Iconic Mall Fashion Store Laying Off 700 People, Closing 9 Stores + Their Headquarters

It's been a rough few years for Forever 21. The once-beloved fast fashion retailer was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2020, only to be facing turmoil once again.

According to Retail Dive, Forever 21's parent company, Catalyst Brands, has had to make the tough decision to lay off 700-plus employees, close their headquarters and nine of their existing storefronts.

This comes on the heels of the company saying that they might have to shut down roughly 200 stores.

According to KTLA-TV, a spokesperson for Catalyst Brands says Forever 21 "continues to explore strategic options while also looking at ways to reduce costs across our operations and optimize our store footprint."

Here's where it gets super interesting: Forever 21 is looking for a buyer once again to bail them out of bankruptcy. If no buyer is found or interested, that's when they might have to shut down the remaining stores and call it quits officially.

At its peak, Forever 21 had every mall in America locked down, with a bright, large location — more than 800 of them across the United States.

While this isn't the large 200 location shut-down that was being tossed around, the nine stores and company headquarters closing is a sign that Catalyst Brands is struggling to lock down a buyer for a bankruptcy bailout and could indeed need to close the remaining 200 locations in the near future.

The good news for you is that at the Forever 21 locations that are slated to close (in California and Pennsylvania) are currently having large sales to help liquidate their inventory, so you might be able to save big.