Topshop Nostalgia

[clueless]

Eee! I found a Topshop jacket that I used to own in the noughties on Vinted and it's just arrived, in fantastic condition and beautiful. It maybe wasn't worn much by the seller, but is in excellent condition for being from that long ago, it speaks to the higher quality that they used to have. I'm so happy to have found it! Takes me right back

I wish I'd kept more of my clothes from back then, everything was so much nicer than these days. I hardly like anything that's out now.

 

[gingerteacup]

Does anyone remember the “GEEK” T-shirt’s with rolled up sleeves and those black velvet studded shoes?

 

[NowIsGood]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but just finished reading all 14 pages and am now filled with nostalgia!

As a teen I do remember feeling not quite cool enough and not quite rich enough to fully embrace Topshop, but my god it felt achingly cool! Starting sixth form college in 2006 I got my first pair of black skinny jeans! They were £40, which felt like a kings ransom at the time and I wore them pretty much everyday until the knees wore out! (Knee rips being uncool at the time!)

My local Topshop is now a charity shop... They still have the same black painted walls and strip lights hanging from the ceilings!

 

[grumpycat]

Oh I love this thread.

When I was at school (left in 2010) it was trendy to carry your P.E kit around in a carrier bag (there wasn’t the environmental stigma back then…)

The carrier bag was a status symbol and showed the whole school what you could afford and where you shopped. Top tier was somewhere like Abercrombie and fitch or hollister (there wasn’t even one near us!) and I distinctly remember the gasp a girl called Paige got when she dared to bring her kit in one of those la senza carrier bags (gasp, she wears pants!!)

Anyway the reason I’m telling you this is because those white-with-black-writing topshop carrier bags were the sign of a truly classy lady. I never had anything from topshop until I started earning my own money. It was such an aspirational shop for me.

My mum only shopped in Matalan so I never participated in the carrier bag wars aside from a truly spectacular term when I borrowed a friends green river island carrier bag and felt like the dogs bollocks. View attachment 654258

in my school it was the bloody Jane Norman bags

 

[NP]

I just want to be able to buy sugar magazine again *sob*

Yes! And Bliss. And Mizz. Loved all those. Loved the free shit with it too. Roll-on lipgloss and cheap jewellery.

 

[SpritneyBeers]

God knows why i still get emails from asos, i haven't boght anything there in years, but EVERY time i get one i cringe myself inside out at the language.......does ANYONE talk like this??!

 

[Scorpihoe]

Did anyone else have these bags for school?! major throwback rn

Just remembering myself walking home from school with my Jane Norman bag, listening to N-Dubz on my tangled headphones, flipping my supersized fringe out my eyes, topping up my heavy black eyeliner and concealer lips

take me back!!! I hate being an adult!!

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

Omg does anyone remember these - can’t believe they’re still being made?! These were £££ so for millionaires only x

 

[blurstoftimes]

someone earlier in the thread mentioned that before topshop became cool it just sold novelty thongs and it all came rushing back to me....2002, 12 year old blurst and her friends going to the topshop section at the debenhams in Wimbledon centre court and using all our pocket money to buy thongs with pictures of sweets and cats on them then hiding them at the back of our drawers when we got home so our mums wouldn't throw them in the bin

 

[bunsofsteel]

Going to the Oxford Street store in the 90s when I was a teenager. I was in heaven.

 

[NowIsGood]

Just jogged an old memory, not Topshop, but in 2007 who remembers the 'I'm not a plastic bag' bag by Anya Hindmarsh?

Think there was a very limited run and Heat magazine raved about it. I really wanted one Tbh it was the ugliest bag and it got faked by every market stall!

 

[Belulah]

@DisgruntledGoat The Aztec! I had an Aztec maxi dress I took on my gap year. I loved and died in that dress.
I also loves an LBD with either very bright tights (very The Saturdays) or wedges. I had a beautiful pair of oranges wedges with a gold trim. Absolute beauts!

