Farewell to Jane Norman, last bastion of my misdressed youth
|
Version 0 of 1. Not many people will be saddened by the news that Jane Norman has had its stores placed in administration. The brand, which was previously bought out of administration in 2011, can no longer hold its own on the British high street, and restructuring firm Grant Thornton confirmed in a statement that it was "no longer able to continue to support its loss-making UK and Ireland retail stores". When I spotted the announcement this week I was filled with nostalgia. Jane Norman was the apex of cool when I was a teenager. Alongside Kookaï and Morgan de Toi, Jane Norman formed a holy trinity of brands which I and my school friends worshipped. What those brands couldn't do with cheap mauve Lycra and a polyester blazer wasn't worth knowing about. In the mid-1990s, rave culture was evolving into garage, where a popular look comprised two-piece suits, sunglasses and French manicures – not unlike the kind of office workers you saw pictured in Spanish homework books next to the phrase "Ocupación: Secretario". This trend for wearing office clothes to a club bridged everything a teenage me wanted; it was grown-up but, incongruously, was at home on the dance floor. Jane Norman, Morgan and Kookaï provided everything you needed to look the part at Gas club, even if you weren't actually old enough to get in. By the late 90s I had turned my back on all things heart-shaped and took my eye off the shops I thought would always be there. And while concession stands remain in House of Fraser and the like, Morgan and Kookaï have visibly receded from the British market. Morgan began more than 40 years ago in Paris and went on to open 500 stores globally, but withdrew from these shores in all but a few department stores, before going into administration in 2008. Kookaï, another French company, is keen to impart its legacy as a knitwear brand, though I remember it mainly for its oversized black beach-style bags that became de rigueur for schoolgirls before the tote bag was a thing. Kookaï Love You was one tagline, but by 2013 it was more a case of "les aimer et de les laisser" as the brand pulled out of the UK altogether. "The womenswear business has been struggling to make a profit at its UK arm for several years and its last set of public results revealed a 24.6% sales dip for the year. Pre-tax losses hit £2.5m for the period," wrote Kirsty Simmonds of My Retail Media in 2013. "Kookaï is pulling out of the United Kingdom after the flagging retailer initiated a solvent liquidation of its UK-based assets." One assumes brands that target a twentysomething age range (although the shop floors are most densely populated by girls a decade younger) fall from our peripheral vision when we exceed that age bracket, and now Jane Norman, last bastion of my misdressed youth, will probably close its UK stores and become an online business only. Teenagers spend so long trying (and failing) to look older, becoming deeply attached to the shops they believe offer that option, only to get older and laugh at pictures of themselves in ill-fitting dresses and cheap shoes. Now that high-street mannequins no longer bear the Morgan heart, Kookaï logo or Jane Norman's pseudo-sophisticated trouser suits, I can't help but feel a deep affection for a shop I abandoned long ago. |