While Fast fashion has been known to thrive in nearly every consumer setting — an industry tardigrade, if you will — a recent piece from Glossy posits that the malls of the future will have far more DTC brands and experiential spaces, and far less department stores and fast fashion outlets.
As the story notes, it’s been a tough few years for fast fashion: Delia’s doesn’t exist anymore, Forever21 announced Chapter 11 proceedings last week, Topshop is shuttering all 11 of its U.S. stores. and Charlotte Russe said it would “liquidate and close all 500 of its stores” following its own bankruptcy filing.
Add to that H&M’s lackluster three-year run and Zara’s “slow growth” and recent commitment to e-commerce, and the era of fast fashion’s mall dominance certainly seems to be winding down.
Now, “developers behind new shopping centers have been increasingly gunning for DTC brands over the familiar mall stores, along with service- and entertainment-based companies that work to drive foot traffic,” the story said.
Concurrently, landlords of existing malls are now being “forced to get more creative,” as places like Forever 21 “leave department store-sized holes” in their over-leveraged wake.
“Fewer department stores are opening,” one executive said. “Nobody needs a large physical footprint with the urgency we used to see. Now it’s about realigning online consumerism and the big boxes that remain.”
You can read more about it at Glossy.
