The Brands We Lost in 2025: How Familiar Retail Names Faded From the High Street

In 2025, shopping trips across the United States became quieter, lonelier affairs. Storefronts that once buzzed with teenage energy, birthday balloons, fabric cutters and pharmacy queues went dark, their signs switched off for the last time. For many consumers, it felt like saying goodbye to old friends – brands that had shaped everyday life for decades.

Forever 21, Party City, Joann and Rite Aid were among the most recognisable names to disappear this year. Their closures formed part of a much wider reckoning in retail. According to Coresight Research, around 8,200 stores shut down in 2025, roughly 12 per cent more than the previous year. Behind the numbers lay a mix of economic pressure, changing consumer habits and long-running financial weaknesses that finally caught up with once-dominant chains.

As inflation continued to squeeze household budgets, shoppers pulled back on discretionary spending. Online-first rivals grew stronger, while traditional retailers struggled with debt, rising costs and the challenge of staying relevant in a digital economy.

Forever 21: Fast Fashion Left Behind

Forever 21’s name promised youth and longevity, but the reality proved far less enduring. In March, the fast-fashion retailer filed for bankruptcy for a second time and shut down its US business, closing roughly 500 stores.

The brand, once a staple for budget-conscious teenagers, found itself outpaced by a new generation of ultra-fast fashion platforms. Online giants such as Shein and Temu captured younger shoppers with cheaper prices, faster trend cycles and frictionless e-commerce experiences. Forever 21 acknowledged that its core customers were feeling the strain of the economy and increasingly looking elsewhere.

Trade pressures also played a role. Higher import costs and tariffs added to the company’s challenges, leaving it squeezed between rising expenses and consumers unwilling to pay more. What was once a mall mainstay ultimately became a cautionary tale of how quickly fashion – and loyalty – can move on.

Joann: The End of an 80-Year Creative Hub

For generations of sewists, quilters and crafters, Joann was more than a store – it was a creative refuge. That era came to an end in February when the fabrics and crafts retailer closed its doors after more than 80 years in business.

The shutdown followed Joann’s second Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in less than a year. Company leaders pointed to weak sales, inventory shortages and heavy debt as pressures the business could no longer withstand. Years of disruption in the retail sector, combined with a fragile financial position, left little room to recover.

Still, Joann’s story did not end entirely in silence. Michaels stepped in to revive the Joann brand name and select private-label products through a “store within a store” concept, offering loyal customers a small sense of continuity amid the loss.

Party City: When the Party Finally Ended

Party City spent four decades supplying balloons, costumes and decorations for birthdays, graduations and holidays. In February 2025, the celebrations officially stopped.

The retailer had first signalled its demise a year earlier, following a bankruptcy filing in 2023. At one point, Party City was carrying more than $1.7 billion in debt, making it difficult to invest or adapt. Competition only intensified its problems, with online marketplaces, seasonal pop-up stores and big-box retailers all chipping away at its niche.

As shopping habits shifted and convenience took priority, a business built around large physical stores and seasonal foot traffic struggled to keep pace. When the doors finally closed, they marked the end of a brand closely tied to life’s milestones.

Rite Aid: A Pharmacy Giant’s Long Decline

Few closures felt as symbolic as Rite Aid’s. Once one of America’s largest pharmacy chains, the company shut its remaining stores in October after its second bankruptcy in just a few years.

Founded in 1962, Rite Aid became a familiar presence in neighbourhoods nationwide, even earning a devoted following for its Thrifty ice cream brand. But behind the counters, financial troubles were mounting. Intense competition from rivals, coupled with billions of dollars in debt, pushed the company into bankruptcy in 2023. A significant portion of that burden stemmed from costly legal battles related to opioid prescription claims.

Rite Aid briefly emerged from bankruptcy in late 2024 after cutting debt, closing hundreds of stores and securing new funding. The reprieve was short-lived. As store numbers continued to fall and competitors like CVS and Walgreens acquired its pharmacy operations, the chain’s future narrowed rapidly.

A Retail Reckoning

The disappearance of these brands in 2025 was not the result of a single crisis, but of years of slow erosion. Consumer expectations changed. Online shopping became the norm. Debt piled up. Inflation tightened spending. For retailers unable to reinvent themselves fast enough, the outcome was inevitable.

What remains is a transformed retail landscape – one where nostalgia holds less power than convenience, price and adaptability. As shoppers look ahead, the brands lost in 2025 serve as a reminder that even the most familiar names are not immune to change.