The women the high street has lost
sandra monero always dreamed of having her own shop. After an horrific few years where she lost her parents and brother in quick succession, she knew she wanted to do something that would have made her family proud. After saving for years, in 2018 she opened Monero Kids Boutique in east London, her own clothing and toy shop.
‘Signing the lease felt amazing, so exciting. I just wished my family was there to see what I’d achieved,’ she says. ‘I just had a few rails at first, but it really grew after a few newspapers wrote about me.’
For two years the shop did well. Then the pandemic hit. ‘When lockdown was announced I thought, “I’m finished,”’ she says. She received a Government grant but felt it still wasn’t viable to carry on. The day she packed up last July, she stuck newspaper over the windows. ‘I felt so sad and embarrassed, like a failure. Now I’m in limbo and don’t know what I’ll do next. I’m on Universal Credit,’ she says. ‘I’ve started a website but it’s not as effective as a shop front. And I loved being around people.’
The pandemic has decimated the high street and hit women hardest, since they are over-represented in sectors, including retail, shut down by coronavirus: from shop owners whose dreams have collapsed in the blink of an eye to those who spent years climbing the career ladder at a household name who lost jobs overnight. It’s thought around 20,000 women were made redundant following the collapse of Arcadia and Debenhams alone. More generally, TUC analysis found a 79% increase in redundancies of women last year compared to a 23% increase for men.
Leanne Fraser, 38, was made redundant from Debenhams’ head office in London last May after a decade at the business. Almost everyone in her department of childrenswear was made redundant. She thinks around 90% were women – quite a few on maternity leave. ‘It was really sad. And there were no other jobs anywhere. Everyone is cutting back. I was made redundant in the 2008 recession as well, but this one hurt more. You give a company so much and then it feels like you’re thrown away. I’ve had overriding feelings of worthlessness,’ she adds.
Lornnah Stewart, 29, lost her job of seven years at Topshop in Greater Manchester in January, when the business closed its stores. She says it’s the people she’ll miss most. ‘I’ve lost count of the times we supported each other if someone was crying in the stock room. We’ve helped each other through infertility, British citizenship applications, family deaths. Some of my colleagues have worked for Topshop for decades. And people who shop there have been coming here for years. Nearly all my colleagues are out of work at the moment.’
Lornnah is living off her redundancy pay for now but has panicked about losing her home. She’s learning new IT skills and is also a singer-songwriter. ‘The high street was like a community. It looks wrong seeing it all boarded up. Everyone wanted Topshop to live forever,’ she says.
Leanne has retrained as a baby sleep consultant, which she does three days a week from home. ‘You do worry financially. Many former colleagues who don’t have a partner to help support them had to go back to living with their families.’
Everyone hopes this won’t be the nail in the coffin for a high street that was already struggling pre-pandemic. ‘It’s so important to be able to have a shopping experience where you can see and feel the product,’ Leanne adds. ‘And there’s so much lost talent out there now. The wounds of this will show for years.’
Sandra dreams of being able to reopen her shop one day. ‘I so hope the high-street will be buzzing again,’ she says.
The outlook may seem bleak but, as lockdown lifts, perhaps a nation that’s realised how close we’ve come to losing a treasured experience will flood back, so the high street can one day flourish again.
For Sandra’s shop visit monerokids.boutique. For Leanne’s baby sleep consultancy visit @babysleepthenight_leanne on Instagram
THE WOMEN THE HIGH STREET HAS LOST
‘I FELT SO SAD, LIKE A FAILURE. I’M ON UNIVERSAL CREDIT NOW’