Slightly off topic but I remember my mum having this bag to keep important documents in- what a strange design for a bag from RI! (And also strange choice of storage from my mum!)

 

[Underthetabletop]

Do we really think Topshop would have survived even without Arcadia? We love it but we’re the OGs. Eventually even Jane Shepherdson would probs not be relevant enough to run it and you’d have to get someone who knows what Gen Z like which is cheap neon, Love Island stuff etc. Anyone genuinely cool for Gen Z is quite alternative

I’ve said before, they could have done a steal on proper basics for the late 20s market. The boohoos, love island brands etc aren’t designed for ‘womens’ shapes, Zara is too directional I think for a lot of people, H&M is for willowy tall women who live in linen. River Island and New Look cover an inbetween market but it’s a bit too all over the shop, they don’t know if to be Primark, PLT or the market at times. And then you hit the seasalt, white company etc which is way too old for most of us. So you are left dredging through asos to find something.
Or maybe that’s me. But I, and it seems loads of us here still have a lot of topshop basics before they got all directional and made stuff from tat (it’s time for my twenty year old black jumper to come out!) so it says something about what they could have done, but just didn’t want to to survive. They should have said feck what PG- or his daughter wanted

 

[MrsBsDayOff]

I really miss the excitement of going into the Oxford Circus branch. It was before online shopping existed or had taken off meaningfully so there was an element of surprise when you went in there and saw things. I always came out of there with something. It was vast. And it felt like a really cool happening place to be. Can never recapture that.

 

[ComeForTheX StayForTheY]

Omg GREAT thread nostalgia!
I used to love the polka dot peep toe flats with a bow. Have tracked down an example! I had these in yellow
Worn with super skinny jeans, dotty vest tops, and long fake pearls and massive sunglasses
I thought I was Audrey

 

[bubbadabut]

O/T but while we're on the subject of lip gloss, does anyone remember Lancome Juicy Tubes? I had them in about 6 different colours (always stocked up at Duty Free when I went on hols!), but they all looked exactly the same once they were on your lips! And they were so sticky - I couldn't use them on a windy day as my hair used to get stuck to it

 

[Tabitha]

Kate Moss! I bought this when they re-released it as i couldn’t afford it the first time around. They also sneaked in a navy version a few years later but didn’t label it Kate Moss but it was the same dress.

Is it bad that I still wear it every summer?
I even made a dress pattern from it and created my own tea dresses with liberty fabric. I even found the closest match to Kate Moss’s dress which is called John C https://thestrawberrythief.com.au/product/john-c/

 

[@^^¥]

Oh wow this thread has unlocked so many memories on the flip side, I worked for Topshop from 2001 to around 2006. I only used to buy clothes with my uniform allowance as it was too expensive for me back then I still have some of my girl boxers, a Moto jacket, and a few tops

I remember when I first started out in a concessions in Debenhams and the stock room hadn't been kept very well so I went in after hours to have a good sort out with my price gun and I found some right bargains! Discontinued coats for 50p

Will say ... When I worked there they had a brilliant training programme. One of the best companies I worked for

I remember when I moved to a big 3 floor store and would be helping the girls on the tills and when "satisfaction" used to come on the TV's all the lads next to thier girlfriends in the queue couldn't take their eyes off the telly's

I helped set up the flagship store in Birmingham bullring which was an experience! I've got nothing but great memories from that era and makes me so sad to think they are no longer around (although I didn't used to shop in them as such )

If anyone is ex staff around the Midlands and can remember Val who used to do the training - what a legend. I owe a lot to her

I moved on to miss Selfridge after a while and although the same umbrella group, Topshop always had my heart after working for them first

 

[Pocahontas]

Could this BE any more noughties?

 

[dot bold dot dot]

I've recently gone through a huge bag of clothes I'd put away in my mum's house and a lot of it is Topshop circa 2002 / 2004 and the quality is unreal. Mostly basics but they are all 100% cotton and still in great shape washed and dried and I'll be wearing some of the jumpers and polos from now on