News broke today from Apparel News that Metropark’s intellectual property was purchased by Weisfeld Group, owners of Drunken Monkey, FuBu, and Coogie. They’ve hired Izzy Ezrailson to help navigate the waters towards finding new opportunities for the bankrupt retailer that had high ups up until 2010.

Metropark’s story marks an interesting shift and time period in fashion that was especially hard hit by the first recession in 2008. The retail chain, which carried brands like Obey and True Religion, had a decent reputation for bringing together action sports-inspired brands, denim, and crossover streetwear to youth consumers. It registered for an IPO in 2008, but like many other retailers at that time, couldn’t pay the brands it was carrying due to consumers’ lack of buying products. By 2010, Metropark owed up to $8.8 million to various fashion brands and other debtors and had to declare bankruptcy.

This definitely impacted the action sports industry, as well as competitors such as Hot Topic, PacSun, and Zumiez who were also feeling the effects of the economy, but surviving.

Now however, owners of Metropark and its consultants are hoping to take parts of what the retailer used to be, and piece it back together with a new strategy. No signs yet of what that will be, but it’s interesting that from the ashes, sometimes something new can come back alive.