Fashionista is reporting that Stila may have filed bankruptcy. Fashionista says Stila employees arrived at offices earlier this week to closed doors.
The story goes like this: The beauty brand, which is a favorite with beauty editors but is a little bit of a harder sell with girls that like bright colors on their faces, was sold by Estee Lauder to Sun Capital Partners in 2006, which means the products are only really available at Ulta and Bloomingdale's besides beauty mecca Sephora.
We hear employees were given little advance notice, and arrived to offices that were shut yesterday morning.
Several attempts to contact Stila via e-mail and phone calls went unanswered.
A maintenance notice on Stila's website seems to indicate there may be a problem at Stila - although it does say they will "be back soon." Google's cache indicates the maintenance message has been there for at least five days, since March 31st.
Estee Lauder sold Stila to Sun Capital Partners, an equity and hedge fund firm, in 2006. Sun Capital Partners also owned Mervyn's, which filed bankruptcy earlier this year. Sun Capital Partners also owned Drug Fair stores which just recently filed for bankruptcy. Hopefully, Stila was not the next closure on Sun Capital's list.
