Do Won Chang arrived in the United States in 1981 with almost no English and a high school diploma, working three jobs simultaneously, as a janitor, a gas station attendant, and a coffee shop worker, for roughly 19 hours a day at minimum wage. Three years later, he and his wife Jin Sook opened a 900 square foot clothing store in Los Angeles with 11,000 dollars in savings. That store became Forever 21, which grew into a 600-store global fashion retailer before a dramatic bankruptcy nearly four decades later. His story is a genuine immigrant hard-work narrative, and its later chapters, including two separate bankruptcies, make it a more complete and honest account than a simple rise-to-riches summary would suggest.

Arriving in America with almost nothing

Do Won Chang, a South Korean immigrant, moved to California in 1981 with his wife, Jin Sook Chang. Neither spoke meaningful English on arrival, and neither held a college degree, only a high school education from South Korea. Multiple biographical accounts describe the couple’s earliest years in America as defined by an extraordinary work schedule: Chang worked as a janitor, a gas station attendant, and a barista in a coffee shop simultaneously, reportedly totaling around 19 hours of work a day at minimum wage, then approximately 3.35 dollars an hour.

Why he chose retail

During this period of relentless low-wage work, Chang has said in interviews that he observed something specific about the local business landscape in Los Angeles: people who owned gas stations and coffee shops, the exact businesses he was working within, seemed to earn significantly more than he did as an hourly worker, while people who owned clothing stores appeared to earn even more still. This observation, drawn directly from his own daily experience working multiple low-wage jobs rather than from formal market research, became the basis for his decision to open a clothing store rather than pursue any other type of business.

Opening Fashion 21

In 1984, with 11,000 dollars in savings accumulated from years of working multiple jobs, Chang and his wife opened a 900 square foot store in Highland Park, Los Angeles, initially named Fashion 21. The store’s first year reportedly generated approximately 700,000 dollars in revenue, an unusually strong result for a first-year small retail store, and the couple began expanding into additional Los Angeles locations shortly afterward, eventually renaming the growing chain Forever 21.

Rapid growth into a global retailer

Forever 21 expanded aggressively over the following three decades, growing to roughly 600 stores and approximately 30,000 employees by 2015, with international locations across multiple continents. The company built its business model around extremely fast production cycles and low prices, becoming one of the most prominent players in the fast fashion retail category that reshaped clothing retail broadly during this period. At its peak, the company was estimated to generate billions of dollars in annual revenue, and the Chang family’s combined net worth was estimated in the billions of dollars, placing them among the wealthiest self-made immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States.

The 2019 bankruptcy

Forever 21 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2019, a collapse attributed by retail industry analysts to a combination of factors: aggressive over-expansion into large-format mall locations just as mall foot traffic and consumer shopping habits shifted heavily toward online retail, mounting competition from faster-moving fast fashion rivals with stronger e-commerce operations, and significant existing debt load from the company’s rapid physical expansion. The company was sold in 2020 for approximately 81 million dollars, a fraction of its earlier peak valuation, to a consortium of buyers who closed roughly 350 stores as part of a broader restructuring.

The second bankruptcy and final US closure

After operating under new ownership for several years, Forever 21’s United States operations filed for a second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2025, ultimately leading to the closure of all remaining US stores, while international operations and online sales continued to operate through separate licensing arrangements in various markets. This second, more definitive collapse of the brand’s core US retail footprint marked a significant coda to the Chang family’s original American retail success story, illustrating how even a business built through extraordinary personal hard work and genuine early execution can still fail to withstand major structural shifts in an industry decades later.

Where the Chang family stands financially today

Despite both bankruptcies, Do Won and Jin Sook Chang stepped back from Forever 21’s day-to-day operations well before the second collapse and retained substantial personal wealth accumulated during the company’s peak years, with recent net worth estimates placing the couple’s combined fortune above 1.6 billion dollars. This detail is an important, frequently omitted part of the full story: the couple’s personal financial outcome did not collapse alongside the company’s later struggles, since much of their wealth had already been extracted from the business through dividends, real estate, and other investments well before Forever 21’s structural problems became terminal.

