Topshop is returning to physical retail for the first time in four years with a one-day pop-up event ahead of a rumoured high street return this summer.
The hotly-anticipated event in collaboration with Defected Records will take place on May 10 at the house music label’s basement space in Shoreditch, East London.
Called ‘Topshop & Topman In The House’, the pop-up will offer early access to the brand’s new Talamanca collection and limited-edition Topshop x Defected T-shirts.
Free tickets are already sold out for the event from 10am to 6pm which will feature live DJ sets and cocktails, but walk-ins will also be welcome subject to capacity.
The so-called ‘activation’ is the brand’s first in-person shop since its final stores shut permanently during the pandemic lockdown in 2021 when it was bought by Asos.
It also follows a series of cryptic Instagram posts since March hinting at a retail comeback for Topshop this August which have sent fans into a frenzy.
Last month Asos confirmed it was preparing to bring Topshop back to the high street after signing new wholesale partnerships with brick-and-mortar retailers.
Asos boss José Antonio Ramos Calamonte said on April 24 that the chain had spent ‘two years rebuilding the product assortment of Topshop’ ahead of the relaunch.
Topshop has said is running a pop-up event in collaboration with Defected Records on May 10
The event will be held at the house music label’s basement space in Shoreditch, East London
People walk past the closed Topshop on Oxford Street during the pandemic in November 2020
He added the ‘first step of this comeback’ is a new Topshop.com website, and the physical retail return will see the brand open shop-in-shops in some outlets.
According to Retail Gazette, Mr Calamonte added: ‘We are listening to our consumers. We understand that they want Topshop to have a level of its own.’
He did not ruled out opening standalone stores in future – but an Asos spokesperson later clarified that Topshop’s return for now will come through traditional wholesale arrangements rather than branded shop-in-shop concessions.
Announcing the new pop-up earlier this week, Topshop’s global marketing director Moses Rashid said on LinkedIn: ‘TOPSHOP x DEFECTED present: TOPSHOP IN THE HOUSE.
‘We’ve seen your comments and couldn’t wait until August to see you IRL… Launching an exclusive 1 day shopping experience, with a basement takeover with Defected Records.’
Mr Rashid said the event will also feature beauty counters and is a nod to the brand’s iconic in-store experiences from its heyday on Oxford Street.
Asos is expected to announce more details about the return in August over the coming months.
A bombshell announcement on social media in March from Topshop sent fans into a frenzy. It showed a couple standing on an industrial rooftop below a huge Topshop sign
The post was accompanied by a message saying: ‘We missed you too’. Captions spaced out across three posts on the company’s official Instagram added: ‘We’ve been listening’.
The website www.topshop.com has also hinted at a major comeback for the fashion retailer
However, Topshop will definitely not be returning to its former flagship store at 214 Oxford Street, which is now occupied by the new Ikea which opened yesterday.
The Swedish furniture retailer bought the site, once the jewel in Sir Philip Green’s retail empire Arcadia Group, for £378million in October 2021.
Topshop had 70 stores when it closed for good, but Asos bought it out of administration in February 2021 for £295million along with Miss Selfridge, Topman and HIIT.
The brand has since been online only via the Asos website – and last year Asos sold a 75 per cent stake to Heartland, an arm of Danish fashion business Bestseller.
Bestseller is controlled by the major Asos shareholder Anders Povlsen, the billionaire behind Vero Moda and Jack & Jones – with the sale prompting hopes that Topshop could return to the high street.
This was following by a bombshell announcement on social media in March that sent fans into a frenzy.
It showed a couple standing on an industrial rooftop below a huge Topshop sign, followed by a message: ‘We missed you too’.
Sir Philip Green with Kate Moss at a launch event at Topshop on Oxford Circus in April 2016
British supermodel Cara Delevingne was the face of Topshop’s Autumn/Winter 2014 campaign
Captions spaced out across three posts on the company’s official Instagram added: ‘We’ve been listening’.
