French shoe retailer Minelli closes all stores

The French shoe brand Minelli is throwing in the towel. The chain, which has been under court protection since March, has announced that all its stores will close on 30 May.

Maybe online only

The Paris Commercial Court received six takeover bids, but these are largely limited to individual retail properties or the brand name itself, without retaining the store network. So there will be no full-scale relaunch, at least, bringing an end to a brand that has existed since 1973.

Most candidates are primarily interested in strategic retail properties. For example, fashion brand Maje wants to acquire two Paris locations for 550,000 euros. Father and Sons bid on one of those stores, while optician Jimmy Fairly expressed interest in locations in Paris and Bordeaux. Bakery chain Mie Câline also submitted a bid for a store in Avignon.

More striking was the proposal from logistics group Baghaira. It wants to acquire the Minelli brand, the inventory, and nine employees from the headquarters in Gémenos for 300,000 euros, but without the 21 stores and their 77 employees. Baghaira intends to relaunch Minelli as an e-commerce brand and possibly reintroduce it in department stores at a later date.

Second court-supervised restructuring

For Minelli, this is already the second judicial reorganization in a short period of time. In 2023, the brand was previously saved in Marseille by a consortium led by investors and the fashion brand Mes Demoiselles Paris, but that venture also ended up under receivership again in March.

The restructuring at that time was accompanied by severe cutbacks: the workforce shrank from approximately 600 employees to fewer than 200, and a large portion of the store network was divested. Nevertheless, the company failed to return to profitability. In the 2024–2025 fiscal year, the loss rose to 3.7 million euros.

The chain positioned itself in the mid-range segment, with city shoes priced between 100 and 200 euros per pair, but lost ground to cheaper chains and online platforms such as Zalando, Sarenza, and Spartoo. Ultra-cheap players like Shein and Temu also put further pressure on the market. On top of that came rising energy and rent costs, more expensive raw materials, and the growth of secondhand fashion.