'Childhood memories' - why nostalgia wasn't enough to save Claire's

It wasn't long ago that friends Lucy Craddock and Taylor Crouch had shopped at Claire's. But when they walked past on Tuesday, the once colourful store was covered in hoarding after all shops closed.

"It's very sad, because it's [our] childhood," says Lucy outside the former Claire's on Oxford Street in central London.

"I got my ears pierced at Claire's when I was little," Taylor says, adding they now enjoy shopping at places like jewellery chain Lovisa as well.

Nell Campbell, 34, says the closure was "a little bit sad" because she got her ears pierced there as a 12 or 13-year-old.

"It definitely holds childhood memories," she says.

But she hasn't visited the store herself since she was a teen, and is not surprised the chain has closed as there are "so many exciting brands that have come along".

Experts say the brand had suffered from a perfect storm of a post-Covid fall in spending, competition from cheap online retailers, and a failure to keep up with fashion trends.

Now all 154 stores in UK and Ireland have shut down with the loss of 1,300 jobs, ending a year of turmoil for the brand.

"Claire's just wasn't cutting it in the same way anymore," says Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell.

Claire's, founded in the US, first appeared on British high streets in the late 1990s selling jewellery and accessories mainly aimed at tween and teenage girls, and offering ear piercing services.

By the end of 2012, it had more than 3,000 stores across North America and Europe alone, with franchises and stores across the Middle East, Asia and South America.

But its popularity began to wane, as teenagers moved away from the colourful earrings, necklaces and hair bobbles the brand was known for, says fashion expert Priya Raj.

"Really the collapse of Claire's in the UK says a lot about how pre-teen and teen tastes and shopping preferences have evolved in the last decade," she says.

That issue was accelerated by the pandemic as teens turned to online shops like Shein and Temu for cheaper accessories, Hewson says, with the rise of TikTok Shop and second-hand sites such as Vinted and Depop also broadening their options.

Raj agrees: "We've gone from a high-street driven, cookie cutter approach to an evolving, social media driven market."

Besides ear piercing, Claire's also lacked offerings like make-up lessons to entice people into stores.

"It just provided stuff. And that just wasn't enough to get people to go in," she says.

All those factors combined to spell serious trouble for the chain.

The US-based firm first filed for bankruptcy in 2018. In August last year the US arm filed for bankruptcy a second time, a move the company's chief executive Chris Cramer said was a "difficult decision" but a necessary one.