A TRENDY clothing chain has abruptly shut another store ahead of disappearing from the high street forever.
Monki, which is owned by H&M, has quietly closed down it’s flagship store on Carnaby Street in London.
It draws a line under a 12-year stint on the popular London shopping street known for housing funky brands.
The store has now vanished as H&M continues with its plans to integrate the brand with another one of its fashion lines, Weekday.
News of the closure will come a blow to shoppers, who in the past described it as their “favourite store” in the world.
While another fan said the clothes were “amazing quality” and “look so good”.
H&M already pulled the shutters on Monki branches across Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Sheffield earlier this year.
Remaining stores in Bristol andGlasgowwill also close later this year or be transformed into a new concept store.
Monki’s online store has also closed down with the brand now only available to shop through the revamped Weekday website.
You can check out the full list of stores here:
- Arndale Shopping Centre, Manchester -closed January 12
- Birmingham city centre -closed March 6
- Eldon Square Newcastle -closed January 2025
- Sheffield – closed June 2025
- Carnaby Street, London – closed June 15 2025
- Bristol -open
- Glasgow – open
A previous 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.”
As part of the process, H&M has also revived its Cheap Monday brand and begun selling it in select Weekday stores and online.
The fashion line was a hit during the early noughties, but H&M axed it in 2018, blaming poor sales.
The brand has rolled out collaborations with Landon Barker, the step-son of Kourtney Kardashian, as it looks to grab the attention of young shoppers.
Weekday currently has five locations in the UK, all of which are in London.
Like Monki, it caters towards a younger audience and sells trendy fashion pieces.
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
High street retailers have been struggling to compete with the likes of Shein and Temu, which sell fast fashion products at an ultra-low price.
The rising cost of living has also meant that customers have less money to part with when they do hit the shops.
This cocktail of rising costs and changing consumer habits has battered the high street over the last few years, with a number of popular brands reducing their estates.
River Island will shutter a branch in Banbury on June 28, as it is set to undergo a restructuring due to tough trading conditions.
The fashion brand, which has been sported by Paris Fury and Cat Deeley, has quietly closed a number of stores in the past few months.
A branch in Willows Place, Corby closed in April and a separate site in Vicar Lane Shopping Centre in Chesterfield closed in the same month.
Elsewhere, New Look has closed its entire estate in the Republic of Ireland.
Earlier this year, Select Fashion closed 35 branches across the UK after it entered into liquidation.
Ted Baker was also forced to close over 30 stores last year after it went bust.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”