The Crash and Burn of Forever 21

Forever 21 began as quite a uniquely positioned store known as Fashion 21. It was Korean styles sold at a low price to an American audience, a simple yet brilliant concept that if they had stuck to it, would've been easy to profit from today. However, back then of course Korean culture wasn't as globally popular as it has become today so they went through a rebrand in 1987-1989 that saw them become just another high street brand, not majorly differentiated from someone like H&M. It was mostly downhill from there. Despite turning over billions of dollars, the company was self-financed and self-led, hiring a lot of the senior management from a pool of their own family or people who belonged to their church, ultimately meaning that many of the important hires had no experience in their fields. One mistake after another. One scandal after another and it wasn't long before they had to invest their own money back into the business to stay afloat. It wasn't enough. They went bankrupt, twice. 0:00 Intro 0:28 Chapter One: Fashion 21 10:40 Chapter Two: Biggering 16:54 Chapter Three: Alex Ok 20:53 Chapter Four: Expand-a-thon 28:16 Chapter Five: Cracks and Crumbles 35:44 Chapter Six: Bankruptcy 40:24 Chapter Seven: The Rebuild Beauty Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@underskinYT Patreon: patreon.com/understitch BUY MY BOOKS: ISABELLA BLOW BOOK: https://amzn.to/3ReT95M CHANEL BOOK: https://amzn.to/3WGDyi3 Unless otherwise obvious, photos in this video are from Getty Images or Alamy und