It’s the end of an era.
Living in Dublin in the mid 2000s you could always tell you were on College Green, both by the presence of Trinity College and by the scents wafting from the Abercrombie and Fitch store.
Now it seems that it is all coming to an end as it has been announced that Abercrombie and Fitch will be shutting their doors in Dublin for good.
A spokesperson for the brand revealed that it won’t just be the Dublin branch that won’t be reopening but that the brand as a whole wants to concentrate more of its efforts online.
In the last year alone Abercrombie and Fitch has closed 137 shops worldwide and it seems that many more may follow as the brand focuses on becoming ‘a digitally-led business model’.
While the brand insists that the closures have more to do with wishing to more all sales online and nothing to do with the success of the physical stores, the Abercrombie and Fitch and its sister brands have seen a steep decline in sales.
The Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister companies have seen a sales decline of 14 per cent last year with a financial loss of around €2.6billion.
They are far from the only brands to have suffered in the last year, mainly due to Covid restrictions. The high street will definitely be very different once lockdown ends.
The store lease on Abercrombie and Fitch expires this month but according to reports the site will not remain empty as there is much interest in the city centre location.
Seeing as Central Bank is soon to be transformed into the new Central Plaza (which will include the Irish headquarters for Pokémon), we’ll be keeping a close eye on the former Abercrombie and Fitch site to see what it becomes next.
