Popular Millennial Clothing Store In Iowa And Illinois Closing All Locations

The end of an era.

Between chain restaurants and chain stores, it seems like 2025 is seeing a lot of familiar favorites go by the way side. And unfortunately, here we are again with one.

When I think back to college and where my girls and I would shop before nights out, one store that always comes to mind is:

It's fast fashion and we weren't making enough money (or stupid enough) to wear fancy stuff to frat parties, be for real.

Now, Forever 21 is being quite real and they are closing all U.S. stores and filing for bankruptcy.

Experts say today's youth demographic have simply moved on from the Forever 21 brand.

In a release from the company obtained by NBC Chicago, Forever 21 cited several reasons for the closure:

• foreign competition in fast-fashion
• rising costs
• economic challenges impacting it's core customers
• evolving consumer trends

For now, their stores and operations will start winding down as they try to find a last-minute bidder to buy the company. As of now, there isn't a deadline or any kind of timestamp on when exactly they might close all stores.

Forever 21 had it's heyday and had $1 billion in annual sales in 2005, right along mall retailers like H&M and Abercrombie & Fitch. About 10 years later, Forever 21's sales peaked at $4 billion. Then trends, competition, and markets changed as the 2010's wore on.

Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy the first time in 2019, just in time for all of the pandemic's problems, then was bought out by Authentic Brands. The Authentic CEO said in 2024 that buying Forever 21 was "probably the biggest mistake I made".