The $4 Billion Fast-Fashion Empire Destroyed by Family Control: The Rise and Fall of Forever 21
Forever 21 — the iconic fast-fashion brand — was built from scratch by Korean immigrants Do Won and Jin Sook Chang. Starting with just $11,000 in 1984, they grew it into a global powerhouse with over 800 stores in 48+ countries, peaking at ~$4.4 billion in annual revenue by 2015 and turning the family into billionaires worth a combined $5.9 billion. But family-controlled decisions fueled the downfall: resistance to outside investors or professional governance, aggressive (and costly) international overexpansion that bled hundreds of millions annually, poor merchandising shifts, and failure to adapt to e-commerce and ultra-fast rivals like Shein. After a 2019 Chapter 11 bankruptcy (closing hundreds of stores and selling assets for just $81 million), the brand faced a second collapse in 2025 under new operators — losing ~$150–180 million yearly, filing bankruptcy again, and liquidating all ~350 remaining U.S. stores in months. By mid-2025, physical U.S. operations were gone, marking the end of an era.
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