The maternity fashion retailer Seraphine, whose clothes were worn by the Princess of Wales during her three pregnancies, has ceased trading and entered administration.

Consultancy firm Interpath confirmed to the BBC on Monday that it had been appointed as administrators by the company and that the “majority” of its 95 staff had been made redundant.

It said the brand had experienced “trading challenges” in recent times with sales being hit by “fragile consumer confidence”.

The fashion retailer was founded in 2002, but perhaps hit its peak when Catherine wore its maternity clothes on several occasions, leading to items quickly selling out.

Prior to the confirmation that administrators had been appointed, which was first reported by the Financial Times, Seraphine’s website was offering discounts on items as big as 60%. Its site now appears to be inaccessible to shoppers.

The main job of administration is to save the company, and administrators will try to rescue it by selling it, or parts of it. If that is not possible it will be closed down and all its saleable assets sold.

Will Wright, UK chief executive of Interpath, said economic challenges such as “rising costs and brittle consumer confidence” had proved “too challenging to overcome” for Seraphine.

Interpath said options are now being explored for the business and its assets, including the Seraphine brand.

The retailer’s flagship store was in Kensington High Street, London, but other well-known shops, such as John Lewis and Next, also stocked its goods.

The rise in popularity of Seraphine, driven in part by Royalty wearing its clothes, led to the company listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2021, before being taking back into private ownership in 2023.

Interpath said in April this year, the company “relaunched its brand identity, with a renewed focus on form, function and fit”.

“However, with pressure on cashflow continuing to mount, the directors of the business sought to undertake an accelerated review of their investment options, including exploring options for sale and refinance,” a statement said.

“Sadly, with no solvent options available, the directors then took the difficult decision to file for the appointment of administrators.”

Staff made redundant as a result of the company’s downfall are to be supported making claims to the redundancy payments service, Interpath added.

Because AI isn’t (yet) able to physically restock the machine, the AI model could email company employees who handled such tasks. Beyond that, however, the AI model, dubbed Claudius for the experiment, was tasked with many of the responsibilities of a traditional operator, including selecting and maintaining inventory, setting prices and maximizing profit.

The upshot: “If Anthropic were deciding today to expand into the in-office vending market, we would not hire Claudius,” the company wrote in its blog.

The experiment showed that while the AI model was effective at tasks such as identifying suppliers, adapting to users’ requests and “jailbreak resistance,” as Anthropic employees tried to trick Claudius into stock sensitive items, Claudius failed as a convenience service operator because it ignored profitable opportunities, instructed customers to make payments at a Venmo address it had imagined (instead of the one created), sold products at a loss, offered excessive discounts and mismanaged inventory.

Although version one of Project Vend wasn’t successful at the bottom line, Anthropic predicts that AI middle managers will come to pass. “It’s worth remembering that the AI won’t have to be perfect to be adopted; it will just have to be competitive with human performance at a lower cost in some cases,” the company wrote in its blog.

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