Buying on the High Street doesn t have to mean supporting fast-fashion. Here, Anna Woods, former buyer for Topshop and Whistles, reveals how to find investment pieces that will stand the test of time.
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That was the magic of Topshop in its heyday: it made you feel part of a club whose only membership criterion was that you loved fashion. As a teen, I thought the Edinburgh store was as exciting as shopping got. Then I clapped eyes on Topshop Oxford Circus.
Kate Moss in 2007, posing in the window of Topshop’s Oxford Street store to launch her first collection
The internet might have democratised fashion – anyone anywhere can buy a pair of Topshop jeans – but it can never replicate the heart-thumping joy of gliding down those escalators into 90,000 square feet of ‘It’ clothes and wondering whether you’d bump into Alexa Chung or Joan Collins (in my three decades as a Topshop customer, I saw both browsing the aisles). It lured you in, whether you were 18 or 80. And if you were Beyoncé, it smuggled you in after hours, via a secret entrance, to shop uninterrupted by the hordes.
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Every female millennial remembers her first trip to Topshop Oxford Circus.
Ten years ago the giant 100,000 square foot mecca was the most exciting store in the whole of London. Teenage girls from all over the UK would drag their mothers down to visit, tourists would make the pilgrimage and leave with suitcases bulging with floral dresses, leather jackets and denim hotpants, and even fashion editors would pop in for a pair of Joni jeans for a shoot, or a fun top to tuck into their Saint Laurent skirt.