St. Petersburg clothing brand “Gate 31” incurred a loss of 31 million rubles in the first quarter of 2026, its founder Denis Shevchenko wrote on social networks.
JIT’s values are openness and humanity, and we have proven this more than once, putting the team above profit, and retaining employees until the end. We did not lay off employees, nor did we close stores. This time we were devastated: instead of laying off and closing, we worked, as before, to “burn” the accumulated capital. This was a conscious decision on my part as I was hoping things would go well.
Shevchenko explained that the Gate 31 team now includes 287 people. According to the founder, the brand “in principle” did not sew anything in China, but it created jobs and developed the industry within the country, but “at the moment sewing in Russia has become very expensive.”
The brand asked customers for support and offered them a promo code to get a 31% discount that “will last forever”. “We ourselves realize that it is rather stupid to write about problems in the fashion sphere on April 26. But they were sure that if this affected the portal, there would be no talk about clothes in everyday life. I always joked like that. And then it happened. It turns out that I was joking,” Shevchenko wrote on the brand’s social networks.
The Gate 31 founder noted that “global layoffs are already happening across the market,” but he himself is focused on maintaining the team and stores. Later, he published another post on the brand’s social networks, in which he wrote: “We are not folding our arms and have no plans to close. I am back to running the business, and I need time and resources so that I have time to rebuild.”
The Gate 31 brand was founded by Denis Shevchenko in 2015 with the idea that “fashion should be simple and thoughtful.” The brand now has 16 stores in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yekaterinburg, as well as its own clothing brand, which is produced in central St. Petersburg and Pskov.
The situation in which Portal 31 finds itself, according to experts, is typical for Russian fashion retail. In 2025 like Notes Kommersant, some retail stores were also closed by major market players – for example, Russian clothing manufacturer Gloria Jeans and Oʼstin.