An ode to Topshop: the fashion store that dressed – and defined – a generation

Asos has saved the British high-street brand from the brink, but will it ever be the same?

Topshop has been bought by Asos. Getty Images

Growing up in a sleepy town in a quiet corner of the UK, my fashion awakening probably came a little later than most teenage girls. Our high street was bare, no giant department stores or designer boutiques in sight. We did, however, have a Topshop.

It was tiny, in comparison to the stores you’ll find across the country, and it played it safe when it came to its choice of stock. Basics, mostly. A modest denim collection. Shoes, jewellery and the occasional trend piece. Still, on my regular Saturday morning trips into town with my mum, I’d calculate how many weeks of pocket money I'd have to save in order to buy the latest "Coca-Cola" slogan T-shirt.

I was 14 when I got my first job as a waitress, and in the years that followed, most of my pay cheques went straight into Topshop's tills. I still remember the first items I bought with my first proper wages – a fine-knit, cap-sleeved T-shirt in bright green, and my first pair of grown-up jeans. They were blue-flecked and slightly boot cut, with two buttoned pockets on the back, and they made me feel like I was most definitely not a child anymore.

A bus near the closed Topshop store on Oxford Street in London. Bloomberg

For most millennials across the UK, Topshop was that brand. The one that dressed us through our coming-of-age years, and defined our early experiments with style. Summer wasn't summer without the latest red poppy-covered dress from Kate Moss's endlessly cool collections, and you couldn't move in student unions for the sea of bodycon high-waisted skirts that became the go-to uniform of the 2010s.

A trip to London’s Oxford Street was never complete without hours of browsing every corner of Topshop's huge flagship store, something I’m sure my brother still has nightmares about.

So, the news that Arcadia – the group that owns Topshop, as well as Miss Selfridge – was going into administration at the end of last year sent shockwaves rippling through groups of thirty-something women everywhere.

For Gen Z, shopping habits are different. It's all about Asos, PrettyLittleThing and the fast-fashion brands that can give them exactly what their style crushes are wearing before they even know they want it. That has its problems, but so, too, does Topshop. Arcadia's chief executive Philip Green has been accused of sexual harassment, bullying and abuse in the workplace. The brand's values have been questioned and its collections have grown tired. As the legions of former Topshop girls became women, these were no longer the clothes that defined who they wanted to be.

Still, there's no denying the impact Topshop had on the British high street, and the hole it will leave once its 500 stores close – particularly on Oxford Street. For millennials, Topshop's heyday matched up perfectly with theirs, dressing us through first dates and parties and everything in between.

But it's not the end for Topshop. On Monday, Asos announced it had bought the brand and Miss Selfridge in a £295 million ($403m) deal, and who knows where it will take it. Back to its glory days? Unlikely. But just knowing that the brand that defined my early fashion identity is still out there is enough.