You must be living under a rock if you missed Topshop's cryptic Instagram blast last week. The Noughties high-street staple brand — which was bought by ASOS in 2021 shortly after it fell into administration — posted Reels on its account stating: 'We missed you too' and 'We’ve been listening' sending millennials into a frenzy.
The brand has since relaunched its standalone website (it’s currently just a holding page) and hosted a voucher treasure hunt in central London over the weekend. However the question on everyone aged 30 and over’s lips is — will this comeback include an IRL shop?
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The brand’s flagship store on Oxford Street, which closed in 2021 and was subsequently bought by Ikea, is the stuff of cultural legend. First opening in 1994, it spanned three floors, 90,000 sq ft and was the only place you could buy a pair of Christopher Kane collab rivet-studded heels, sneak your boyfriend into the changing rooms so he could also try on a pair of Joni jeans, and then get a mix n’ match mani from Wah Nails, all soundtracked to the thumping set of a DJ positioned by the front door (I would say that maybe that was just me, but it turns out this was a pretty universal experience).
The towering seven-story building was so much more than just a shop — located directly opposite the tube, it served as a meeting place, hang-out spot and a fashion gateway for suburban teenagers like myself. I went to a wedding last year where, during the best man’s speech, he asked guests to raise a glass to the affectionately named 'Big Topshop' — it had played that much of a role in the couple’s relationship.
It’s hard to imagine, but Topshop existed in a time pre-iPhones, pre-social media and pre-online shopping. So if it were to re-open in 2025, there’s simply no way it could be the same. But why are we so desperate for it to return?
What made Topshop so successful?
Retail mogul Philip Green bought the Arcadia group, which owned Topshop, Miss Selfridges and Wallis amongst others, in 2002. Despite starting life in a basement of a department store in Sheffield in 1964, this is when things really began to take off for Topshop.
In 2003, the brand became a headline sponsor of the British Fashion Council, supporting the NewGen program and fashion talent incubator Fashion East. In the same year, it also set up a catwalk show space in a bid to support young talent. Topshop then began to develop exclusive collaborations with emerging fashion designers such as Mary Katrantzou, Jonathan Saunders, Christopher Kane, Meadham Kirchhoff and JW Anderson. This was a unique offering that put Topshop head and shoulders above the rest of the high street, with collections only being sold in the flagship store and often selling out. Its in-house label, Topshop Unique, started showing on the London Fashion Week schedule in 2005, cementing the brand's fashion credentials.
Green continued to push ahead of the curve, next harnessing the power of celebrity. The now disgraced businessman tapped friend Kate Moss to co-create a range for Topshop in 2007. The result? Complete and utter fashion mania. The image of Moss in the flagship window, lounging amongst the mannequins, with her smokey eye make-up and bright red dress (cinched at the waist with a clasp belt, of course) is more-than-deserving of the word iconic. Thousands of fans queued up outside the store, desperate to get their hands on items that were modelled on pieces from her own wardrobe.
This took Topshop global, leading to a 2009 store off Broadway in New York. Officially opened by Moss and Green, and celebrated with several lavish launch parties and events, all attended by the it-girls of the time including Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez and Olivia Palermo and with performances by Mark Ronson, Santigold and Adele (seriously, could it get any more 2009?) the humble high-street brand solidified itself on the world stage.
What went wrong?
In 2010, Green was accused of tax avoidance. Protestors took to Topshop stores across the UK after the then-Prime Minister David Cameron chose Green to lead a government review on spending. This came after Arcadia paid a £1.2bn dividend to Green’s wife Tina in 2005, the single biggest payout in UK corporate history. As a Monaco resident, she paid no UK tax on the amount.
The Green family’s lavish lifestyle was beginning to rub people up the wrong way. In 2016 BHS (purchased by Green in 2000) collapsed into administration with the loss of 11,000 jobs and with a £571m pension deficit. The Green family and other shareholders collected at least £580m from the chain during their ownership. Later in the year, MPs voted to strip Green of his knighthood, calling him the 'unacceptable face of capitalism' in a report.
That same year, Topshop launched a partnership with Beyoncé, an athleisure line named Ivy Park. It was short lived, as in 2018, Green was named in parliament as the man accused by The Telegraph of sexual harassment and racial abuse of staff. Beyoncé cut all ties with Topshop and bought him out of the company.
The final nail in the coffin was the pandemic. In late 2020, Arcadia stated that the coronavirus had had 'a material impact on trading across our businesses'. With its business model largely relying on physical retail, it lagged behind other digitally-savvy competitors, and fell into administration in November. ASOS acquired Topshop the following February, and all the stores were closed.
What do we know about the Topshop comeback?
At this stage, not an awful lot. Topshop’s website is still directing people to shop on ASOS, and the voucher treasure hunt that took place this weekend was created in collaboration with artist Russ Jones. Players had to locate one winning mirror out of 21 spread across Oxford Street and Soho, all designed by Jones, to score £1,000 worth of vouchers.
Moses Rashid, Topshop’s global director of marketing, said in a statement: 'We're excited to see the love for Topshop and Topman on social media. Supporting local talent, sharing the stage with creatives, and bringing London's unique energy to our fans has always been part of Topshop's heritage.'
Rashid joined the brand (which is still a part of ASOS) in February this year, and is the founder of trainer resale platform The Edit Ldn. In the same month, Michelle Wilson, former senior director of strategy and corporate development at ASOS, was appointed as managing director of Topshop and Topman. Could a buzzy creative director announcement potentially be on the way, considering that in 2011, the retailer famously poached British Vogue’s fashion director Kate Phelan (who is now creative director of Harvey Nichols)?
It certainly seems likely — but can a new team recapture the spirit of the brand’s heyday? Whether or not physical stores are on the agenda, the retail landscape is in disarray. There are so many more fast-fashion competitors, financial challenges and sustainability demands than there were in the Noughties, and Topshop will have to do more than team up with celebrities or emerging designers to stand out from the crowd. And given everything that came to light regarding Philip Green’s reign, a giant retail empire doesn’t feel as sexy as it did back then. Lest we forget that Topshop also fell behind when it came to size inclusivity, only going up to a UK 16 and rarely carrying bigger sizes in store.
Perhaps what we’re all desperately longing for is a simpler time — a time when you could get a nice dress for £40 without knowing you should question whether it was destroying the planet or feeling you had to post about it extensively online. Too much has changed (for better and for worse), and the younger generation of today will never understand.
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