Select Fashion update as 48 stores to be SAVED by mystery company

A MYSTERY business is set to save up to 48 Select Fashion stores, Flying Eze can reveal.

It comes just days after Flying Eze revealed the struggling high street fashion brand is on the edge of going bust, drafting in advisers from Moorfields to oversee a liquidation of the business.

Select operates around 83 stores across the UK, with 35 shut down earlier this month.

The remaining 48 stores are set to close on Friday March 28.

But new documents can reveal that Essence Fashion Limited has entered into a licence trade agreement with Select Fashion.

A directors report, seen by Flying Eze, details how the troubled company entered into a licence to trade with Essence on 28 February 2025.

It read: “The licence grants Essence permission to operate and maintain the Company's business for a period of six months and an option to acquire the goodwill and assets of the Company based on the open market valuation of the assets.”

This means the business has permission to use Select Fashion name and other assets, such as property.

Little is known about the firm but filings on Companies House show the firm was created back in February 2024.

Select and Essence also have the same director and shareholder, Emre Gonc.

Flying Eze has approached Moorfields and Select Fashion.

It could mean hundreds of jobs are saved as the 48 stores could remain open and trading as normal.

At its peak, the chain which has been on the high street for nearly four decades, had a total of 169 stores.

Select Fashion had been quietly slashing its store estate since January, with a number of the nearly-three dozen stores marked for closure having already shut.

This is also not the first time the Select Fashion brand has changed hands.

Select fell into administration in 2019, but was later bought out of administration by Genus UK Limited.

The firm is owned by Turkish entrepreneur Cafer MahiroÄŸlu.

TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET

Soaring inflation in recent years has also dented shoppers' pockets.

The Centre for Retail Research's latest analysis suggests 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut for good in 2024.

Of those, 11,341 were independent shops while 2,138 were shut by larger retailers.

The data also showed over half the stores that closed last year were shut due to the store or retailer going through insolvency proceedings.

This is when formal measures are taken to deal with tackling a business‘s debt.

Retailers are also shutting stores in 2025.

New Look is ramping up a store closure programme ahead of April's National Insurance hike.

Approximately a quarter of the retailer's 364 stores are at risk when their leases expire.

This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on its 8,000-strong workforce.

The company has restructured its store estate twice in the past six years, reducing its portfolio from around 600 UK stores in 2018.

It also closed all of its 26 stores across Ireland, marking the end of a two decade tenure in the country.

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