Ivanka Trump's eponymous fashion brand is shutting down, Wall Street Journal reports.
The move arrives over a year after Trump distanced herself from the company and became an unpaid advisor to her father, President Donald Trump, WSJ adds. The brand's 18 employees were told about the shutdown today.
Sales for the Ivanka Trump brand grew after the 2016 election, but the label also came under fire by anti-Trump critics for its ties to the president. Department stores including Nordstrom, along with Canadian retailer Hudson's Bay, stopped selling the brand due to performance. A spokesperson from the former said "it didn’t make good business sense."
A source told Page Six that Ivanka's brand "never recovered" after she stepped away from the company to take on an official role in the White House in November 2016. She put the business in a trust run by family members, WSJ previously reported. Though she didn't keep a managerial role, she was still informed of finances and received a share of profits. Trump said she didn't sell the brand in order to protect its name (and hers).
When the brand announced the separation, it said its "mission is not political—it never was and it never will be." However, business and politics still mixed. The President criticized Nordstrom for treating his daughter "so unfairly" when it dropped her line, and senior advisor Kellyanne Conway encouraged the public to "go buy Ivanka's stuff" in an interview.
Ivanka also often wore looks from her own label during day-to-day appearances at the White House. Whether it was intentional promotion or not, she served as what WSJ called a "walking billboard" for her brand.
In the past 18 months, Neiman Marcus and T.J. Maxx either scaled back on selling pieces from Ivanka's brand or changed the way they're merchandised in store, WSJ reports. However, companies like Lord & Taylor and Saks Off 5th continue to sell the line.
The Ivanka Trump brand is a private business and doesn't publicly disclose finances, but its sales at retailers like Amazon, Macy's Bloomingdales, and Zappos fell by 43 percent in the past year. According to disclosure forms from June, the trust is worth over $50 million and made $5 million in 2017.
Seventeen months after working in Washington, the first daughter is unsure if she'll ever return to the retail business, "but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington,” she told WSJ. “So making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners.”
Trump's licensing agreements with the brand's parent company G-III will expire in the coming months, the newspaper adds. The umbrella company also owns labels like Calvin Klein, DKNY, Levi's, and Guess.
0 Komentar untuk "Ivanka Trump's Fashion Brand Is Shutting Down"