THE Hampshire bridal shop that closed abruptly is to go into liquidation, the Daily Echo has learned.

Arvella Bridal's director Lisa Clarkson has been in talks with UK Bankruptcy Ltd who appointed insolvency practitioner Nick Peat to assess the business' assets to see whether they would cover the cost of any liquidation process.

Mr Peat found the company had enough assets at its store in the High Street, Lyndhurst and at its shop in Bradford on Avon to cover the costs.

Now Mr Peat is due to have a meeting with Mrs Clarkson on Monday to get a list of creditors, including customers and suppliers who are owed money.

All of them could potentially have a claim on the company's assets and a meeting for creditors will be arranged within the next few weeks.

The latest development comes soon after Mrs Clarkson, 33, spoke out publicly for the first time yesterday. She said she was "very sorry" but that she had been let down too and that threats had been made to her and her family.

She said: "I am so sorry that people have been caught up in this mess. None of this was intentional."

The director of the limited company added that everything was being done to help brides-to-be getting married in the next few weeks.

"Myself and my staff have tried everything possible to make sure that they are all sorted as much as we can.

"We are still working together to get them dresses."

She said she was "really, really sorry" for the way the business had gone.

Commenting on why Arvella had closed she said: "It is the way the market is. We tried desperately within the shop not to be in this position."

She said that she herself had done nothing wrong and had been let down by suppliers.

"I have worked my hardest with suppliers to carry on and the suppliers have let me down."

Mrs Clarkson, who lives in Warsash, also confirmed that threats had been made to her and her family including the kidnap of her two Labradors.

"These things have happened and the police were present," she said. However, the police have received no formal reports of these incidents.

Suppliers to Arvella Bridal have denied they are to blame for the business failure.

Wedding dress designer Amanda Wyatt said that she had 60 dresses ready to be dispatched to brides - but had never received any payment from Arvella Bridal despite customers paying for them in full.

She is also owed £13,000 for dresses that were already sent out to Arvella Bridal.

"Mrs Clarkson has not done badly because she has been able to take orders. I don't think she can blame the suppliers because we had the merchandise ready to go."

Hatmaker Vivien Sheriff who runs Vivien Sheriff Millinery near Salisbury said: "We always kept up with delivery contracts.

"We bent over backwards to support Arvella. We have had 30 separate inquiries relating to orders that were never placed with us, despite the customer paying Arvella between half or full price."


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