A BIG fashion retailer has shut one of its city centre stores for good after holding a closing down sale.
Fashion chain Tessuti, which is owned by Frasers Group, has closed its branch at the Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield.
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The retailer held a huge 70% off sale before it shut.
It’s not clear exactly when it shut but the store is now listed as “permanently closed” on Google.
The Sun has approached Frasers Group for comment.
Tessuti had stocked womenswear and menswear from high-end brands including Moschino and Versace Jeans Couture.
It also provided streetwear brands including Billionaire Boy’s Club, Represent and Maharishi.
The retailer had originally been owned by JD Sports but it was snapped up by Frasers Group in 2022 as part of a deal involving 15 brands.
Other retailers in the £47.5million deal included Watch Shop and Oasis singer Liam Gallagher‘s Pretty Green.
After Frasers Group acquired Tessuti, it closed around a third of stores.
Some of the closures included its locations in Stockport, Bolton, Bury, Warrington and Liverpool.
Tessuti also shut down its anchor store in Belfast last year.
Frasers Group also owns the likes of House of Fraser, Sports Direct and Jack Wills.
What does Frasers Group own?
MIKE Ashley’s Frasers Group owns dozens of high street and online brands, here is the full list.
- House of Fraser
- Sports Direct
- Flannels
- Evans Cycles
- Everlast Gyms
- Everlast
- Game
- Frasers
- I saw it first
- Gieves and Hawkes
- Jack Wills
- Slazenger
- Studio
- Sofa.com
- USA Pro
- USC
Other retailers which are part of Frasers Group have also shut stores in recent years.
Sports Direct has axed several branches, including its Cambridge store that will be closing on Friday.
Last year it also closed its stores in Central Six Retail Park, Coventry, and Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Another store in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, also closed last year.
Flannels said earlier this year it would be getting rid of three locations.
It will be shutting its Flannels Junior stores across Bluewater, Westfield Stratford and Westfield White City.
High street struggles
The news comes as more and more high street chains struggle to keep afloat.
They have been dealing with a perfect storm of difficulties including a move towards online shopping, increasing costs and lower footfall.
The Centre for Retail Research’s latest analysis suggests 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut for good in 2024.
Of those, 11,341 were independent shops while 2,138 were shut by larger retailers.
More than half of the shops closed because the owner was going through insolvency proceedings.
This is when formal measures are taken to deal with tackling a business‘s debt.
Why are retailers closing stores?
RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.
High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024.
End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker.
It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date.
This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023.
It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lockdowns.
The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker.
Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations.
Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes.
Professor Bamfield has warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”