Princess Kate and her fashion confidantes received some bad news earlier this month: LK Bennett, a brand once synonymous with Kate’s style, has started administration proceedings. The British brand is looking for a new buyer to avoid total collapse. While the store was once a staple of the high street—the main shopping streets in the United Kingdom, similar to the biggest shops in major shopping malls in the US—and a go-to for summer social season events like races and weddings, it seems to be on the brink of closing down altogether.
At the same time, one of Princess Kate’s favored brands, Tabitha Webb, also filed for administration. Many high street brands are slowly disappearing, with brands once favored by the Princess of Wales ceasing to exist. “Very few premium high street brands have survived in their original form,” a fashion retail source told Drapers. “If you look at the market pre-Covid versus today, most premium players have either been rescued, shrunk significantly or disappeared altogether,” he added, citing some of Princess Kate’s favorite brands of the 2010s like Whistles, Hobbs, Jaeger, and Ted Baker, all of whom were acquired by other companies.
