UK high street fashion giant’s collapse into administration

The April closure of the last 154 Claire’s Accessories UK and Ireland fashion accessories stores led to 1,300 redundancies, with the chain owing £20m.

Last year, two stores in Banbury, at the Castle Quay Shopping Centre and Banbury Gateway Shopping Park, shut and in April Claires at Westgate Oxford also closed.

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It came after Philip Dakin, Benjamin Wiles and Janet Burt of Kroll were appointed administrators of the company by the directors in January.

One likely winner from the Claire’s closure is the Accessorize chain, which still has a store at Westgate Oxford close to Clarks shoe shop.

Apparently staff have seen at uptick in the number of customers calling in for ear piercing.

An administrators’ report outlined the steps taken to try to save the fashion and accessories retail estate.

The brand originated in the United States, with headquarters in Chicago, and dated back to 1961. Claire’s expanded into the UK in 1995, when it acquired Bow Bangles, a British chain with 71 stores.

The US-based entity, Claire’s Holdings LLC, commenced proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in 2025.

In August 2025, Claire’s Accessories UK entered administration with Christopher Pole and William Wright of Interpath being appointed as administrators.

Most of the business and assets went to Modella Capital for a total consideration of £3.6m.

The administrators said that, in an effort to improve the viability of the company’s business, the directors “implemented a number of revenue generation and cost reduction measures including attempts to negotiate rent reductions with landlords, exiting where possible and seeking new concession partners”.

The administrators said: “Notwithstanding the above financial and operational turnaround measures, ultimately the cashflow and profitability of the company had been significantly impacted by the inability to secure negotiated rent reductions with the bulk of the company’s landlords, resulting in the trading positions of those sites needing to be re-assessed.”

They also said that one of the company’s major concession partners had signalled an “imminent termination of the concession agreement” which resulted in a significant reduction in projected cash flow.

It was also hit by poor trading performance in the last quarter of 2025 and “weak consumer confidence following budgetary measures impacting business rates, employee costs and taxes”.

They said events leading to the administration included “lower than anticipated trading performance, largely attributable to a combination of macroeconomic factors and changing market trends with low-cost and overseas online retailers gaining market share in the jewellery and accessories sector”.