If you grew up in America at any time between,
say, the release of Clueless and the rise of
TikTok, so roughly 1995 to 2015, I can almost
guarantee you have a very specific sense memory
etched into your brain. It's not a song. And
it's not a movie quote. It's a color. A bright,
unapologetic, crinkly, canary yellow. The bag.
You're talking about the bag. I am talking about
the yellow plastic bag from Forever 21. At the
bottom of that bag, there was always that verse,
John 3 .16, printed in tiny letters. But inside
the bag. Absolute chaos. Total chaos. A sequined
skirt for $12. A graphic tee that made no sense.
Maybe a pair of sunglasses that would, you know,
break in three days. It was ubiquitous. For a
solid two decades, that yellow bag was a status
symbol. Not of wealth, obviously, but of participation.
Yes. If you were walking through a mall, a high
school hallway, or a college campus with that
bag, you were signaling that you were part of
the fast fashion revolution. Yeah. You had the
trend, and you got it for the price of a sandwich.
Exactly. It was the thrill of the hunt. You'd
walk into this massive thumping store music,
blasting at club levels closed, piled on tables
like a rummage sale, and you dig. But here is
the reality check, and it is a harsh one. As
of May 2025, that physical experience is gone,
completely erased from the United States landscape.
It really is the end of an era. And I want to
be clear about what gone means here. We aren't
just talking about a downsizing. No. We mean
the physical footprint in the U .S. has been
wiped clean. We're talking about a company that
once had global sales peaking at $4 .4 billion.
$4 .4 billion. A company that seemed absolutely
invincible, like the cockroach of the retail
world. It could survive anything. Until it couldn't.
And that is what we're unpacking today. This
isn't just a story about a store closing. If
you're listening to this and thinking, who cares?
It's cheap. clothes you are missing the bigger
picture you really are this is a deep dive into
a cultural phenomenon how does a company start
with eleven thousand dollars in savings literally
the price of a used honda civic grow into a global
empire and then crash and burn into bankruptcy
not once, but twice in six years. It's a trajectory
that perfectly maps the rise and fall of the
fast fashion model itself. We have a massive
stack of source material to get through today.
We do. We're looking at the complete timeline
from the founding in Highland Park, Los Angeles
in 1984, all the way to the final liquidation
sales in March and April of 2025. And finally,
it's strange zombie -like resurrection online
later that year. We're going to get into the
business. models the lawsuits oh man the lawsuits
are absolutely wild from ariana grande to adobe
photoshop and the supply chain secrets right
but i think to really understand how big this
collapse is we have to go back to the beginning
because before it was a global giant eating up
mall space it was just a tiny humble shop called
fashion 21 that's right and the story starts
with the classic american dream narrative but
with a level of hustle that is honestly exhausting
just to read about It really is. The founders,
Do Won Chang and Jin Suk Chang, were immigrants
from South Korea. They arrived in Los Angeles
in 1981 and they didn't exactly land with a golden
parachute. No, I read about Do Won Chang's early
years. He was working three jobs at the same
time. He was a janitor. He pumped gas and he
worked in a coffee shop. That is the definition
of grinding. It is. And while he was pumping
gas, he noticed something. He noticed that the
people driving the nicest cars, the Mercedes,
the BMWs, were all in the garment business. Ah,
there it is. That was his light bulb moment.
Fashion wasn't just about clothes. It was about
upward mobility. So they scraped together $11
,000 in savings. Which, even in 1984 dollars,
is not a lot of capital to start a retail empire.
Yeah. Just for inflation, that's maybe $30 ,000
today? About that, yeah. You can burn through
that in a month of rent in L .A. now. Easily.
But they made it work. On April 16, 1984, they
opened that first store. It was at 5637 North
Figueroa Street in the Highland Park District.
And it wasn't a massive flagship. It was 900
square feet. To give you a visual, that is smaller
than many two -bedroom apartments. And originally,
they weren't trying to take over the world, right?
Their focus was much smaller. Correct. The initial
business model was actually quite localized.
