Fashionistas, this may leave a bad taste in your mouths. Nasty Gal, the online women’s fashion retailer loved by Selena Gomez, Beyoncé and more celebs, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, November 9. The brand’s founder and #Girlboss author, Sophia Amoruso, is also rumored to be resigning from her position, according to Recode.
“Our decision to initiate a court-supervised restructuring will enable us to address our immediate liquidity issues, restructure our balance sheet, and correct structural issues including reducing our high occupancy costs and restoring compliance with our debt covenants,” Sheree Waterson, Nasty Gal’s CEO, told WWD in a November 11 statement. “We expect to maintain our high level of customer service and emerge stronger and even better able to deliver the product and experience that our customers expect and that we take pride in bringing to market.”
The news follows a long line of troubling incidents at the brand, which launched in 2006. The brand confirmed that it let go a significant number of staffers in a February 2016 statement to WWD. “Today we had to lay off 19 employees as part of a strategic restructuring,” CEO Sheree Waterson said. “While this was a difficult decision to make, it is necessary and will allow us to continue to evolve as a company.” And in June 2015, following another round of layoffs, former employee Aimee Concepcion filed a lawsuit claiming that Nasty Gal fired her as well as three other women and one man for being pregnant and taking paternity leave, respectively.
Waterson replaced Amoruso as CEO in January 2015, after Amoruso stepped down from the role. But she assured her loyal consumers that she wouldn’t be leaving the company anytime soon. “My entire youth has been Nasty Gal. My entire future is Nasty Gal,” Amoruso wrote in a January 2015 Nasty Gal blog post. “This is a choice that will give our team, and our business, legs. And it will give me the freedom to feel that I’m using my talents at my best and highest. And for Sheree, this will unleash her incredible talent and leadership across an organization that has never been so ready.”