Criticism and labor practice controversies

A complete account of Forever 21’s history includes real controversy beyond the immigrant success narrative. The company faced repeated criticism and legal action over the years related to labor practices in its supply chain, including lawsuits alleging unpaid wages among garment workers producing Forever 21 merchandise domestically, part of a broader pattern of scrutiny faced by fast fashion retailers generally over supply chain labor conditions. These controversies complicate a purely inspirational reading of the Chang family’s rise, illustrating tension between the founders’ own documented history of extreme personal labor exploitation as new immigrants and later criticism of labor conditions within the supply chain of the company they built.

Why the story remains a genuine hard-work example despite the ending

Forever 21’s eventual bankruptcy does not erase the specific, verifiable facts of the Changs’ early hardship and execution: the 19-hour workdays across three simultaneous minimum wage jobs, the 11,000 dollar initial investment, and the direct, observation-based reasoning that led Chang to choose retail as his path forward. The company’s later struggles are better understood as a separate business story about fast fashion’s broader industry disruption than as evidence against the founders’ original hard-work narrative, which remains intact and well documented regardless of what happened to the company decades after its founding.

Family involvement and business structure

Forever 21 remained a closely held, family-run business throughout its growth, with the Chang’s daughters eventually taking on executive roles within the company as it scaled internationally. This family-operated structure, unusual for a retailer that grew to the size and international reach Forever 21 achieved, has been cited by retail analysts as both a strength during the company’s rapid growth years, allowing fast, centralized decision-making, and a potential contributing factor in its later struggles, since the company remained privately controlled without the same external board oversight and capital market discipline that a publicly traded competitor of similar size would typically have faced.

How the fast fashion model that built Forever 21 later undercut it

The same operating model that fueled Forever 21’s rapid rise, extremely fast production cycles turning new trends into store-ready inventory within weeks, low prices, and constant new merchandise, eventually became a disadvantage as online-native competitors like Shein and Boohoo built even faster, lower-overhead versions of the same model without the cost burden of Forever 21’s hundreds of physical mall locations. Retail industry analysts have consistently pointed to this dynamic, a company’s original competitive advantage eroding as newer competitors execute the same strategy with a structurally cheaper cost base, as a central factor in both of Forever 21’s bankruptcies, illustrating how quickly a genuinely successful original business model can be overtaken in a fast-moving industry.

Myths versus facts

Myth: Forever 21’s bankruptcy means Do Won Chang lost his personal fortune. Fact: the Chang family retained substantial personal wealth, with recent estimates placing their combined net worth above 1.6 billion dollars, having extracted significant value from the business well before its later struggles.

Myth: Forever 21 only filed for bankruptcy once. Fact: the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice, first in 2019 leading to a sale and store closures, and again in 2025, resulting in the closure of all remaining US stores.

Myth: Chang had a business background before opening his first store. Fact: he arrived in the US with a high school diploma and no retail experience, working as a janitor, gas station attendant, and coffee shop employee before choosing retail based on direct observation of which local businesses seemed most profitable.

Frequently asked questions

How much money did Do Won Chang start Forever 21 with?
11,000 dollars in savings, accumulated while working three simultaneous minimum wage jobs after immigrating to the United States in 1981.

Why did Forever 21 go bankrupt?
Industry analysts point to aggressive over-expansion into large mall locations as consumer shopping shifted online, rising competition from faster e-commerce-focused fast fashion rivals, and significant debt from the company’s rapid physical growth, leading to a 2019 bankruptcy and a second, final US bankruptcy in 2025.

Is Forever 21 still operating anywhere?
Following the 2025 closure of all US stores, the brand has continued operating internationally and online in various markets through separate licensing arrangements, though its original US retail footprint no longer exists.

What criticism has the Chang family and Forever 21 faced?
The company faced multiple lawsuits and public criticism over the years related to labor practices in its domestic supply chain, including allegations of unpaid wages among garment workers, part of broader scrutiny faced by fast fashion retailers over supply chain labor conditions.

The bottom line

Do Won Chang’s path from three simultaneous minimum wage jobs as a new immigrant to building a 600-store global retail chain is a genuine, well-documented hard-work success story, but the fullest version of it includes what came after: two bankruptcies, the final closure of Forever 21’s US stores in 2025, and real labor practice controversies within the supply chain of the company he built. Both parts of the story are true at once, and leaving out the later chapters would tell an incomplete version of what actually happened.