Biscuit Clothing and Living has announced the closure its original Edinburgh-based store, which will permanently cease trading before Christmas.
The popular boutique, located on the city’s cobbled Thistle Street, will close its doors for good on Saturday 2 December. However, the retail group’s other bricks-and-mortar stores on Bruntsfield Place and Hyndland Road in Glasgow will remain in operation alongside its recently opened warehouse and office premises on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
Owner Amanda Mitchell, who founded the business in 2015, announced the impending closure on Instagram and the group’s blog. She said it was always going to be a tough announcement, no matter how long it had secretly been part of her plan: “It’s where I began but definitely not where I’ll be finishing,” she said. “Our lease is nearly up, and I felt it was time to hand over the keys to the next small business willing to take a risk, to jump in and see where the ride takes them. I leapt, I prayed, I cried, I squealed even – without Thistle Street, who knows?”
Biscuit Clothing and Living’s Thistle Street store opened in 2015 after Amanda Mitchell, a former department store buyer, spotted a gap in the market for an Edinburgh boutique stocking the brands she liked to wear. It was an instant success and a second store followed in the city’s more residential area of Bruntsfield Place in 2017, followed by a third in Glasgow in 2021. Today the retailer stocks a range of covetable fashion brands including American Vintage, Bash and Hayley Menzies alongside chic homewares, stationery and apothecary. In 2022, it was named Womenswear Retailer of the Year at the Boutique Star Awards.