Fashionette GmbH Files for Insolvency in Offenbach

Provisional administration ordered in Offenbach

The company behind the Fashionette luxury fashion online shop has entered insolvency proceedings. BCR Online-Warenhandels GmbH, which traded under the Fashionette name, is now subject to provisional administration ordered by the Local Court of Offenbach am Main.

Under the order, any disposal of company assets requires the consent of the provisional insolvency administrator. The court appointed Sebastian Netzel, a lawyer at the Frankfurt law firm Brinkmann & Partner, to the role.

The timing is notable: the company’s registered relocation from Düsseldorf to Offenbach am Main was entered in the commercial register on the same day the court issued its order.

A short life as a spun-off entity

Fashionette GmbH was only created in 2024, when The Platform Group (TPG) separated the fashion business into a newly founded company. The commercial register shows a further renaming in July, followed by the move of the registered office from the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital to the Hessian city.

Meanwhile, the shop itself is listed in its legal notice as being operated by Fashionette Plattform GmbH, a Düsseldorf-based company whose managing director is TPG chief executive Dominik Benner. The structure therefore separates the operating platform from the entity that has now become insolvent.

TPG exits own-brand trading

In a corporate statement issued the day after the court order, TPG confirmed it had parted ways with BCR. The executive board said it had decided to withdraw from proprietary trading in luxury goods altogether and to concentrate strictly on platform activities.

The remaining operations were divested in the form of the company. A buyer based in Germany acquired the business on 13 October, with both sides agreeing not to disclose the purchase price. TPG added that neither the sale nor the winding-up of its insolvent furniture subsidiary Digitec Living Brands, announced at the same time, would have any financial effect on the group.

According to the group, its net assets, financial position, results of operations and operational development all remain unaffected by these developments.

Who owns the insolvent company?

The list of shareholders filed with the commercial register on 14 October identifies Michael Witt as the sole shareholder. Witt describes himself on his own website as a restructuring managing director at Viaexcrisi, a consultancy based in Neubrandenburg.

The insolvency announcement also lists Witt as managing director of BCR. His entry in the commercial register in that capacity, however, was only made on the Thursday following the court order; before that, Benner had been recorded in the role.

From shareholder entry to platform pivot

Fashionette joined the Düsseldorf-based group at the end of 2022, when TPG became the online retailer’s new main shareholder. Shareholders approved the merger of the two businesses the following year, and Fashionette went on to launch a platform model for luxury fashion.

That shift towards a platform approach now sits at the centre of the group’s strategy: TPG is keeping the marketplace side of the business while stepping away from holding inventory of designer goods itself. For customers of the Fashionette shop, operations continue under Fashionette Plattform GmbH; for creditors of BCR Online-Warenhandels GmbH, the provisional administrator’s approval requirement now governs every disposal of assets.

What happens next

• The provisional administrator reviews the company’s finances and assesses whether a sale, restructuring or liquidation is viable.
• Any asset disposals during this phase need his approval to be legally effective.
• The separation between the operating platform and the insolvent trading entity means day-to-day shop activity and the insolvency case run on different tracks.
• TPG maintains that the divestment and the parallel wind-down of Digitec Living Brands leave its own figures untouched.