They were sourcing designs that were popular
in South Korea and bringing them to the Korean
-American community in Los Angeles. So a niche
audience. A total niche play. They were buying
merchandise at wholesale closeouts, getting the
best deals they could find, and selling it. at
a slight markup. But clearly the appeal went
way beyond just that one community because the
numbers for that first year are staggering. I
had to double check this when I saw it in the
notes. They are unbelievable. And that first
year of operation, that tiny 900 square foot
store pulled in $700 ,000 in sales. $700 ,000
from an $11 ,000 investment. That is the moment
where you go, OK, we're on to something here.
Absolutely. That's almost $800 per square foot.
That is Apple store levels of density, but with
polyester shirts. Precisely. That was the aha
moment. They realized this concept had mass appeal.
It wasn't just Korean Americans who wanted cool,
affordable clothes. Everyone did. So they changed
the name from Fashion 21 to Forever 21. Ah, the
rebrand. And this is where the strategy shifted
from local community store to fast fashion disruptor.
They began opening new stores at a breakneck
pace on average. A new store every six months.
Every six months. That is incredibly aggressive
for a new business, especially one that was family
owned and not swimming in venture capital money.
It was all about cash flow. They were reinvesting
everything. And unlike a lot of their competitors
at the time, think about the mall in the 90s.
You had Wet Seal, Contempo Casuals, 579. Oh yeah,
I remember those. Those stores were strictly
for teenagers. If you were over 22, you felt
weird walking in there. The Changs did something
different. They targeted the whole family. Right,
they wanted everybody. They wanted the mom, the
dad, and the kids. And to do that, they needed
space. Right, because I remember Forever 21s
being huge, like confusingly huge. You could
get lost in there. There were different levels,
weird annexes. That became their signature. The
average store size eventually grew to 38 ,000
square feet. But in the early 2000s, they made
a move that really signaled their ambition. In
2005, they acquired a chain called Gadzooks.
Oh, wow. Gadzooks. That is a blast from the past.
I definitely bought a puka shell necklace there
in 2001. We all did. But by 2005, Gadzooks was
bankrupt. Forever 21 bought the chain for $33
million. Now, here's the key business insight.
They didn't buy it because they loved the name
Gadzooks or because they wanted their inventory.
They wanted the real estate. They bought it for
the leases. Exactly. By buying Gadzooks out of
bankruptcy, they instantly acquired 150 locations
in malls across America. So it was a shortcut
to ubiquity. A massive one. By 2006, retail analysts
estimated their sales had jumped from $640 million
to $1 billion. They essentially bought their
way into every major mall in the country overnight.
So they're taking over the physical space. They're
replacing these dying brands. And they started
building these massive showcase stores. I read
about the one in Pasadena, 40 ,000 square feet.
Yes. Opened in 2006. It had everything. Accessories,
lingerie, men's, children's. They were positioning
themselves as a department store for the young
and trendy. A department store. That's a good
way to put it. And you have to remember the context.
2008 comes around. The Great Recession hits.
Most retailers are panicking. People are stopping
spending. But... Forever 21. They thrived. The
Chicago Tribune reported they were going gangbusters.
Gangbusters. You don't hear that word enough
in business reporting anymore, but it makes sense,
right? In a recession, people still want to shop,
but they can't afford Abercrombie or Banana Republic
anymore, so they trade down to Forever 21. Exactly.
The recession actually fueled their growth. They
were the cheap alternative. So we enter what
you call the golden era. This is roughly 2010
to 2015. Forever 21 is everywhere. The music
is loud, the clothes are cheap, and the sales
are astronomical. And this is when they hit that
peak number, right? By 2015, global sales hit
that record high of $4 .4 billion. And even a
few years before that, in 2011, their assets
were $1 .4 billion with $124 million in profit.
And amazingly, the family kept control this whole
time. No IPO. No IPO. The Changs didn't take
the company public. It was a very tightly controlled
family operation. Their daughters, Linda and
Esther. were in executive roles. Linda ran marketing,
Esther was in merchandising. So it was a tight
-knit operation at the top, despite being a global
behemoth with hundreds of stores. A very private
company, which made it hard for analysts to see
inside, but the growth was undeniable. Okay,
so they have the real estate, they have the family
control, but let's talk about the actual product,
because the defining characteristic of Forever
21 wasn't quality. Let's be honest, the quality
was suspect. Suspect is a kind word. The defining
characteristic was speed. I remember reading
that they could get a trend from the runway to
the rack faster than anyone else. How did they
actually pull that off? That speed was their
secret weapon. But it was also a logistical marvel.
The New York Times reported that while a traditional
designer might take six months to get a collection
from a runway show to a retail floor, Forever
21 could do it in six weeks. Six weeks? Sometimes
less. That is lightning fast. How does that physically
happen? You have to design it, source the fabric,
cut it, sew it, ship it. Well, this is where
their made in L .A. roots actually helped them
in the beginning. Unlike competitors who did
everything in China, Forever 21 kept a lot of
manufacturing local in Los Angeles for a long
time. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize
that. This allowed them to spot a trend, say
the specific dress, Paris Hilton. or manufacture
a few thousand units in downtown L .A. and truck
them to stores within days. That's the test and
repeat model, right? Exactly. They wouldn't commit
to a million units. They'd make a small batch,
throw it in the store, see if it sold. If it
flew off the shelves, they'd ramp up production
immediately. So they had a very agile supply
chain. Incredibly agile. It required a very high
inventory turnover. They were completely changing
out their merchandise every six to eight weeks.
If you saw something you liked, you had to buy
it then and there because it wouldn't be there
next time. Fear of missing out, weaponized as
a business model. But this brings us to the controversy.
Because you can't move that fast without cutting
some corners. A few corners, yes. And one of
the biggest questions people had was, who is
designing all this stuff? Because if you're releasing
thousands of new styles a month, you must have
an army of designers. You would think. But the
answer, controversially, was pretty much nobody.
Or at least not designers in the traditional
sense. What does that even mean? In 2007, the
company actually admitted this publicly. They
stated that they employed no designers. Instead,
they used what they called very savvy designer
merchants. Savvy designer merchants. That sounds
like corporate speak for professional copycats.
Well, that is certainly how the fashion industry
interpreted it. The company claimed that they
worked with many suppliers and didn't always
know where the ideas originated. Come on. But
the implication was clear. They weren't sitting
around sketching original art. They were spotting
trends, often on high fashion runways or on competitors'
racks, and replicating them for the mass market
immediately. But wait, isn't that illegal? I
mean, if I write a book, you can't just change
the character names and sell it. Why could they
do that with clothes? This is a crucial distinction
in U .S. copyright law. In America, you generally
cannot copyright the utility of an article of
clothing. You can't copyright the cut of a dress
or the shape of a sleeve because clothes are
considered functional items. You'd need sleeves
to cover your arms. You'd need a hole for your
head. The law sees that as function, not art.
Okay, so the shape is fair game. Right. However,
you can copyright a 2D graphic print, a logo,
or a specific fabric pattern. So Forever 21 operated
in this illegal gray area. They'd walk the line.
They would copy the silhouette of a Diane von
Furstenberg dress perfectly, but maybe change
the print just enough to avoid a lawsuit. Or
sometimes they wouldn't change it enough. And
that leads us directly into the dark side of
fast fashion. Because if you're replicating designs
that fast, you're going to step on some toes.
And by step on toes, I mean get sued. A lot.
The legal battles were constant. It was almost
a line item in their budget. By October 2007,
they were facing over 20 lawsuits related to
copyright infringement. Twenty. Just in one year.
And the list of accusers is like a who's who
of fashion. Diane von Furstenberg, Anna Sui,
Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Lovers brand. I remember
the Gwen Stefani One Harajuku Lovers. She had
those very specific anime -style graphics. Yes,
and those are 2D graphics, so they are protected.
But the Travada case was the most interesting
one to me. Travada was a smaller... cool contemporary
label, and they claimed Forever 21 copied their
designs button for button. And they took them
to court. They actually took Forever 21 to a
jury trial. Which almost never happens, right?
