Roland Mouret fashion label enters administration

Roland Mouret, whose Galaxy gown has become a favorite with celebrities including Demi Moore and Victoria Beckham, has put his eponymous high-end fashion label into administration.

After tough trading during the pandemic, the company summoned administrators, according to a Companies House filing, and on Thursday let go about 50 of its staff, vacating its flagship store and office at 8 Carlos Place in Mayfair.

Sales of Roland Mouret plunged 80 percent at the start of the coronavirus crisis as demand for event dresses dried up, the designer told the Financial Times in September, estimating that it would take five years to recover revenue.

The company began targeting new areas for growth, selling a minority stake to owner Grosvenor Britain & Ireland to help “grow and diversifying the business” in June, and launching an active clothing line, Roland Mouret Body, in October.

“We lost 20 years in one day,” he told FT about the impact of Covid-19 on his business. “Buyers are trying to protect themselves, partners, factories. You owe money [to factories] and you have dividends [to pay to partners]. It was really lonely. We have to deal with it ourselves.”

The company was already struggling before the pandemic, closing its Manhattan stores in 2018 to focus more on e-commerce. It posted a gross profit of £950,000 on sales of £16 million in 2019, according to Companies House filings.

Born in a small village in southwest France, Mouret showed the first line of 15 dresses in London in 1997, at the age of 36. Her business flourished in 2005 after designing the square-necked and cuddled Galaxy gown, which has been photographed on celebrities including Demi Moore, Cameron Diaz, Duchess of Cambridge and Duchess of Sussex, whom she considers close friends.

That same year, Mouret parted ways with his supporters due to disagreements over the future of the business, and lost the rights to his name. He bought it back in 2010, relaunching the Roland Mouret label as a joint venture with Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment.

The pandemic is particularly challenging for independent designer businesses, which lack the cash flow and exposure to higher growth markets such as China and the US from brands owned by larger luxury conglomerates.

Mouret has publicly criticized the government’s lack of support for the fashion industry in recent years, where costs have risen and demand has fallen due to the lockdown and Brexit. “Our [as an industry] been treated as if we didn’t exist,” he said at the FT Luxury Business Summit in May.