A couple of shop closures wouldn't normally trouble the top end of TheBusinessDesk.com news list, but the slow erasure of its non-core brands by JD Sports Fashion is pretty significant.
In one sense, it’s just two shops in the sprawling JD Sports retail empire that have been earmarked for closure, amongst 4,850 worldwide, but the likely closure of Hip Store appears to represent another break with JD’s street fashion heritage.
Under the brands section on the JD website the only UK brands now listed are JD, JD Gyms, size? and Footpatrol.
63 Thomas Street, which was once the home of the mothership, Oi Polloi, has been a Hip Store since 2023.
Now that too looks like it will go the same way as those other influential boutique northern retailers - Oi Polloi, Aspecto, Hurleys, Scotts, and Wade Smith - that either get bought up by the big guns, then slowly disappear, get sold in a game of retail pass the parcel, or retreat online, priced out of the city centres. Yet without them JD as it is today wouldn't exist.
I hope this creates an opportunity for something else genuinely fresh and in tune with how fashion is evolving in our northern cities.
My posting of the story on LinkedIn sparked a fascinating series of contributions from people far closer to the retail frontline than I.
Requires a follow up and a chat to Tim at This Thing of Ours, Jess at Hurleys, and the people behind Outsiders.
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