Yeah. Usually these things settle out of court
because the big company just pays the little
company to go away. Exactly. But Travato wanted
to make a point. It resulted in a mistrial initially,
but they settled before a retrial. But the evidence
they showed was damning emails, side -by -side
comparisons, where even the stitching quirks
were identical. It showed that designers were
getting fed up. And it wasn't just clothing designs.
In 2019, Ariana Grande sued them for $10 million.
And this wasn't about a song. It was about her
face. This is the right of publicity issue. Yeah.
Ariana Grande accused them of using a lookalike
model dressed exactly like her in the Seven Rings
music video to promote their clothes. Hey, let's
unpack right of publicity. Is that like copyright?
It's different. Copyright protects what you create.
Right of publicity protects who you are, your
name, your image, your likeness. It's why you
can't just put Taylor Swift's face on a billboard
to sell tires without her permission. Got it.
Ariana argued that by hiring a model who looked
like her, dressed like her, and posed like her,
Forever 21 was tricking consumers into thinking
she endorsed the brand. That is bold. It's one
thing to copy a dress. It's another to copy a
pop star's entire existence for an ad campaign.
But there was another lawsuit that I found absolutely
mind -boggling. And it wasn't about clothes or
pop stars. It was about software. Oh, the Adobe
case. This one peels back the curtain on their
internal operations in a way that is, frankly,
shocking. for a company of their size. Tell me
about this. In 2015, Adobe, Autodesk, and Corel
filed a joint lawsuit. They accused Forever 21
of using pirated versions of Photoshop, AutoCAD,
and PaintShop Pro. Wait, pause on that. We are
talking about a company making $4 billion in
revenue, and they were allegedly using cracked
versions of Photoshop, like a broke college student
trying to make a meme. That was the allegation.
They claimed they found instances of Forever
21 using serial numbers that had been key generated
illegally. Adobe claimed they were bullying them
over licensing fees, but the software company
said, no, you're using unlicensed copies to design
your store layouts and retouch your photos. That
just screams frugality gone wrong. It paints
a picture of a company that was trying to cut
costs at absolutely every level. even when it
made no sense. And when you say every level,
sadly, that includes the people working on the
floor and in the factories. Right. We have to
talk about the labor issues, because this is
a huge dark cloud over the Forever 21 story.
It really is. Yeah, this is where the American
dream narrative gets really complicated, because
while the Changs were succeeding, the people
making the clothes were struggling. In 2001,
there was a landmark lawsuit filed by the Asian
Pacific American Legal Center. They represented
19 gar - workers in Los Angeles who claimed they
were being paid less than minimum wage and working
in sweatshop like conditions. Sweatshop conditions
in L .A. Yes. We're talking about people sewing
Forever 21 shirts for pennies per piece, ending
up with wages far below the legal limit. And
Forever 21's defense was basically it wasn't
us, right? They tried to create distance. Standard
industry defense. They argued we don't employ
these sewers. We hire a manufacturer and that
manufacturer hires the sewers. If the manufacturer
breaks the law, that's not on us. Which is legally
convenient but ethically dubious when you're
the one demanding the shirt be made for $3. Exactly.
The lawsuit led to a three -year boycott and
a documentary called Made in L .A., which was
very damaging to their reputation. Did they change
anything after that? They eventually settled
in 2004 and agreed to take steps to ensure their
contractors were obeying the law. But the labor
issues didn't stop at the factories. The SOAR
employees, the ones in the malls, had their own
battles. The bag check lawsuit. This one makes
my blood boil a little bit. It's a classic case
of wage theft. In 2012, employees filed a class
action lawsuit. Basically, Forever 21 required
employees to have their bags checked before they
left the store to ensure they weren't stealing
merchandise. Which is, you know, understandable
for a retailer. Sure, but they made them clock
out before the bag check. So employees were standing
in line for 10, 20, sometimes 30 minutes unpaid,
waiting to be allowed to go home. That is just
treating your employees like suspects and stealing
their time. If you require me to be there, you
have to pay me. It's simple. The courts generally
agree, but it reinforced this image of a company
that viewed its workforce as a cost to be minimized
rather than an asset. And it wasn't just wage
theft. There were safety issues, too. On top
of that, you had OSHA fines for safety hazards.
