Forever 21 files for bankruptcy

A person carries a Forever 21 shopping bag.

(Image credit: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

last updated 30 September 2019

The fast-fashion retailer Forever 21 announced on Sunday night that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

There are more than 800 Forever 21 locations spread across 40 countries, and the company said it expects a "significant number of these stores will remain open and operate as usual, and we do not expect to exit any major markets in the U.S." Forever 21 was founded in Los Angeles in 1984 by a husband and wife, South Korean immigrants Do Won Chang and Jin Sook. They still own the company, which Forbes says employs 30,000 people and has annual sales of $3.4 billion.

Linda Chang, Forever 21's executive vice president, said in a statement that filing for Chapter 11 is "an important and necessary step to secure the future of our company, which will enable us to reorganize our business and reposition Forever 21." This has been a hard year for retailers, with more than 8,200 stores closing in the United States so far in 2019, Coresight Research said. This is a big jump from 2018, when a total of 5,589 stores shuttered.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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