Claire’s and The Original Factory Shop enter administration

High street retailers Claire’s and The Original Factory Shop are being put in to administration, risking 2,500 jobs.

It comes amid a turbulent time for Claire’s, popular with tweens for its brightly coloured accessories, which was seeking a buyer after its US owner filed for bankruptcy last year.

Modella Capital, which owns both chains, said the retailers would enter insolvency proceedings across the UK and Ireland. The administration will give them breathing space to find a new buyer.

Modella said tough trading conditions and “alarming” low Christmas trading left both in a “vulnerable” position.

“This has been a very tough decision,” said Modella. “We have worked intensively in an effort to save both businesses, having made last-ditch attempts to rescue them, but neither has a realistic possibility of trading profitably again.”

Modella said that the chains were “highly vulnerable” even before it bought them. It also blamed challenges including the climate on the high street, which it said “remains extremely challenging”, and government policy.

The two shops are the latest casualties of a tough trading environment which has seen high street sales fall as shoppers move online, ditching old favourites facing the high cost of maintaining brick-and-mortar stores.

“A combination of very weak consumer confidence, highly adverse government fiscal policies and continued cost inflation is causing many established and much-loved businesses to suffer badly,” Modella said.