Diesel, which yes, is still a brand, and yes, is still churning out its signature, and oh so Eurotrash “dirty denim,” filed for Chapter 11 this week.
As reported by Bloomberg, the company’s chapter 11 petition “estimates up to $100 million in assets and as much as $50 million in debt,” which the label blames on “plummeting sales, a botched turnaround, pricey leases and unwavering landlords,” — in addition to about $1.2 million in losses related to cyber fraud and theft.
But, unlike Payless, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and promptly announced 2,500 store closures, Diesel USA “doesn’t plan to shutter.”
The American division of the Italian conglomerate, which currently employs 380 people across 28 retail stores, intends to “restore” its standing in the US, by “opening new stores and retrofitting some old ones to make them cheaper to operate.”
Turnaround plans also call for the brand to “collaborate with social media influencers, enhance its denim collection for female customers, and relocate some stores to smaller cost-effective locations with reduced rent.”
While the story didn’t mention how much all of that will likely cost (our guess is a lot), it did say that the company — which, as a reminder, is what would happen if bottle service at a Midtown nightclub became jeans — still had $7.4 million in unsecured obligations to trade creditors. And in a very Fyre Fest twist (which is very on-brand for Diesel), the US Customs and Border Protection agency in Atlanta was listed as “its single biggest unsecured creditor.”
You can read more about it at Bloomberg.
