Jeans Maker True Religion Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Premium jeans brand True Religion has filed for bankruptcy for the second time in three years, according to court filings.

The court filing took place in Delaware on Monday, April 13. True Religion has around $500 million in assets and liabilities, the filing says.

True Religion was acquired for $824 million in 2013 by London- and New York-based capital-investment firm TowerBrook Investment Partners, and ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2017. After that, the jeans brand, once seen worn on the likes of Eva Langoria and Cindy Crawford, had to get strategic with plans for a “nostalgic throwback” aesthetic, hiring its former president, Michael Buckley, as chief executive.

But the brand’s presence in other struggling stores like Macy’s and Neiman Marcus has not helped its standing as of late, a Bloomberg report noted.

And the coronavirus pandemic has hit clothing retailers particularly hard, given the lack of need for new clothing while everyone stays inside to follow social distancing measures and avoid going out for any non-essential needs.

Due to the pandemic forcing stores to close, around a million employees of various brands and retailers have been furloughed. Data from S&P Global Market Intelligence listed department stores as the highest likely candidates to default on debt, with a 42 percent chance of doing so. That was just salt on the wounds of those stores, which have been struggling to compete with more convenient eCommerce options for years.

True Religion was founded in 2002 with a headquarters in Malibu Beach, California. The brand became known as a designer-jeans staple at the forefront of the premium denim trend of the early 2000s, along with rivals Diesel and 7 For All Mankind, both of which have also been weathering financial storms lately.

But trends began to shift toward more casual options, with brands such as Lululemon’s yoga pants shifting to a place at the front of shoppers’ minds. True Religion tried to capitalize on that with its own brand of workout pants.

The retailer has around 100 stores still operating in the U.S.