Topshop, one of the buzziest stores of the last decade, has become the latest COVID casualty — and the one that hurts the most. This week, it was announced that the besieged Arcadia group, which also owns Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Miss Selfridge, and Burton, had gone into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk. A decade ago, the idea that Topshop, the jewel in Arcadia’s crown, could be on the brink of collapse would have been unimaginable.
In the mid-2000s, Topshop was at the peak of its popularity, collaborating with titans of fashion and music, from Kate Moss to Beyoncé. In an effort to prove that it was creating authentic trends, rather than being simply another runway copycat, the brand had its own much-anticipated spot on the London Fashion Week schedule. The show drew the top models of the day — the likes of Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn — and Arcadia boss Philip Green sat on the front row, nestled between Anna Wintour and a bevy of contemporary It girls.
But somewhere along the way, Topshop lost its luster. The 90,000-square-foot Oxford Street emporium that was once the beating heart of London fashion, synonymous with cutting-edge clothes that could be worn by those both in and out of the industry, became just like any other fast fashion store, peddling unremarkable designs in cheap, disposable fabrics. My generation, once outfitted in head-to-toe Topshop, began to move onto fashion-forward, mid-range brands like & Other Stories or Ganni, while younger Gen Zers flocked to online retailers like ASOS and Boohoo, which had eclipsed Topshop with their ruthlessly low prices, rapid turnover, and savvy influencer marketing strategies.
It also became impossible to dissociate Topshop from the tax-dodging man behind it, who has been mired in controversy in recent years. The hammer blow to Green’s reputation came in 2015, when he sold the ailing BHS — a British department store — for just £1 ($1.35 USD), only for it to collapse a year later, resulting in the loss of 11,000 jobs and a £571 million ($770 million USD) pension deficit. In 2018, Green faced flak for canceling a feminist pop-up curated by author Scarlett Curtis at Topshop’s flagship store after he reportedly saw the display and removed it; a few weeks later he was named in parliament as the businessman accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct and racial abuse. Green denied the allegations, but his reputation was irreparably tarnished. Soon, Beyoncé would pull her Ivy Park clothing line from stores and Topshop would be forced to cancel a launch party for its collaboration with London Fashion Week favorite Michael Halpern. By the end of 2019, Topshop had experienced losses of half a billion pounds ($674 million USD) and the value of sales had dropped by 9%. The spell had finally broken.
At the start of the pandemic, Arcadia’s cancellation of over £100 million ($135 million USD) worth of clothing orders from suppliers in some of the world’s poorest countries did nothing to cast the brand in a favorable light. In an age of more mindful consumption, it became hard to justify shopping at Topshop with knowledge of Green’s tax avoidance and short-changing of pensioners, while leading a champagne-soaked lifestyle of private jets and superyachts. Yet, despite Topshop’s dramatic fall from grace, its collapse is tinged with sadness for millennials like me who grew up during its heyday. For those of us who came of age in the early noughties and 2010s, Topshop was our entry point into fashion. It was the go-to destination once we outgrew Tammy Girl’s sparkly slogan tees, through which we could envision a life for ourselves beyond the humdrum of suburbia.
“Topshop was always on the horizon as the first place I ever wanted to buy clothes,” says Anna Loo, who works in publishing. “I feel like it was a gateway for pre-teens to discover your own style and it was where you shopped for the first time when your parents stopped buying your clothes. I used to go to the one in Cabot Circus in Bristol and that was like a classic weekend event with friends. We’d get on the train — it was only 15 minutes from Bath — and it was always so exciting to see what new stock they’d have.”
“I used to work at Café Rouge when I was 17 and I’d spend all my tips money in Topshop on the weekend,” says Jess Kerntiff, who now works in fashion PR. “I remember when I managed to get one of the Kate Moss dresses in the sale — it was a short, strapless pink dress and I was so happy about getting it. I feel like Topshop was the only affordable fashion [destination]at the time that was super on-trend.”
Topshop democratized glamour and style by making runway trends available at accessible prices to fashion-obsessed teens like me, who spent hours pouring over runway photos on the now-defunct style.com. It also gave us iconic designer collaborations which have become the stuff of fashion lore, from Christopher Kane’s grungy, grommet-studded 2009 collection to Kate Moss’ many sell-out lines, which saw scores of young women queue outside the flagship store for hours (the one-shoulder buttercup-yellow chiffon dress can still be found on eBay).
“Up until the age of 15 or 16 I thought it was just the epitome of aspirational cool,” says fashion writer Rosalind Jana. “This was the point where they’d just begun doing collaborations with young designers like Preen and the late Richard Nicoll. The Christopher Kane one is still particularly memorable. I was a big part of the fashion blogging community as a teenager and every single blogger was wearing either the studded minis or that tunic with the aggressive crocodile face.”
For many millennial women, Topshop will be entwined with adolescent milestones, from buying your first pair of Jamie jeans (or Joni, if that was your preference — both garnered cult status) to shopping for your prom dress (mine was a rather risqué slinky powder-pink slip dress that, in retrospect, looked a lot like a nightgown). “I remember a pair of gray, spike-heeled lace-up ankle boots I bought in the flagship Oxford Street store when I was 13. I’d come to London with my mom for a modeling shoot and the chance to go to all of these big shops still felt super thrilling and very far removed from the small village where I lived,” says Jana. “I wore those boots for years and weirdly, even though my feet grew two sizes, they still fit.”
Despite having bought nothing from Topshop in recent years, some of my favorite pieces remain from there, including a pair of Chloé lookalikes — pointed toe ankle boots — which I’ve had resoled not once, but twice. In fact, halfway through writing this sentence, I realized I was wearing a Topshop blouse, bought in the sale many moons ago.
“I just think Topshop represents the kind of first foray into adult fashion for so many girls,” says Loo. “I think for a lot of people, Topshop will have been such a big part of their lives. It will be sad to see it go.”
“When I was at that age when Topshop was at its biggest, you would have thought that they would be untouchable,” says Kerntiff. “So even though it’s probably been a long time coming, it still feels like the end of an era.”
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