After BuzzFeed reported on Friday that Chris Burch’s quirky retail chain, C. Wonder, planned to close 20 of its 32 stores by year’s end, the company is answering those claims. Today’s WWD reports that the company will continue to run at least some of those stores (the exact number was not given by their source). However, it did confirm the part of BuzzFeed’s article that said the company will go into wholesale — it just won’t become an entirely wholesale operation. Per a company statement obtained by WWD, “As a start-up business, we continue to look at ways to enhance our business model and in that regard we are committed to being an omni channel company pursuing retail, wholesale, e-commerce and international opportunities. At this time, we are rationalizing our store fleet and will be focusing on our most profitable stores.”
Whatever the fate of C. Wonder and its array of zebra-printed gilt trays, founder Chris Burch is doing just fine, thanks. His company, Burch Creative Capital, has investments in Trademark (the line founded by his daughters), as well as e-commerce site BaubleBar, swimwear line Solid & Striped, and Ellen DeGeneres’s upcoming venture, E.D. More entertaining are the accounts from BuzzFeed’s sources about C. Wonder’s genesis as a “revenge retail” project with the goal of needling ex-wife Tory Burch. For example, the retailer’s Flatiron branch was said to be chosen because it’s right beneath her hair salon. Considering she’s now a billionaire, we really doubt Tory could care less.
