The high street can be a brutal place beyond the sharp elbows of bargain-hunters and the sharper barbs of sarcastic assistants. When the slowdown comes, the weak go down quickly.

So it proved yesterday, when Dolcis, a shoe shop with a long and proud history, but a slightly shabby present, collapsed into administration. The stores seemed doomed earlier this month after the private equity group that funded the buyout of Dolcis from Alexon for £2.7million in December 2006 pulled out. The departure of Epic Structured Finance left John Kinnaird, the Scottish retail entrepreneur behind the buyout, scrabbling to find £2million in emergency financing.

With no funding, the end was inevitable. But the timing of Dolcis' demise is extraordinarily apt. Our first retail casualty of the current slowdown came on the day that global markets slid into meltdown. Jittery traders sold down shares while the question, “is there going to be a recession?” ricocheted from bourse to bourse across the globe. Meanwhile, the 1,200 Dolcis staff must feel they know the answer to that question.

But the slowdown is only the catalyst for Dolcis' demise. Tough trading conditions leave the vulnerable exposed, but to fall this early in a downturn suggests a company already on the edge.

Dolcis was a company in search of a reason to exist. Specialist footwear retailers have been struggling for years as consumers accustomed to the one-stop shop supermarket approach to buying food increasingly expect the same in their clothes shopping. Clothing stores such as Zara and Hobbs stock shoes in great numbers and are gaining an increasing share of the specialists' custom.

This shift in consumer habits has been masked to some extent by the long-lasting trend for expensive knee-high boots. Now, fashion has turned its fickle followers towards the ubiquitous and cheaper pumps, it is harder for the specialist retailers at the cheap end of the market to make money with each sale. Dolcis sat in the market space that primarily sold cheapish, trendyish shoes to young women.

In that crowded end of the high street it is hard enough for retailers to differentiate themselves from their competitors without being “an old, tired brand”. Those were Mr Kinnaird's words weeks before his private equity backers pulled out, leaving behind an old, terminal brand.

The boom in the appetite of con- sumers for cheap goods is waning. If you have five pairs of £25 black pumps in your bulging wardrobe, you may not be rushing back for more. There is a flight to quality in the high street, leaving the retailers who bank on quantity exposed.

The administrators of Dolcis are upbeat that they will find a buyer. But anyone courageous enough to take it on will need to create a strong identity for the ailing retailer. Cheap and cheerful is not enough: there are too many retailers already clothed in that particular mantle.

Mr Kinnaird had a three-year recovery plan. It could be argued that he was unlucky that a global economic crisis and five interest rate rises would hit during the first year. But retailing is an unforgiving business. It was always going to be an ambitious project to turn around an old brand with no identity in a troubled sub-sector of the high street.

There are other retail enterprises struggling on at present, which some would call brave and ambitious, and others merely quixotic. The oncoming economic gloom will throw a sharp light on the weakest in the sector. Dolcis may be the first well-known retail victim. It will not be the last.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive