Do Received Chang was 30 years outdated in 1984 when he and his spouse, Jin Sook Chang, opened a store within the Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park and referred to as it .
The husband-and-wife crew, who emigrated from South Korea three years earlier, bought garments and attire to teenagers and younger adults at almost unbeatable costs. The 900-square-foot store introduced in $700,000 in income within the first yr and would flip into the style scene staple generally known as Ceaselessly 21.
At its peak, Ceaselessly 21 operated greater than 800 shops worldwide and earned billions in income. The model appealed particularly to younger ladies and helped usher within the period of quick style within the U.S., which refers back to the speedy, mass manufacturing of low cost clothes.
The corporate’s time within the limelight, nevertheless, is coming to an finish. The U.S. operator of Ceaselessly 21 plans to shut roughly 200 shops in addition to its downtown Los Angeles headquarters. The strikes reportedly are a part of an upcoming , the second in six years.
Almost working on the headquarters will probably be laid off starting in April, together with the chief monetary officer, in response to a with the California Employment Improvement Division.
Representatives of Ceaselessly 21 didn’t reply to requests for remark.
“Ceaselessly 21’s working firm, which is the model licensee within the U.S., continues to discover strategic choices, together with a possible sale, whereas additionally lowering prices and optimizing its retailer footprint,” a consultant for Ceaselessly 21’s operations proprietor Catalyst Manufacturers mentioned in a press release to Bloomberg. “The efforts are ongoing and no last selections concerning the result of the method have been made.”
Ceaselessly 21’s fall to close irrelevance from retail pioneer was pushed by a number of missteps, together with increasing too quickly, failing to maintain up with speedy modifications in fast-fashion traits and rising competitors from low cost on-line retailers, trade specialists mentioned.
“The unique house owners have been actually good at what they did and they also have been ramping up at warp velocity,” mentioned Nicole Craig, a professor on the Arizona State College Vogue Institute of Design and Merchandising and former Ceaselessly 21 company worker. “They have been very profitable for a very long time, however generally it may be laborious to take a teen model and make it larger.”
Craig labored as a senior purchaser for Ceaselessly 21 and later labored with it as a personal provider till 2019, when the corporate first filed for chapter.
As a part of the chapter course of, the corporate’s mental property was by Genuine Manufacturers Group and mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Companions. Ceaselessly 21 has been certainly one of Simon and Brookfield’s largest tenants.
To stem losses, Ceaselessly 21 might pursue one other chapter submitting that will contain the sale of belongings or the liquidation of remaining shops, Bloomberg reported.
Ceaselessly 21 at the moment has in California, together with a number of in Los Angeles County.
The shop at Santa Monica Place was largely empty Friday afternoon, with a couple of prospects benefiting from closing gross sales of as much as 40% off.
From its humble beginnings in Highland Park, Ceaselessly 21 expanded quickly within the U.S. and overseas, with the corporate’s income peaking at $4.4 billion in 2015.
As giant, now-defunct malls equivalent to Mervyns went out of enterprise within the early 2000s, Ceaselessly 21 moved aggressively into these areas.
“There have been a variety of large retail areas that abruptly grew to become obtainable,” Craig mentioned. “In hindsight, it most likely wasn’t an amazing transfer. The truth is we didn’t have sufficient enterprise.”
Throughout its heyday within the 2010s, Ceaselessly 21’s chief opponents have been Swedish style retailer H&M and Zara, which is owned by the Spanish multinational retailer Inditex. Though Ceaselessly 21 had carved out a distinct segment out there for teenage women, its specificity quickly grew to become limiting because it failed to draw older prospects.
“The distinction is that Ceaselessly 21 was actually seen as a teen model, whereas H&M and Zara weren’t,” Craig mentioned. “It may be very laborious to alter public notion.”
Rising competitors from on-line retailers
Ceaselessly 21 faces heavy competitors from online-only retailers together with Temu and different up-and-coming manufacturers equivalent to Edikted, which supply extra merchandise at a lower cost level. In 2023, Ceaselessly 21 introduced a partnership with Singapore-based fast-fashion retailer Shein during which it could carry Shein merchandise in its shops, becoming a member of forces with a main competitor.
Vogue Nova, one other Los Angeles-based fast-fashion retailer that operates largely on-line, additionally has minimize into Ceaselessly 21’s buyer base.
“The issue was, Shein and Temu grew to become the elemental leaders of quick style,” mentioned Ilse Metchek, former president of the California Vogue Assn. “There was no approach that the costs in Ceaselessly 21, on condition that they must pay hire, would match the costs that have been on-line.”
Moreover, Metchek mentioned, Ceaselessly 21 didn’t make investments sufficient in promoting and on-line merchandising. It additionally didn’t construct relationships with influencers who might appeal to younger customers on social media.
“In the present day’s youngsters have moved on,” she mentioned of Ceaselessly 21. “It will likely be a part of the story of the trade of quick style. They’ll go away a legacy of the way in which they started from nowhere into the large that they as soon as have been.”
Some chains have rebounded by creating a brand new title to enchantment to a brand new buyer base. The house owners of the retail chain City Outfitters, which largely markets to younger adults, opened Anthropologie in 1992 to offer a spot the place younger customers might graduate to, Craig mentioned.
Equally, Victoria‘s Secret created the Pink model to serve youthful prospects with out sacrificing the mature status of the unique model. Abercrombie & Fitch additionally got here again from the brink.
For Ceaselessly 21 to hold on, it most likely must change its title and picture, trade analysts mentioned.
“Ceaselessly 21 was the model that the previous technology used,” mentioned Roger Beahm, a advertising professor and director of the Retail Studying Labs at Wake Forest College. “In the present day’s customers need their very own model, they need their very own identification.”
The recognition of — broadly thought-about unsustainable and detrimental to the atmosphere — additionally has fallen drastically, taking successful on the general public notion of Ceaselessly 21. Different main manufacturers have began sustainability initiatives to fight its .
“H&M and Zara are nonetheless seen as quick style, however they’ve been in a position to escape among the daggers which have hit Ceaselessly 21,” Craig mentioned. “Quick style is simply not what most prospects are searching for proper now.”
Consumers in 2025 even have a distinct relationship with brick-and-mortar shops and procuring malls, Beahm mentioned. Earlier than the pandemic, malls have been a spot for teenagers to socialize, dine and store. Now, with all generations accustomed to procuring on-line, malls aren’t as common of a vacation spot, he mentioned.
“Even the place the shops are positioned has been a handicap for them when it comes to broadening their enchantment,” Beahm mentioned.
Ceaselessly 21 has made different makes an attempt to widen its buyer base by providing males’s and kids’s choices along with attire for younger ladies. However in doing so, they diluted the unique focus of their model, Beahm mentioned.
“The struggle is gained and misplaced within the thoughts of the buyer,” he mentioned. “Ceaselessly 21 is now not in a position to attain the guts and the thoughts of their unique prospect. In my view, getting again there from the place they’re now could be subsequent to not possible.”
