deal to buy back the best assets, which enabled her to keep selling her trademark flowing sequined frocks and velvet suits, which have drawn a long list of admirers.”
Ian Carrotte of ICSM – the business intelligence group dedicated to preventing bad debts and warning its members of late payers – said the excuse that was given by the administrators it was Covid that finished the firm was not entirely true as it had been losing cash before the pandemic.
He said: “For suppliers there’s a danger of allowing these big names in fashion with their celebrity clients to fob them off with excuses for not paying on time. The old line that they are too famous to fail or worse ‘do you know who I am’ are often given – but in reality they are no different from any business. There is a pattern with the big names mentioned by Adam Luck which is the economy has pulled the rug from under their business model as customers seek lower priced clothing.”
In his article Adam Luck also mentioned Victoria Beckham whose fashion business that has accumulated losses of £66 million while model Alexa Chung’s fashion firm has run up losses of more than £10 million and is alarming suppliers by announcing she is to ‘wind down’ the business.
Ian Carrotte said other businesses in the sector that had hit the buffers included Misguided, Revlon, Secoo and M&Co.
Below are more names from the rag trade that have seen major problems. ICSM lists by each sector the financial casualties in its regular news stories and newsletters.
RAG TRADE: CLOTHING MANUFACTURING, FASHION, TEXTILES
ADMINISTRATORS APPOINTED
CUT4CLOTH LTD 05011885
MADE.COM DESIGN LTD 07101408
CREDITORS’ VOLUNTARY LIQUIDATION DEEMED IN CONSENT MEETINGS
CITY CLOTHING LIMITED 11898262
FASHION HOUSE (UK) LIMITED 04204878
LIQUIDATORS APPOINTED
ALBION APPAREL GROUP LIMITED 12398032
BELLA BOUTIQUE LTD 08945057
BRIDE & PROMS LIMITED 07040789
C C CLOTHING (ESSEX) LIMITED 10788054
EDA LINGERIE LIMITED 02932011
NEWGEN FASHION LTD 12266095
NOTTINGHAM APPAREL LIMITED 10988268
SIGN TEC CLOTHING LIMITED 04468550
WORKWEAR FOR ALL LIMITED 10763599
MEMBERS VOLUNTARY LIQUIDATIONS
NAPA FASHION LTD 09306424
PARKLANE TEXTILES LIMITED 02068339
PETITIONS TO WIND UP
BBTEXTILES13 LTD 08835143
HOUSE OF HANOVER LIMITED 08709336
VENTURA CLOTHING LTD 10748215
WINDING UP ORDERS
BOLTON TEXTILES (GROUP) LIMITED 10717887
UNITED FABRICS LIMITED 12418428