High street fashion chain to close all seven UK stores next year in major shake-up
High street fashion chain Monki will be closing all of its UK branches next year.
Monki has seven stores in the UK, including on London's Carnaby Street and in the Manchester Arndale shopping centre. In a recent update, H&M, the fashion brand's owner, said it plans to either shut down Monki stores or merge them with fellow fashion brand Weekday. Weekday is another one of its brands that aims to target younger customers.
The Swedish retail giant said it wanted to combine the two brands to create a one-stop shop that is the "ultimate youth destination for style and creative expression". The statement from H&M read: "A limited number of Monki stores are intended to be transformed into multi-brand Weekday destinations, while the others are intended to be closed. The newly formed Weekday multi-brand destination will cater to customers’ high aesthetic standards while embracing their multitude of unique expressions."
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Monki currently has seven stores across the UK, and these include:
- London
- Bristol
- Birmingham
- Glasgow
- Sheffield
- Manchester
- Newcastle
Weekday has five locations in the UK, all of which are in London. It is currently unknown which locations and how many will be merged with the Weekday brand. All stores are currently – and will continue – operating as normal, with no date given for the proposed closures. Monki's online store will also continue to operate normally during this time. H&M has also not given details about the number of employees involved and whether jobs will be protected.
According to H&M Group's own information published in August this year, Monki is currently active with 56 stores in 15 markets. The brand also operates webshops in 29 countries. Weekday, meanwhile, has 47 stores in 14 markets and 29 regional online web shops.
Last year, H&M cut around 150 jobs at Monki's head office in Gothenburg, Sweden, as part of the merger of Monki and Weekday. At the same time, H&M announced a return of a “small assortment of jeans” from its Cheap Monday brand, which shut its doors to shoppers in 2019.
In September, the fashion brand told the Financial Times that it had "all but abandoned its profit target" for the year as it struggled to boost margins due to higher material and marketing costs and intense competition from rivals such as Shein and Zara.
Daniel Ervér, H&M’s chief executive since January, told the publication that the company believed it would reach its operating profit margin target of 10% eventually “but it will not happen in 2024”. H&M’s operating profit margin fell from more than 20 per cent in 2010 to just 3.2% in 2022, before rebounding to 6.2%. The Mirror has approached H&M for comment.
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