Rumours that Noughties high street juggernaut Topshop might be staging a comeback, prompted by a series of cryptic posts to its Instagram account (“We missed you too” and “We’ve been listening”), sent UK millennials into a lather this week. Joni jeans! Faux leopard print coats! Cigarette trousers, and polka dots everywhere! Could it be that the collective pinnacle of our adolescence was back?
Alas, no. Topshop’s head office was quick to clarify that the posts weren’t teasing a return to stores, but an interactive art installation in collaboration with artist Russ Jones. Still, the nostalgia horse had bolted, and 30-somethings across the land were already waxing lyrical about the return of their indie sleaze goldmine.
But while I was as enraptured by the brand as any wannabe alt-girl circa 2009, the prospect of its return didn’t fill me with joy, but scepticism – if you ask me, there is no recreating the alchemy of Topshop in its prime, however much we might want to.
While it launched in the 60s and only disappeared from bricks and mortar stores in 2021, moving online-only, there’s no disputing when Topshop’s heyday was – between 2005 and 2010, the brand epitomised a pivotal cultural moment. Cast your mind back: Facebook was just getting motoring, Pete Doherty was cool, and Alexa Chung and Kate Moss ruled the fashion seas, bedecked in Mary Janes, tea dresses and leather jackets.
It’s a moment close to many millennial hearts, not least because it coincided with our teenage years, when everything is magnified by a hormonal hall of mirrors and a heady string of firsts. First kisses, first heartbreaks, and first attempts at forging an independent identity, where all clothes are lifejackets, filling in the blanks when we don’t yet know what to say about ourselves. And for some unaccountable reason, Topshop’s were especially eloquent. Who will I be, in this skirt? Somehow, exactly the kind of lightly grungy, effortlessly insouciant proto-adult I want to be!
Certainly, that’s how I felt about Topshop – specifically the big one in the Bullring in Birmingham, where I grew up. As grotty teenagers, my friends and I could afford almost nothing – but that didn’t matter. On the contrary, it was as much a meeting place as one for shopping – as though we could pick up some of Topshop’s cool points by osmosis.
The Topshop garments I did manage to scavenge – either by guilt-tripping my recently divorced parents, or saving up the EMA (education maintenance allowance) that was meant to buy textbooks but customarily got spent on B&H Silvers and lipstick instead – accompanied me on some of my most formative moments. I still remember the Kate Moss tea dress I wore to a particular party, desperate to entrance an especially gormless boy (it worked – thanks Kate!) And while my memories are specific to me, a quick glance at social media makes it clear that many people my age feel the same.
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Read MoreGiven our torrid histories with the brand, then, the delirium at the prospect of its resurrection was understandable. Yet, there is no returning to that gilded past – not only have that crop of Topshop devotees aged beyond recognition, but so has our culture. Much as my brain is literally a different shape now than it was when I first fell in love with Topshop, the way people shop has been entirely overhauled.
A flagship store on Oxford Street made perfect sense back in 1994, when Topshop opened one there after three decades of growth. But, as the brand’s move online in 2021 proved, today internet retail – with its lower overheads, its frightening convenience – beats traditional shopping every time, at least on a business basis.
While British high streets limp on, it is increasingly hard to make a case for the fashion meccas, local or flagship, that Topshop used to represent – a fact their head office seems to agree with, considering that they’re not planning on returning to them anytime soon.
Nonetheless – impotent or otherwise – the outpouring of love for Topshop’s former glory proves that our appetite for those physical spaces hasn’t waned. Perhaps artist collaborations, like Topshop’s with Jones, are the solution to interacting with customers without spending millions on leases and staff that shop chains demand.
Whatever the answer proves to be, I hope for teenagers’ sakes that it’s as intoxicating and formative as places like Topshop were for us ancient millennials – the internet might be useful for shopping, but I suspect it’s tougher to hammer out an identity in a server chat than a changing room.
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