We're talking blocked exits, boxes piled dangerously
high, fines in excess of $100 ,000 for stores
in New Jersey and Manhattan. It paints a picture
of a chaotic operational environment where speed
and volume took precedence over safety and protocol.
They were just moving too fast. But it wasn't
just legal and labor stuff. They had some major
PR blunders, too. Oh, absolutely. They had a
real knack for stepping in it. I remember the
allergic to algebra shirt. Algebra shirt. Yes.
They sold a shirt that just said allergic to
algebra and it got slammed for being anti -education
and frankly sexist because it was targeted at
young girls. Not a great look. And then there
was the diet bar incident in 2019. That was a
real head scratcher. People who ordered plus
-size clothing online started receiving free
Atkins diet bars in their packages. You cannot
make this up. The backlash was immediate and
intense. People accused them of fat shaming their
own customers. Forever 21 put out a statement
calling it an oversight and said the bars were
part of a promotion set with all online orders,
but... The optics were terrible. It's just so
tone -deaf. And didn't they try to sue a blogger
who was making fun of them? Yes. This is my favorite
one. A blogger named Rachel Kane started a site
called wtforever21 .com where she just poked
fun at their more ridiculous items. The company
sent her a cease and desist, threatening to sue
her. How did that work out for them? It backfired
spectacularly. It caused a stray sand effect.
The media picked up the story. The blog got a
million times more traffic and Forever 21 ended
up looking like a bully. They eventually backed
down. It seems like a pattern. They were fighting
on so many fronts, legal, labor, safety, PR,
while trying to maintain this breakneck speed.
And eventually the wheels started to come off.
They really did. Let's move to the beginning
of the end. The first collapse. This is around
2018 and 2019. To understand this collapse, you
have to look at the environment. This was the
peak of the so -called retail apocalypse. Malls
were suffering. Foot traffic was down. People
were shopping on Amazon. And Forever 21 was all
in on malls. They were particularly vulnerable
because of those massive stores we mentioned
earlier. The anchor tenant strategy backfired.
So the thing that made them successful was now
a weakness. Spectacularly. Remember, they bought
Gadzooks and expanded into 40 ,000 square foot
spaces. When foot traffic drops, a 40 ,000 square
foot store isn't an asset. It's a liability.
You still have to pay the bills. You still have
to pay rent, air conditioning and staff to cover
that massive floor. But the sales per square
foot were tanking. And they started pulling out
of international markets, right? I read they
left the Netherlands, Thailand, Ireland. Taiwan,
Japan. They were retreating. In 2019, global
sales plunged by 32 percent. A third of their
business in one year. That is a catastrophic
drop. If you lose a third of your revenue in
a year when you have high fixed costs, you are
in serious trouble. So in September 2019, they
file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the first one.
Right. And for listeners who aren't finance nerds,
Chapter 11 is reorganization bankruptcy. It's
not we're dead. It's we're broke. Please hold
off the creditors while we figure this out. So
what reasons did they give? What was the official
story? The reasons cited were overexpansion.
stores that were too big, and this is crucial,
a lack of a coherent e -commerce strategy. Which
is ironic, considering they were the brand for
young people, you'd think they would have pioneered
online shopping. Why were they so bad at it?
They were addicted to the physical store. They
saw themselves as a brick -and -mortar empire.
Their entire model was built around the treasure
hunt in the mall. By the time they tried to pivot,
Amazon and ASOS were already miles ahead. They
just missed it. They completely missed the boat.
So the consequence of that first bankruptcy was
severe. They ceased operations in 40 countries.
They closed 350 of their 815 international stores.
They basically retreated to their core markets,
the U .S. and Latin America. It was a massive
contraction. But they didn't die. They were rescued.
