Footwear brand says store closures are permanent
London-based footwear brand Oliver Sweeney has announced it will not reopen its five stores in London, Manchester and Leeds. The business will seek to continue, selling online and through “select retail partners”.
The own-brand shops closed in March when the UK went into lockdown. In mid-July, managing director, Tim Cooper, announced that the store would remain closed permanently.
“This has been an extremely tough decision,” Mr Cooper said. “It is no secret that the economics of retail stores have changed for the worse in recent years. The additional uncertainty of covid-19 has only compounded the problem and made our stores untenable.”
He said the company’s online business “remains fully operational and robust” and that a new-season collection was in development.
Oliver Sweeney launched in 1989 and became well known in the 1990s after Brad Pitt and Noel Gallagher began wearing its shoes.
Throughout its history, it has sourced shoes from manufacturing partners in Le Marche in Italy, Guimarães in Portugal and in eastern India. Mr Cooper said the brand would continue to source “from the same great factories”.
