It was best known for being the previous parent company of British Home Stores (BHS), Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Debenhams, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Topman, Topshop, Wallis and Warehouse.

[4] By 8 February 2021 all of the brands previously owned by Arcadia had been sold off by administrators to online retailers, mainly ASOS and Boohoo, sealing the fate of the remaining bricks-and-mortar sites and thousands of jobs.

[5] The Arcadia Group has its origins in the firm founded by 18-year-old Lithuanian immigrant Montague Burton in Chesterfield in 1903 as The Cross-Tailoring Company.

[6] Burton's initial operation, a men's clothing manufacture, tailoring and retailing operation, became the genesis for the current Burton Menswear chain, which remains part of the company, albeit having moved away from traditional tailoring to mainstream men's off-peg casuals and formalwear line with shifting trends in fashion and clothing.

The firm's headquarters moved from Chesterfield to Leeds in 1910, and The Cross-Tailoring Company had changed its name to Burton by the time the First World War broke out in 1914.

[8] In the 1970s, and as a complement to the suit business, the Group began to develop itself significantly in mainstream clothing retailing by starting to target chains to precisely defined markets - for example, it launched Topman for young men in 1970.

The firm also expanded its horizons by acquiring businesses outside its fashion heartland, at one point owning Ryman, the stationery chain,[9] but later scaled back to focus principally on clothing.

The Dorothy Perkins chain was acquired in 1979, enabling the Group to expand into the mainstream womenswear market, following the success of its previous ladieswear ventures (Topshop and Evans).

[8] The Dorothy Perkins chain has subsequently been positioned as the group's main ladieswear operation, focused towards a similar target audience as Burton is in menswear.

In 1984, the Group launched a new chain, Principles, for fashion-conscious women with a higher disposable income; this allowed the firm to capitalise on emerging new fashion and business trends of the 1980s, such as power dressing.

In 1993, spurred on by the recession of the early 1990s, which had led to declining sales across the retail clothing market, the Burton Group undertook a major review of its trading space portfolio.

In 1996, the Group made its first move into home shopping with the acquisition of Innovations, a mail-order catalogue company,[12] along with the Hawkshead brand in July 1996 and Racing Green in October 1996.

[13] The late 1990s also saw the launch of a new experimental high-fashion menswear chain, SU214 (Style Union 214), which took its name from its flagship store at 214 Oxford Street in London.

[14] The chain aimed to capitalise on the growing demand for high-end casualwear and expand upon the group's presence in the young menswear market.

[8] By the middle of October 2002, the company had sold some of its chains, including Principles, Warehouse, Racing Green and Hawkshead, to Rubicon Retail for £35m.

In late 2010, Arcadia began a further review of its property portfolio, similar to those undertaken under the Townprint and BrandMAX schemes; several hundred of the group's existing store leases were set to expire over the next three to five years.

[37] Arcadia cited the rise in online shopping and "destination" centres as a reason for moving away from high street locations.

[39] Amid the 2020 UK outbreak of COVID-19, the group cancelled £100m of clothing orders which added to growing concerns of labour rights organisations of the impact on garment manufacturers globally.

[40] In May 2019, Arcadia Group confirmed it planned to close multiple stores across the UK, US and Ireland with the possibility of further closures worldwide.

[42][46] Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and continued issues with its parent company, Arcadia was expected to confirm a full closure of its Irish operations for late 2020 or early 2021.

[53] Arcadia's brands, including Dorothy Perkins, were mainly supplied by International Clothing Designs, a company owned by Philip Green's long-time friend Richard Caring, owner of the Annabel's nightclub.