And this brings us to the zombie phase. Who saved
them? It was a consortium. In February 2020,
they were sold for $81 million. Whoa, stop. $81
million. You just said they had $4 .4 billion
in sales a few years prior. $81 million is. That
pocket change in the corporate world, that's
pennies on the dollar. It was a fire sale. The
value had evaporated. The buyers were Simon Property
Group, Brookfield Properties, and Authentic Brands
Group, or ABG. Simon and Brookfield. Those are
mall owners. Exactly. And that's the key to understanding
this. The landlords bought the tenant. Why would
a landlord buy a failing clothing store? That
seems like buying a sinking ship. Think about
it from the landlord's perspective. Simon Property
Group owns hundreds of malls. Forever 21 is one
of their biggest tenants, occupying huge chunks
of square footage. If Forever 21 liquidates and
closes all those stores, Simon is left with millions
of square feet of empty space that they can't
fill. It would devalue the entire mall. So they
bought Forever 21 essentially to pay rent to
themselves. So it's a defensive move. We have
to keep the store open or our mall looks dead.
Precisely. It's like a taxi company investing
in Uber just to keep the dispatch office open.
They formed a joint venture called Sparked Group
to manage it. So the landlord's on the store
now. They bring in new CEOs. They try to reinvent
the brand. What did that look like? Because I
feel like between 2020 and 2024, I saw some very
weird headlines involving Forever 21. It was
a struggle for relevance. They were throwing
spaghetti at the wall. They brought in Daniel
Cooley as CEO, then Winnie Park. They tried partnerships
to make the brand feel upscale or cool again.
Right, the collab. They did a collab with Hervé
Léger, which is very high -fat. known for bandage
dresses and Sports Illustrated, even Barbie.
And they tried to get into the metaverse. I distinctly
remember getting a press release about a Roblox
game. Yes. In late 2021, they hired Virtual Brand
Group to create Forever 21 Shop City. In Roblox,
players could operate their own Forever 21 stores.
It was an attempt to connect with that Gen Z
and Gen Alpha audience that they had lost. Kids
aren't coming to the mall, so let's build a mall
inside their computer. It wasn't the worst idea
in theory, but while they were playing in the
metaverse, their actual technology in the real
world was failing. We have to mention the Bolt
lawsuit. Oh, this is the one -click checkout
disaster. A total disaster. ABG, the new part
owner, sued a fintech company called Bolt Financial.
Bolt had promised a revolutionary one -click
checkout technology for Forever 21's app and
website. And it didn't work. According to the
lawsuit, the rollout was botched. ABG claimed
they lost $150 million in online sales because
the integration was so buggy. $150 million lost
because the checkout button didn't work. That
is a nightmare scenario for any retailer. ABG
called it disastrous. Denied the claims, of course.
But it just shows that even after the rescue,
the operational side of the business was struggling
to modernize. They couldn't get the basics right.
And then, in August 2023, came the plot twist
that nobody saw coming. The enemy entered the
building. The Sheen deal. Sheen, the ultra -fast
fashion giant, the company that basically looked
at Forever 21's business model and said, hold
my beer, I can do it faster, cheaper, and without
stores. Sheen ate Forever 21's lunch, dinner,
and Midnight Snack. Wow. In August 2023, Shane
acquired a roughly one -third stake in Spark
Group, the operator of Forever 21. Wow. It was
a bizarre moment. The disruptor Forever 21 was
partnering with the new disruptor Shine. It felt
like a surrender. If you can't beat them, let
them buy a third of you. It was an admission
that the market had shifted. We had moved from
fast fashion, which was mall -based, to ultra
-fast fashion, which is direct -to -consumer
apps like Shane and Timu. And Forever 21 was
stuck in the middle. Completely stuck in the
middle with expensive leases and slower production
cycles, while Shane had no physical stores and
used AI to predict trends instantly. And that
middle turned out to be a death trap. Which brings
us to 2025, the final nail in the coffin. The
speed of this second collapse was startling.
You'd think with Shane and Simon backing them,
they'd be safe. But in February 2025, reports
surfaced that they were trying to restructure
again. They were talking to landlords about cutting
rent. But the hole was too deep. What happened
in March? March 3, 2025. A bloody Monday. They
laid off 700 employees in California and Pennsylvania
and announced the closure of their Los Angeles
headquarters. The HQ closure is symbolic. That's
where it all started. The made -in -LA dream
died right there. It did. And then... Just two
weeks later, on March 17, 2025, Forever 21 filed
for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time.
