Victoria Feldman and Tomas Berzins’ rise in fashion is a story not unlike that of other emerging talents. The designers met in 2009 at the French fashion school Esmod. During their studies, Berzins worked for Alexander Wang, while Feldman gained experience at the LVMH-owned department store Le Bon Marché. Upon graduating in 2011, they invested €10,000 in savings to launch their eponymous brand, Victoria/Tomas.
“We had no business experience or contacts,” Feldman recalls. “We were just two young designers with a passion to show our vision.” A turning point came in 2013 when Victoria/Tomas was selected as a finalist — the youngest ever — for the Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories. Luxury retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols and Colette then came knocking and sales skyrocketed.
In 2017, the brand held its first runway show in Paris. A year later, it was generating around €1 million in sales — not an unusual figure for a small label. Business was growing steadily, giving the duo the confidence to handle their own distribution (until then, the brand had been working with sales agency Riccardo Grassi, which also handles sales for Erdem, Holzweiler and Farm Rio, among others). “We thought, OK, we’re on the right track,” Feldman says.
Still, Feldman and Berzins announced in June that the brand would no longer operate after years of struggling to navigate challenges including a shrinking wholesale market — its primary distribution channel — fueled by Covid. At the start of the pandemic, the brand lost 70 percent of its sales, Feldman said. “Every day, we were getting cancellations of existing orders. And while we had some customers still placing orders, factories were closing and we couldn’t keep production going.”
Even after lockdowns lifted, business never fully recovered, Feldman says. To get buyers excited, designers experimented with new concepts like reversible clothing. But selling virtually was a tricky proposition, she recalls. Even when buyers were able to travel again, many still preferred online appointments over in-person meetings because of busy schedules. It was also hard to win over new customers, because “they didn’t want to place an order for designs they’d never seen before [in person] and touched”.
Limited distribution channels were the death knell for Victoria/Tomas, which joins a growing list of independent fashion labels that have closed their doors this year. American designer Mara Hoffman called time on her eponymous label in May after 24 years. That same month, British womenswear brand The Vampire’s Wife said it would cease trading; Australian brand Dion Lee went into voluntary receivership; and Chinese designer Calvin Luo said he was closing his eponymous label.
Others have had to make a necessary pivot: In February, ahead of New York Fashion Week, Puppets and Puppets founder Carly Mark announced she was shuttering the fashion label in its current form and moving it from New York to London, where it will have a second life as an accessories brand. London-based womenswear designer Roksanda narrowly avoided bankruptcy by selling her company to The Brand Group in May.
Business is tough for founders of independent brands, who often try to maintain a healthy cash flow while relying on wholesale partners for distribution and additional marketing support. That’s not new. But the fashion landscape has become more fraught and volatile amid a luxury slowdown, with the wealthiest shoppers prioritizing investment purchases from high-end companies.
“The economy is under pressure, and one of the consequences of that is that the fashion industry is suffering,” said Mark A. Cohen, a consultant who retired this month after 18 years as director of retail studies at Columbia Business School.
“It’s a very tough environment for emerging brands that are in the $200 million to $450 million or less range,” says Gary Wassner, CEO of Hilldun Corp, a New York-based group that finances and bills more than 400 brands, including Isabel Marant, Golden Goose and 2024 Andam Grand Prize winner Christopher Esber. Amid market volatility, funding is drying up. For private equity firms, “fashion has become a ‘don’t invest in’ category,” he says. “They generally don’t want brands that people haven’t heard of.”
Brands big and small have also been hit, with the closure of luxury multi-brand store Matchesfashion (which is still owed millions of pounds by creditors ranging from Prada to Toteme) and the sell-off of luxury marketplace Farfetch to Korea’s Coupang (which is owed more than $400 million by Farfetch’s long-term bondholders). Smaller independent boutiques have also reached the end of their lifelines. In June, Alyssa Lau announced she would shut down New Classics, the multi-brand e-commerce site she founded in 2014. In November 2023, specialty retailer LCD said it would close after 11 years in business.
“We started with $15,000 and slowly built it up, reinvesting all the profits back into the business,” Lau says. At its peak, New Classics was bringing in $400,000 in annual sales. But it became difficult to keep up with the pace of fast fashion and the increasingly discounted luxury retailers, she says. “Growth really started to take over. You need more budget to carry more collections. We had to make money on our margins, and we couldn’t keep up with the steep discounts. Given how much [the business] generated, it just wasn’t worth it.”
The implications of luxury’s retail shakeout are far-reaching. One London designer who has not received payments from his wholesale partners on time has had to ask his parents for extra money and take out a loan to pay his suppliers, they told the Financial Times on condition of anonymity. With many independent brands hanging by a thread, the fashion week landscape could look very different come September.
Meanwhile, the remaining stores are more risk-averse than ever. “They’re not adventurous because they don’t have that room in their bottom line,” says Hilldun Corp.’s Wassner. “They buy items that sell well and have a committed repeat consumer. So many brands that come up don’t have a significant following. In the past, [stores] they may have cherished it, but at this point they are not taking those risks.”
As the industry has evolved, so have the requirements for a successful operation. “Spending a lot of money on flagship stores and fancy fashion shows and marketing campaigns is an indulgence. It’s not a good idea unless you’re so rich that it doesn’t matter,” Cohen says.
“Young brands need to look at all of these things and create efficiencies in their businesses so they can retain enough cash to keep going,” Wassner agrees.
Feldman and Berzins now see fashion as an outlet that has allowed them to express their creativity. Since closing their studio, they’ve pivoted to collaborations and other creative endeavors. “The business gave us the opportunity to get more exposure, because people who are interested in fashion — are also interested in, or come from, other fields, like music, art, and other creative fields,” Berzins says.
“Since we made this decision, we have received requests [from other brands and collaborators] and haven’t stopped working,” Feldman says. “We still have a lot of projects in the pipeline. So, for today, the Victoria/Tomas brand is gone, but Victoria and Tomas as individuals? We’re going to keep going.”
Be the first to discover our latest stories – follow @financialtimesfashion on Instagram — and subscribe to our podcast Life and art wherever you listen