TM Lewin — Jermyn Street shirtmaker closed 66 stores, 600 jobs lost

TM Lewin was a British menswear retailer founded in 1898 by Thomas Mayes Lewin on Jermyn Street in London, the historic home of British shirtmaking. The brand built a reputation over a century for high-quality formal shirts, becoming one of the most recognised names in British menswear alongside Charles Tyrwhitt and Thomas Pink. By the 2010s, TM Lewin had expanded from its Jermyn Street roots to 99 stores across the UK, plus international locations. Its customer base was built around men who needed formal shirts for office work, making it one of the UK's best-known shirt retailers.

By the late 2010s, the brand faced growing pressure from the casualisation of office dress codes and the rise of online-first shirt retailers. Bain Capital took a stake in 2015 and brought in a new CEO, but the underlying trends were moving against formal menswear. The COVID-19 pandemic was catastrophic — with office workers sent home and formal dress codes suspended indefinitely, demand for formal shirts collapsed. By May 2020, approximately 650 of the company's 700 employees were furloughed.

On 30 June 2020, TM Lewin announced the closure of all 66 UK stores with the loss of 600 jobs. The brand was bought out of administration by Stonebridge Capital through a pre-pack deal, continuing as an online-only business. TM Lewin later returned to physical retail in 2025 with a single store on Bow Lane, London. The case became emblematic of the pandemic's impact on formalwear — a business built around the office shirt could not survive when nobody went to the office.