The Australian arm of a major luxury fashion brand worn by the likes of Taylor Swift and Meghan Markle has collapsed into liquidation. Dion Lee Enterprise was found to owe creditors more than $35 million dollars after it entered voluntary administration in May due to major partners withdrawing all investments. Of that, an eyewatering $29.
1 million is owed to security editors, $20 million to majority shareholder Cue Clothing Co and the Commonwealth Bank is owed $7 million. In a statement on Friday, the brand’s appointed liquidators from insolvency firm dVT Group, said creditors on Thursday evening voted to place the eponymous business into liquidation when no “acceptable offers” were bought forward to buy the fashion label. “The second creditors meeting heard that while there had been interest from potential buyers of the brand no acceptable offer was as yet forthcoming,” it said.
dVT, also the brand's pervious administrators, will close all six Dion Lee stores across Australia from September through October. An outlet in David Jones on Sydney’s Elizabeth Street was shut down, leaving remaining stores at retail districts The Strand in Sydney, the Emporium in Melbourne and James Street in Brisbane. A few re-employed staff operate the stores after they were initially stood down in May.
Employees face termination again once shut down commences. Since May, the administrators made more than $3 million in sales across the stores after it reduced the price of apparel in sweeping clearance sales. Despite some items slashed by up to 80 per cent, the million-dollar figure was far below what Dion Lee was raking in at the height of its success.
A “geolocation lock” was also placed on the Dion Lee website to re-direct Australians to clearance websites while non-Australian customers were pushed to the US arm of the business. The US branch is unaffected and continues to operate at full capacity. American-Australia Eponymous Dion Lee established the unisex fashion label 15 years ago in 2009 and debuted his first collection at Australian Fashion Week the same year.
Mr Lee has collaborated with controversial American rapper Kanye West on a shoe collection and popstar Dua Lipa on a clothing drop. Mega star Taylor Swift was seen sporting the designer label at the Super Bowl in February with the top she was rocking selling out almost instantaneously. In October 2018, the Duchess of Sussex caused the Dion Lee website to crash when she was spotted in Melbourne wearing one of its custom dresses.
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