SHOPPING LIFE

For months, young fashionistas have been feverishly anticipating today’s opening of an outpost of successful British fast-fashion retailer Topshop in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.

The newest participant in the invasion of affordable chains such as Zara, Mango and H&M, Topshop has won raves for its cheap-chic clothes.

Like other fast-fashion retailers, most of which are based abroad, it thrives on bringing fashion to stores quicker and cheaper than mainstream retailers.

The strategy seems to be muting the worst effects of the recession. The largest of the newcomers – Zara’s Madrid-based owner, Inditex – is even threatening Gap Inc.’s status as the world’s largest apparel retailer.

Inditex reported last month that its annual sales rose 10 percent to $13.4 billion, while Gap’s 2008 sales of $14.53 billion were nearly 8 percent below 2007.

Still, fast fashion is not a magic formula for avoiding the recession. H&M – founded in Sweden in 1947, it arrived in the U.S. in 2000 – reported its fourth-quarter earnings fell 12 percent, further than expected. And Inditex is scaling down plans to open more stores.

Better deals coming? “You shop Gottschalks for the sales,” shopper Pam Parker said Tuesday after a dry run through the purse department at the Lakewood, Wash., store.

But after hearing about the 105-year-old chain’s bankruptcy and pending closure, she said the best deals might be yet to come.

“I guess I better hold off on shopping until they start liquidating,” Parker said after looking around Gottschalks.

The chain – with locations in Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho – plans to shut its remaining department stores after a liquidation company won an auction for the right to conduct going-out-of- business sales.

Should the judge overseeing the bankruptcy case approve the results of the auction today, the company will sell everything in its 55 stores by July 15.

“Regrettably, liquidation is now the only path for our company,” Chief Executive Officer Jim Famalette said in a news release.

Gottschalks employs 5,200 people.

From wire reports