The label is at sunset On This Day (otd) Of John Varvatos. The US designer specializing in menswear had launched the project in October 2021, just over a year after leaving the brand that bore his name, following the declaration of bankruptcy and the consequent sale to a private company equity. To report the news is Wwdwhich recalls the “high ambitions” of the label headed by the designer, with already behind it a first collection of over 200 menswear and womenswear units, as well as two important brick and mortar stores on both coasts of the States.
However, the business and the brand are now closing their doors, according to a decision that arrived this month and announced as the curtain fell on the e-commerce site and on the stores in Soho, in New York, and Sunset Strip, in Hollywood. Varvatos, contacted by the newspaper, has not yet provided any official comments on the matter.
However, a “source close to the company” would have attributed the failure mainly to the ill-advised attempt to launch a still almost unknown label with such a large stock of products destined for the market, right in the midst of the pandemic crisis. Furthermore, the fact that Otd could not be associated with the character of Varvatos due to the contractual constraints that linked him to his previous brand did not contribute.
For the latter, specifically, the bankruptcy petition was presented in 2020 after more than twenty years of activity, to then be acquired by Lion/Hayman Cayman Ltd, affiliate of Lion Capital. The label then continued without the support of the designer, who left the company.
As for Otd, Varvatos was only listed as president of the company, without being advertised as a creative mastermind. Even the brand’s stylistic imprint deviated visibly from the rock’n’roll aesthetic on which the John Varvatos menswear brand had built its imagery, moving instead towards a sophisticated sporty style, with a streetwear atmosphere.
In the meantime, plans for the future of the designer also remain unknown, at the end of his latest creative project.