Luxury stationer will close the doors of its store at 131-132 New Bond Street later this month amid a wider slowdown in the luxury goods sector.
Smythson is the latest retailer to leave Bond Street, following the exit of Fenwick and Mulberry recently. Reported in The Times on Saturday 30 March, the 137-year-old luxury stationer said it had agreed to surrender the lease of its Bond Street shop this month to “further support its ability to continue as a going concern”.
The company has closed several shops over the past few years, including London’s Westbourne Grove and The Royal Exchange, Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, Madison Avenue in New York and Heathrow airport’s Terminal 2. It has three remaining shops: Sloane Street in London and in Terminals 4 and 5 at Heathrow, as well as concessions in Selfridges and Harrods.
It’s been a tough few years for Smythson, and although turnover has been growing again since the pandemic, the company still reported a loss of £7.3 million to the year 2 April 2023. The luxury goods sector as a whole has slowed down, with demand waning and the markets uncertain.
Top: Smythson at 131-132 New Bond Steet (image used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)
