Just one week after Ivanka Trump announced her decision to shut down her eponymous fashion brand, the label’s only brick-and-mortar outpost has virtually disappeared.
Reports surfaced today that the store, which is located inside Trump Tower in Manhattan, was transformed overnight from an Ivanka Trump retail space to a home for general Trump-branded souvenirs.
FN visited the store today and can confirm that the window signage has been changed from Ivanka Trump’s logo to the Trump Store name and logo.
An associate at the store confirmed that the retail outlet is no longer an Ivanka Trump outpost and that only two of her branded items remained there on August 2: a candle and a black-and-white tote.
In an email exchange with FN today, an Ivanka Trump brand spokesperson would not confirm the closing but said the store — which opened in December — “will be winding down alongside operations and the website.”
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Last week, the first daughter and adviser to President Donald Trump announced her plans to scale back the business she started in 2007 to prioritize an indefinite stay in Washington, DC.
“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,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement at the time. “So making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners.”
Around the time of her father’s 2017 inauguration, Trump relinquished her day-to-day responsibilities at the company, which she placed in a trust. A spokesperson for the label had said she was also compelled to place “strict limitations on the business” to avoid conflicts with her role in the White House.
“The brand worked with ethics counsel to ensure that all [Office of Government Ethics] guidelines were adhered to and that the brand avoided the appearance of conflicts and took steps beyond what was legally required,” the spokesperson said. “When Ivanka resigned, the restrictions placed on the brand limited the brand’s ability to grow — both domestically and abroad.”
In the weeks immediately following Trump’s inauguration, several reports suggested the brand enjoyed rising sales, particularly after occasions when the first daughter stepped out in her gear. But positive news quickly soured in the wake of a controversial executive order signed by her father, President Donald Trump. It banned travel to and from several Muslim-majority countries, spawned a backlash within the fashion community and reportedly motivated Nordstrom to drop the collection.
At the same time, the brand had also become the target of a major boycott campaign (#GrabYourWallet) meant to protest sexually explicit comments the president made in 2005. As the campaign gained steam, numerous stores — including Neiman Marcus and TJ Maxx — reportedly discontinued the line or scaled it back significantly. Research has also highlighted diminishing sales for the label in tandem with a flurry of political controversies, some involving Canada. (Ontario-based Hudson Bay Company last month also dropped the collection from its Hudson’s Bay department stores, citing poor performance, although insiders suggest the decision was motivated by Trump’s escalating trade war, which is now directed at Canada, among other countries.)
Still, the brand’s representatives said sales had been doing well and that the decision to shutter the label “has nothing to do with the performance and is based solely on Ivanka’s decision to remain in Washington indefinitely.”
“We have seen strong performance since the inception of the brand both in growth and overall impact,” the spokesperson said. “Most recently, the brand launched a successful ecommerce business that has been growing rapidly. “
The company also said Trump received “several lucrative offers” to sell the brand prior to her resignation last year, “but she determined that selling the brand was not something she could agree with since a third party likely would not have adhered to the restrictions she put in place.”
The company said it plans to uphold its commitments to partners, who will continue to produce and sell product through the end of their licensing agreements. (Marc Fisher Footwear is the brand’s shoe licensing partner. FN has reached out to the firm for comment.) The product will continue to be sold at Lord & Taylor, Dillard’s, Bloomingdale’s, Zappos, Amazon, Von Maur and others through completion of those agreements.
Ivanka Trump launched a fine-jewelry line in 2007, adding shoes in 2010 and apparel in 2013. In 2010, the Ivanka Trump collection was honored as the FN Achievement Awards Launch of the Year.