But this time was different. How so? This wasn't
a reorganization. There was no plan to save the
stores. Why not? Why didn't Simon Property Group
swoop in to save them again? They did it in 2020.
The math didn't work anymore. Mall traffic had
continued to decrease and the competition from
Timu and Shine was just too fierce. The liabilities
were listed between $1 billion and $5 billion.
The assets were a fraction of that. So they were
truly broke. They explicitly blamed decreasing
mall traffic and competitors like Timu in the
filing. Even the landlords realized that keeping
these stores open was just burning money. So
immediate liquidation. Immediate. On the same
day they filed, March 17th, liquidation sales
began at all U .S. stores. Everything must go.
Fixtures, mannequins, hangers. By May 1st, 2025,
all U .S. locations were permanently closed.
Just like that. From 400 plus stores in the U
.S. to zero in less than two months. That is
whiplash. It is a breathtaking collapse. And
here is the Black Mirror part of the episode.
The name didn't die. Section 7. The digital afterlife.
The brand has become what we call a zombie brand.
The intellectual property, the name Forever 21,
is still owned by Authentic Brands Group. ABG,
the third partner in the rescue. Right. And ABG's
business model is fascinating. They don't make
clothes. They own names. They own Elvis Presley,
Marilyn Monroe, Reebok, and now Forever 21. So
they just license the name out to whoever wants
to pay for it. Exactly. In September 2025, it
was announced that Forever 21 would relaunch
as an online -only retailer. But who was running
it? It's not the Chang family. It's not Spark.
It's a company called Unique Brands. Unique Brands.
That sounds like a shell company in a spy movie.
They also own the digital ghost of the department
store, Bonton. The operations are sliced and
diced. A company called Mark Edwards Apparel
runs the women's wholesales. Another company
called Kids Concepts oversees children's wear.
So it's a Frankenstein monster, different parts
run by different companies, all wearing the skin
of Forever 21. That is a vivid but accurate description.
If you go to the website in late 2025, you are
buying a shirt made by Mark Edwards Apparel with
a Forever 21 tag slapped on it, paying a licensing
fee to ABG. The culture, the stores, the infrastructure
that the Changs built, That is all gone. It's
just a logo. It is now purely a marketing vehicle.
It's tragic in a way. I mean, thinking back to
that 900 square foot store in Highland Park,
the hustle of Du Wenchang pumping gas to save
up that $11 ,000, the sheer scale of what they
built. And now it's just a URL owned by a holding
company. It is the life cycle of modern retail.
Accelerated. Forever 21 revolutionized retail
by democratizing fashion. They made trends accessible
to Everyone, not just the wealthy. They told
a generation of girls, you can look like Paris
Hilton for $20. Right. But they failed to adapt
to the digital shift and they failed to reckon
with the ethical and sustainability demands of
modern consumers. And ultimately, they were eaten
by the very culture of speed they helped create.
That's the irony, isn't it? They were the fast
ones until someone faster came along. Exactly.
So if we look at the big picture here. What is
the takeaway for you? Because for me, it feels
like a warning sign. I think the provocative
question now is about the cycle itself. If Forever
21 was destroyed by Shane and Timu because they
were faster and cheaper and more digital, who
destroys Shane and Timu? That's a scary thought.
Is there something faster than ultra fast? Are
we going to have clothes 3D printed in our living
rooms? Or does the cycle accelerate to a point
where no retailer can survive long term? Are
we moving toward a model of disposable brands
just like we have disposable clothing? Brands
that pop up on TikTok, dominate for 18 months,
and then vanish into the ether. That is something
to think about the next time you're scrolling
through an app and see a $3 shirt. Indeed. Look
at the tag. There is a history there. And usually.
A clock ticking. Well, on that cheerful note,
thank you for listening to this deep dive into
the rise and fall of Forever 21. It's been a
journey from the yellow bag to the liquidation
sale. It certainly has. Check your closets, folks.
You might have a collector's item in there. We'll
see you on the next deep dive.