The Ivanka Trump fashion brand is closing. Abigail Klem, company president, announced the closure to the brand’s 18 employees on Tuesday. Trump herself is expected to address them later in the day.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after the Hudson’s Bay Company announced that it would “phase out” the brand online and in its stores, citing “performance” issues.
WATCH: Ivanka Trump shutting down her namesake fashion brand
Trump stepped away from her eponymous brand over a year ago when she moved to Washington, D.C., to act as a White House senior advisor.
“After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington,” she said to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. “So making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners.”
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Although the fashion brand, which sells moderately priced apparel, shoes and accessories, experienced considerable growth during the 2016 election, it was consistently dogged by detractors with calls for a boycott. In February 2017, Nordstrom dropped the line, which prompted President Donald Trump to admonish the retail giant for treating his daughter “so unfairly.”
READ MORE: Ivanka Trump brand pulled from Hudson’s Bay due to ‘performance’
According to Rakuten Intelligence, an e-commerce market research company, sales of the Ivanka Trump brand fell almost 45 per cent in the year ending June 2018 on sites including Amazon, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Zappos. In November, a YouGov survey placed the fashion brand in the bottom 10 of 1,600 brands tracked for their perception in the eyes of consumers 18 and older.
WATCH: Ivanka Trump fashion brand closing
Klem said that it was a “very difficult decision for Ivanka and I am very grateful for the opportunity to have led such a talented and committed team.”
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Some say the news comes as little surprise. Shannon Coulter, founder of the #GrabYourWallet campaign that urged consumers to boycott all Trump brands after the infamous Access Hollywood tape was released, said the president’s policies are directly related to the decline of the Ivanka Trump brand.
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“This news is a direct result of the Trump administration’s immigration policy and the forceable removal of kids from their parents,” she said to The Guardian. “It is really clear that when this administration shows its xenophobic, racist tendencies, retailers come under increasing pressure to distance themselves from these brands.”
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