Buy-sell-rent clothing label, Designer Wardrobe, is shutting down all of its brick-and-mortar stores in the country due to “confusing Covid-19 rules”.

Designer Wardrobe’s co-founder, Donielle Brooke, announced on her social media last week that the brand has closed its physical stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and will now operate only online.

According to the company’s chairman, Simon Moutter, the uncertainty of the government’s Covid-19 rules left the business unable to estimate the timeline to ask for support from their investors.

“If the Government said New Zealand will return to normal on December 1, then we could do the maths around that,” he said.

Designer Wardrobe started in 2016, reaching $5 million in annual revenue before the pandemic. Despite being backed by famous names such as The Warehouse Group’s founder Sir Stephen Tindall, Icehouse Ventures and TradeMe founder Sam Morgan, Designer Wardrobe has been struggling during the past few months due to the lockdowns. Moutter believes if the government announced a certain date for re-opening, small businesses would more easily survive through the pandemic.

According to Moutter, while SMEs have to endure a number of costs, they don’t have unlimited access to capital. Many of them have been burning significant amounts of money monthly on an uncertain timeline.

“Banks, quite rightly, are not going to fund a business that might not be able to repay [them],” Moutter said.

However, he expects Designer Wardrobe will rebound after the pandemic, as it did after the first wave of lockdowns last year.