Debenhams Group sells Nasty Gal to White Space Group for $16 million
The New York brand management firm also co-owns Von Dutch and Allbirds, and its founder says another acquisition could follow within weeks.
Debenhams Group has sold Nasty Gal to New York's White Space Group for $16 million in cash, closing out a nine-year ownership of the fast-fashion label. Debenhams, formerly known as Boohoo Group, bought Nasty Gal out of bankruptcy in 2017 for roughly $20 million and relaunched it.
That sale price is well below what Debenhams originally paid for the brand and further below Nasty Gal's peak. The company logged more than $100 million in sales in 2012, six years after Sophia Amoruso started it as an eBay store selling vintage clothing to a young, online audience.
By fiscal 2026, Nasty Gal's gross merchandise volume had fallen to 12 million pounds, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of just 400,000 pounds. Debenhams called the brand noncore and not material to the group in disclosing the transaction.
Why Debenhams is selling now
Debenhams said the disposal aligns with its strategy of transitioning to a marketplace led business model that it describes as capital light, stock light, cost light and cash generative. The group wants that marketplace to eventually represent well over 50 percent of gross merchandise value.
Group chief executive officer Dan Finley said the turnaround continues at pace. He described the Nasty Gal sale, of a noncore asset, as aligning with that strategy and as a move that further strengthens the balance sheet, without giving additional detail on the proceeds.
The disposal follows a separate move to shore up finances: Debenhams sold the automation inside its Sheffield, England distribution centre for 90 million pounds and reassigned the lease to Primark. It is now working with a global third party logistics provider on fulfilment.
Debenhams said that arrangement will let it fulfil stocked product as efficiently as before, and will allow the group to scale its Delivered by Debenhams fulfilment proposition beyond fashion. It reported a return to gross merchandise volume growth in the first quarter, accelerating in the second.
What White Space Group plans for the brand
White Space Group is a brand management firm that also co-owns Von Dutch and Allbirds, the latter alongside American Exchange Group. Jack Cheika, its founder and chief executive, said Nasty Gal, Von Dutch and Allbirds are all great brands that each had their moment years ago.
Cheika said some of those brands were previously acquired by a different group that did not give them proper support and commitment. He pointed to Von Dutch, once favoured by Paris Hilton for its trucker hats, as the template for what White Space intends to do with Nasty Gal.
Von Dutch was doing roughly $25 million to $30 million at retail globally when White Space acquired it, Cheika said. About two and a half years later, he put the figure at nearing $300 million, crediting the right licensees, retail partners and marketing choices.
Cheika said White Space wants to engage the millennials who grew up with Nasty Gal while introducing it to Gen Z shoppers. He said there is a lot of nostalgia and history attached to the brand, and a lot of plans in place for its next phase.
He said the ambition goes beyond apparel, turning Nasty Gal into what he called a true lifestyle brand, with new product categories and a single, consistent brand story told across retailers. Nasty Gal, he noted, has traditionally sold direct to consumer with awareness across more than 60 countries.
Cheika said White Space is not a label slapper that licenses names indiscriminately, and framed the coming plan as selective, built around the appropriate partners and retailers rather than volume for its own sake. He said the firm knows which retailers to approach and what consumers want from a brand like this.
He added that White Space is not finished building its portfolio. Cheika said he is looking to assemble a concentrated group of brands and could unveil another acquisition in the coming weeks, though he gave no target or timeline for it.
Debenhams said it will release a trading statement covering the first half of its financial year later this week, its first scheduled disclosure since confirming the Nasty Gal sale and the wider restructuring of its distribution and fulfilment operations.
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Image: Debenhams Group