‘Deeply Concerning’: Vampire’s Wife Closure Shows Battle Faced by Independent British Fashion Brands

By noon final Friday, a big queue had fashioned in Mayfair, London, as consumers lined up for one final shot at getting their arms on one of many Vampire’s Spouse’s signature and extremely coveted Falconetti attire, as soon as known as “the dress of the decade” by Vogue.

Earlier within the week, the London-based model, based in 2014 by the former model Susie Cave and whose designs have been worn by everybody from Kate, Princess of Wales, to Kate Moss, introduced it was shutting down, ending its tenure with a three-day “goodbye sale”.

“Regardless of a interval of constructive progress and gross sales, the upheaval within the wholesale market has had dramatic implications for the model,” learn an announcement. Its closure was preceded by the collapse in March of one of many Vampire’s Spouse’s greatest stockists, the online luxury fashion retailer Matchesfashion.

Based by Ruth and Tom Chapman in 1987, Matches initially existed as a single bricks-and-mortar retailer within the London suburb of Wimbledon. It later expanded to 14 shops, introducing luxurious worldwide manufacturers together with Prada to the UK capital alongside championing rising homegrown designers. In 2006 its e-commerce website launched, and in 2017 the Chapmans, who held a majority stake, acquired about £400m after promoting Matchesfashion to non-public fairness traders in a deal valuing the enterprise at £800m.

Now its demise has set off seismic waves within the trend business. “Vogue is an ecosystem – there’s at all times a sequence response,” mentioned Olya Kuryshchuk, the founder and editor in chief of 1 Granary, a trend training platform and artistic community. One other trend insider claimed that half of the impartial manufacturers beforehand championed by the web big wouldn’t make this month’s payroll.

When Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group introduced its £52m acquisition of Matches late final yr, its chief government officer (and Ashley’s son-in-law) Michael Murray mentioned he was assured that the group would “unlock synergies and drive profitable growth for Matches”. Lower than three months later, in a transfer that blindsided employees and suppliers alike, the group known as in directors from Teneo. In April, Frasers Group bought back the intellectual property but not the stock. Few have escaped the location’s implosion, with everybody from CEOs to cleaners affected.

This month, one other Matches-stocked London-based designer, Roksanda Ilinčić, introduced she had sold her namesake label, Roksanda, to The Model Group (TBG), with “current risky market situations” given as the rationale.

Based on a report from Teneo, Roksanda was one in every of greater than 500 unsecured collectors. Teneo said the manufacturers owed cash by Matches have been unlikely to be paid again and, in the event that they have been, the quantities can be “very low … lower than a penny within the pound”. Many of the manufacturers have additionally been unable to entry unsold stock, which continues to be bought on the location at closely discounted costs.

The collapse of Matches has affected established and rising luxurious British manufacturers. Burberry is owed greater than £500,000, Anya Hindmarch greater than £200,000, and Paul Smith and Samantha Cameron’s Cefinn every greater than £100,000. The impartial London-based jewelry manufacturers Alighieri and Completedworks are owed greater than £70,000 and £110,000 respectively, alongside losses from new-season orders.

“The UK is the worst marketplace for trend on the planet proper now,” mentioned Stefano Martinetto, the chief government of Tomorrow, a trend model growth platform. “The impartial manufacturers are terrified. We’re at a tipping level. I’m receiving lots of of requests for monetary help and new agreements. Now we have injected greater than £25m into the impartial designers up to now 5 years and virtually £1m in grants. Our purpose is now to protect these companies.”

The downfall of Matches has been exacerbated by the financial fallout from the pandemic, alongside Brexit and the removal of tax-free shopping for tourists. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and business leaders together with executives from Harrods and Selfridges have backed a renewed call for the UK authorities to reinstate VAT-free purchasing for worldwide vacationers, which was scrapped in 2020.

“Now we have loads of vacationers in London. They eat ice-cream and go to museums however to buy luxurious trend, they soar on the prepare to Paris for the day,” Martinetto mentioned.

Some insiders describe the state of the business as “deeply regarding”. In December, one other on-line luxurious powerhouse, Farfetch, narrowly averted chapter in a hearth sale to South Korea’s Coupang that worn out nearly all of shareholders.

Some British clothes makers at the moment are in monetary freefall. Mustafa Fuat, the founding father of Gosia London, which specialises within the manufacture of luxurious womenswear items and till lately provided Matches-stocked manufacturers together with Roksanda, described it as a “double whammy”. The identical manufacturers that owed him 1000’s of kilos have been additionally unable to put future orders, he mentioned. “Now we have an enormous hole from now till August, and there’s no work to fill it.”

Fuat has needed to scale back his employees’s hours. “It’s actually troublesome – they’ve been with me a very long time and have households and mortgages. If my enterprise goes, that’s one other 12 individuals gone down with me.”

Faut described the British trend business as imploding. He was hit by the collapse of the London-based manufacturers Ralph & Russo in 2021 and Christopher Kane in 2023, which left him with a mixed deficit of £85,000. With 30 years’ expertise within the textiles business, Faut mentioned present situations have been untenable.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Roy Powley who, alongside his accomplice, Helen, runs Riverside Design & Textiles in Leicestershire, a enterprise specialising in jersey material. Outsized rugby shirts sewn by Powley himself for Matches’ in-house label Raey have been as soon as one of many model’s bestsellers. He now has an unpaid bill of greater than £13,000. With a “nonexistent cashflow”, the 70-year-old, who has been within the textiles enterprise for greater than 50 years, mentioned he had been compelled to commerce in his pension with a purpose to maintain the enterprise afloat.

Many specific frustration at what they are saying has been an absence of presidency help for an business which contributes more than £60bn to UK GDP, and declare authorities help is best in Italy and France.

Libby Hart, an adviser to the UK board of commerce, mentioned British manufacturers and manufacturing facility homeowners had been left making an attempt to “determine it out for themselves”. Powley has contacted his native MP, whereas others comparable to Anna Jewsbury, the founder and creative director of Completedworks, drove to the Matches warehouse to attempt to communicate to the directors. Whereas Jewsbury was not capable of reclaim any inventory in individual, representatives despatched by Victoria Beckham reportedly have been in a position to take action.

Whereas worldwide manufacturers appear to be creating a penchant for internet hosting main reveals within the UK – final yr, Chanel headed to Manchester’s Northern Quarter, Gucci hosted a show at London’s Tate Trendy this month, and in early June, Dior will maintain an occasion in Perthshire in Scotland – studies of a mass British trend exodus are rife. London trend week’s fortieth anniversary schedule in September will likely be indicative of what homegrown expertise survives. The June version of males’s trend week in Milan has already tempted many London-founded manufacturers to Italy, with Martine Rose, David Koma and Dunhill becoming a member of the schedule. Paul Smith has pivoted to the Pitti Uomo platform in Florence as a visitor designer.

“Design jobs are scarce. Artwork faculties are receiving few pupil functions, and lots of creatives have already relocated to Paris,” mentioned Kuryshchuk. “These are advanced points, and it doesn’t assist that everybody is making an attempt to battle them on their very own.”

Teneo was approached however declined to remark. Frasers Group beforehand mentioned that Matches “has constantly missed its marketing strategy targets and … has continued to make materials losses. While Matches’ administration group has tried to discover a option to stabilise the enterprise, it has change into clear that an excessive amount of change can be required to restructure it, and the continued funding necessities can be far in extra of quantities that the group considers to be viable.”

By Chloe Mac Donnell