By midday last Friday, a large queue had formed in Mayfair, London, as shoppers lined up for one last chance to get their hands on one of the Vampire’s Wife’s signature and coveted Falconetti dresses, once worn by The Vampire’s Wife was called ‘the dress of the decade’. Fashion.
Earlier this week, the London-based brand, founded in 2014 by former model Susie Cave and whose designs have been worn by everyone from Kate, Princess of Wales, to Kate Moss, announced it would be closing, ending its tenure with a trio -day “farewell sale”.
“Despite a period of positive growth and sales, the turmoil in the wholesale market has had dramatic consequences for the brand,” it said in a statement. The closure was preceded by the collapse in March of one of the Vampire’s Wife’s biggest suppliers, online luxury fashion retailer Matchesfashion.
Matches was founded in 1987 by Ruth and Tom Chapman and originally existed as a single brick-and-mortar store in the London suburb of Wimbledon. It later expanded to 14 stores, introducing luxury international brands including Prada to the British capital, alongside emerging homegrown designers. In 2006, the e-commerce site was launched, and in 2017 the majority-owned Chapmans received around £400 million after selling Matchesfashion to private equity investors in a deal that valued the company at £800 million.
Now its demise has sent seismic waves through the fashion industry. “Fashion is an ecosystem – there is always a chain reaction,” says Olya Kuryshchuk, the founder and editor-in-chief of 1 Granary, a fashion education platform and creative network. Another fashion insider claimed that half of the independent brands previously backed by the online giant would not make payroll this month.
When Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group announced the acquisition of Matches for £52m late last year, CEO (and Ashley’s son-in-law) Michael Murray said he was confident the group would “unlock synergies and drive profitable growth for Matches”. Less than three months later, in a manner that blindsided both staff and suppliers, the group brought in Teneo administrators. In April, Frasers Group bought back the intellectual property, but not the shares. Few escaped the site’s implosion, and everyone from CEOs to cleaners have been affected.
This month, another London designer from Matches, Roksanda Ilinčić, announced that she had sold her eponymous label, Roksanda, to The Brand Group (TBG), citing “recent volatile market conditions.”
According to a report by Teneo, Roksanda was one of more than 500 unsecured creditors. Teneo said it is unlikely that the brands that owe Matches money will be repaid and if they were, the amounts would be “very low… less than a penny in the pound”. Most brands have also been unable to access unsold inventory, which continues to be sold on the site at heavily discounted prices.
The collapse of Matches has impacted established and emerging luxury British brands. Burberry owes more than £500,000, Anya Hindmarch owes more than £200,000, and Paul Smith and Samantha Cameron’s Cefinn owes more than £100,000 each. Independent London-based jewelery brands Alighieri and Completedworks are owed more than £70,000 and £110,000 respectively, in addition to losses from orders for the new season.
“The UK is currently the worst market for fashion in the world,” says Stefano Martinetto, CEO of Tomorrow, a fashion brand development platform. “The independent brands are terrified. We are at a tipping point. I receive hundreds of requests for financial support and new agreements. We have injected more than £25 million into independent designers over the last five years and almost £1 million in grants. Our goal now is to keep those companies.”
Matches’ demise has been exacerbated by the economic fallout from the pandemic, in addition to Brexit and the abolition of tax-free shopping for tourists. London Mayor Sadiq Khan and industry leaders, including Harrods and Selfridges executives, have backed a renewed call for the UK government to reintroduce VAT-free shopping for international tourists, which was scrapped in 2020.
“We have a lot of tourists in London. They eat ice cream and go to museums, but to buy luxury fashion, they jump on the train to Paris for a day,” says Martinetto.
Some insiders describe the state of the sector as “very worrying”. In December, another online luxury giant, Farfetch, narrowly avoided bankruptcy during a sale to South Korea’s Coupang, wiping out the majority of shareholders.
Some British clothing makers are now in financial freefall. Mustafa Fuat, the founder of Gosia London, which specializes in the production of luxury women’s clothing and until recently supplied Matches brands including Roksanda, described it as a “double whammy”. The same brands that owed him thousands of pounds were also unable to place future orders, he said. “We have a huge gap from now until August, and there is no work to fill it.”
Fuat has had to reduce the hours of his staff. “It’s very difficult – they’ve lived with me for a long time and have families and mortgages. If my company goes bankrupt, another twelve people will have gone down with me.”
Faut described the British fashion industry as imploding. He was hit by the collapse of London-based brands Ralph & Russo in 2021 and Christopher Kane in 2023, leaving him with a combined deficit of £85,000. With 30 years of experience in the textile industry, Faut said the current conditions were unsustainable.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Roy Powley who, with his partner Helen, runs Riverside Design & Textiles in Leicestershire, a company specializing in jersey fabrics. Oversized rugby shirts, sewn by Powley himself for Matches’ house label Raey, were once one of the brand’s bestsellers. He now has an unpaid bill of more than £13,000. With a “non-existent cash flow”, the 70-year-old, who has been in the textile sector for more than 50 years, said he had been forced to trade in his pension to keep the business afloat.
Many express frustration at what they say is a lack of government support for a sector that contributes more than £60 billion to UK GDP, claiming that government support is better in Italy and France.
Libby Hart, an adviser to the UK Trade Council, said British brands and factory owners had to “figure it out for themselves”. Powley has contacted his local MP, while others such as Anna Jewsbury, the founder and artistic director of Completedworks, have driven to the Matches warehouse to try to talk to administrators. Although Jewsbury was unable to personally reclaim shares, representatives of Victoria Beckham reportedly were able to do so.
While international brands appear to be developing a penchant for hosting big shows in Britain – last year Chanel went to Manchester’s Northern Quarter, Gucci presented a show at London’s Tate Modern this month and in early June Dior will hold an event in Perthshire in Scotland – reports of a mass exodus of British fashion are rife. London Fashion Week’s 40th anniversary program in September will be indicative of what homegrown talent survives. The June edition of Milan Men’s Fashion Week has already attracted many London-founded brands to Italy, with Martine Rose, David Koma and Dunhill on the programme. Paul Smith has worked as a guest designer at the Pitti Uomo platform in Florence.
“Design assignments are scarce. Art schools receive few student applications, and many creatives have already moved to Paris,” said Kuryshchuk. “These are complex problems, and it doesn’t help for everyone to try to tackle them alone.”
Teneo was contacted but declined to comment. Frasers Group previously said Matches “has consistently missed its business plan objectives and … continued to incur material losses. While Matches’ management team has attempted to find a way to stabilize the business, it has become clear that too much change would be required to restructure it, and that ongoing financing needs would far exceed the amounts the group considers considers viable. .”