To feel so sorry for all the staff losing their jobs, but Cath Kidston was a load of over priced wank.

[blubberball]

Just read that Cath Kidston won't be opening up again after the lock down. My sympathies are with the people who will now be out of a job, but I really didn't get it.

The question which needs to be addressed is what is the high street for if most shopping is done online?

I think humans will always want to ‘go shopping’ , so mooch around shops
Have a meal , coffee and buy some cack they don’t need !

Even now during lockdown I get curiously excited in the homeware and beauty isles !

But it’s about survival of the fittest

Go to Westfield - and Zara , primark and COS are always busy

I liked some CK stuff. The mugs were great. Wash bags too.

I think we will realise way too late that our high street is going to disappear. I buy a lot of stuff online because I’m always so BUSY. Busy, busy, busy, time for shopping/browsing, HA. But now I have oodles and oodles of time (furloughed from my job and my voluntary role is on hold too). Too much of course. It has made me realise I do have too much on. Being too busy is exhausting and I do actually enjoy shopping, browsing etc.

What I want to do when we wake up from this nightmare is to actually do some stuff in person instead of online. What I don’t want is to stroll down the high street and find it’s all gone. So I’m going to make some time to shop on the high street and stop buying everything online and I mean to stick to it and not make this a new year’s gym membership promise. Hopefully this situation we are in now will be a wake up call for many of us.

I remember when it first came out, it was fresh and exciting. In time the prints became too recognisable and the whole granny chic thing lost its lustre so I’m not surprised.

I bought my purse from there years ago in the sale. Really good size and quality. Been in a few times since to see if I could get another and they don't seem to do the same size any more.

I did like the Jungle Book range they did recently, maybe not do recent now! But the assistant was so pushy that I left.

I never understood the handbags made from that plastic fabric, similar to table cloths. My boss has one, in a beige dots design, and it’s the frumpiest thing I’ve seen.

I read that online is continuing, but that was a few days ago.
I have a couple of things I've purchased in sales; some good quality, others less so.
The only store I've seen is the big one opposite the Royal Academy - and whenever I've been there, there always seem to have been huge sales and discounts emblazoned on the windows; I think the business was trading close to the edge for a while.

I also recently sold a purse and bag that I had used for years and they were both still good as new. I sold all my bags over the years in pretty much as new condition so none of them were ‘throwaway fashion’ by any means.

@Sadie789 completely agree

I never understood the handbags

What is there to understand? It's a bag. You put things in it. Not your taste perhaps, but it's hardly a concept which is too mind-boggling to get your brain around.

Plus as many of us have said, lots of people don't really care about fashion and trends. I'd rather have a good quality bag which will last 5 or 10 years than 5 or 10 bags which last a year each.

A lot of the things aren't to my taste but I feel very sorry for the owner(s), for the employees who will lose their jobs and for their customers.

I think a lot of companies just aren't financially viable if they fall apart apart after such a short time of lockdown. I could understand if they were start-ups who have a notoriously high fail rate.

It's a great shame though.

Even now during lockdown I get curiously excited in the homeware and beauty isles !

Me too

I have a lovely oilcloth laptop bag/briefcase I paid £15 for about six years ago at Gunwharf Quays. Spotted rather than floral. It allows me to pick mine out from a sea of black and means I don’t go home with someone else’s.

The demise of our high streets is sad. Empty shops and no variety doesn’t attract people to potter around for an afternoon but the nation prefers online shopping so that is the way it will go and workers must adapt and change jobs.

My gorgeous CK hold-all has been slung about on ships, trains, buses all over Europe! It goes camping with me most weekends in normal times. Still strong and beautiful! How dare you say it's all tat!

I wonder if they’ll continue in places like John Lewis.

There seems to be an “it’s not my taste therefore it’s shite” mentality on here.

I was a retail buyer for 13 years, until a month ago. The profit on an item sold in store is so much smaller (where you have to have an allocator to decide the store needs it, ship to store, pay for retail premises, staff, electricity, even a posh carrier bag) that I can definitely understand companies closing stores down. Unfortunately there are lots of brands like this - I am earmarking places like the Cambridge Satchel Company, and there was obviously Jack Wills too - where they had a run on popularity in the last decade or so and may fail to keep up.

There is a Cath store in Marlborough which is full of Cornwall-y brands like Seasalt and White Stuff, which people seem to be going off, and there's going to be nothing left soon apart from Primark and charity shops.

Cath Kidston was sold some years ago
The quality (and price) dropped. Bags were cheaper this year than 15 years ago.

I like Cath Kidston stuff. But I do like quite a lot of overpriced wank.

It's just the way I roll.

I think they're moving online only. I suspect a lot of retailers will use the shutdown to ditch their high street stores and go online.

This could bring potential benefits. Our high streets could see more conversions back to residential and a mix of 'service only' commercial outlets; bars, cafe's, gyms, crafts, special retailers, where people can combine living and leisure. To be honest, it is starting to go that way in some places and the larger volume national retailers could easily go to delivery only.

God knows what the charity shops are going to be selling then - I'm a volunteer in one and 99% of the primark stuff is only fit for the rag bag.

Depressing set of affairs.

I was given a shopping bag, not floral, many years ago and it's been in weekly use since and doesn't look worn in the least.

It definitely isn't tat.

I used to love their stuff, I have some lovely Gola trainers from them I bought years ago.
However, their clothes didn’t like my boobs and I’ve gone off most of the other stuff now too
Even so I’m sad to see such an iconic brand go, especially for the people who will lose their jobs

Theyve been about to go under for years. Yanbu. Their poor staff

It’s a shame, i love florals and have some lovely homeware from CK. They also do some lovely clothes for women and children.

I used to love Cath Kidston about 10 years ago but it has not dated well....at one point most of my friends had CK and Emma Bridgewater stuff in shabby chic painted dressers in their kitchens....now it all looks a bit twee.

Agree. Fuss over nothing but overpriced wank. Anna Hindmarch can do one as well.