Fashion chain Nicole Farhi enters administration

LONDON, England - British upmarket fashion chain Nicole Farhi entered administration on Wednesday, the latest retailer to fall by the wayside in the country's prolonged consumer downturn.

Nicole Farhi, which sells high-end mens and womens clothes and homewares from six shops and also from department stores across the country, will be advised by administrator Zolfo Cooper.

Trading will continue while the administrator tries to sell all or part of the business, it said, adding that talks with interested parties were already under way.

Nicole Farhi's administration, which puts 119 jobs at risk, is the latest blow to a retail industry which has seen a string of household names like Woolworths, JJB Sports and Comet succomb to the downturn, though many of them have emerged in some form.

Aquascutum, another high-end British retailer famous for its rain coats, was bought out of administration by China's YGM Trading Ltd last year, for example.

"Nicole Farhi is a very powerful retail brand. Unfortunately, as with many other fashion retailers, the decline in high street spend coupled with rising costs has led to increased financial pressures on the business," Zolfo Cooper's Peter Saville said in a statement.