And its website also teased a return, with the homepage of www.topshop.com simply saying: ‘Topshop coming soon.’ This message still appeared on the website this morning.
Brits rejoiced at the news, with one saying: ‘Topshop announcing they’re returning to the high street is a joy only millennial girlies will understand. We’ve missed you x.’
Another added: ‘I feel like my parents just got back together.’ And a third joked: ‘Millennials everywhere are screaming, crying & throwing up… I’m one of them.’
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan was among those calling for the return of Topshop, saying at the time: ‘I’d meet my mates outside Topshop, my daughters took me shopping at Topshop and I know every type of Topshop jean.
‘Wouldn’t it be great to get Topshop back on Oxford Street?’
The company later revealed that its post was plugging an ‘audacious fan-fuelled art installation and treasure hunt’ after it joined forces with London artist Russ Jones to create the ‘We Missed You Too’ art exhibit in Soho.
The exhibit features 21 mirrors with comments from Topshop’s army of followers.
It also launched a ‘treasure hunt’ across London, where winners can bag a £1,000 Topshop voucher and exclusively early access to the website when it relaunches.
Crowds outside Topshop on Oxford Street waiting for model Kate Moss to arrive in April 2014
Sir Philip Green with models (from left) Suki Waterhouse, Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, Sienna Miller and Naomi Campbell at the Kate Moss x Topshop launch in London in April 2014
Topshop was once the undisputed queen of the British high street.
With its trendy clothes, sell-out designer collaborations and 100,000 sq ft Oxford Street flagship store, the brand attracted everyone from tourists and teenagers to ‘It Girls’ and fashion editors.
During their heyday in the early noughties, celebrities and fashion icons flocked to be a part of the retail leviathan – owned by Sir Philip.
Supermodel Kate Moss even launched her own Topshop range in 2007. She went on to do 14 collaborations with the company.
Attracting the ‘It Girls’ of the day, British supermodel-turned-actress Cara Delevingne was even the face of Topshop’s a/w 2014 campaign.
At its high, Topshop seemed a true titan of the British high street, raking in £100million in profit, with hundreds of stores spread across almost every large town and city in the UK.
But the store’s popularity waned as it struggled to compete with fast fashion online, losing its younger shoppers to aggressive digital e-tailers like Boohoo and PrettyLittleThing.
In 2018, former owners Arcadia revealed it was haemorrhaging cash, reporting a £93.4million pre-tax loss compared with £164.6million profit in the year before. And sales slumped 4.5 per cent from £1.8billion.
Shoppers queue to get their hands on the first ever Kate Moss x Topshop collection in 2007
Crowds of shoppers rush down escalators at the Topshop store on Oxford Circus in April 2006
As well as the financial woes, there was also the problem of image with Sir Philip Green himself.
Retail experts, including Topshop’s former brand director, pointed at how the BHS pension scandal and accusations of sexual harassment tabled at Sir Philip – which he denied – had tarnished the brand, putting off female and Gen Z shoppers.
Then, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Arcadia was forced to shut 550 stores and furlough 14,500 employees. The move spelled the end of the shop’s physical presence on the high street.
By 2021, all Topshop stores had closed after the brand was bought by online behemoth ASOS in a £295million deal.
Asos acquired Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT from the administrators of Arcadia, two months after the struggling group collapsed with a £750million deficit.
Topshop started life in 1964 as the ‘Top Shop’ concession within the now defunct Peter Robinson department store in Sheffield.
The company had spotted a growing need for fashion made specifically for teenage girls who wanted to embrace modern, forward-thinking design.
Under the leadership of buyer Diane Wadey, Top Shop stocked styles by young British designers including Royal College of Art graduate Jane Whiteside, Jeff Cooper and Ronnie Stirling.
In 2005, Topshop became the first high street label to show at London Fashion Week (left). That year, Sara Cox and Zoe Ball (right) are pictured at a Topshop party in London in 2005
Denise Van Outen launches a bikini line at the Topshop on Oxford Street in 1999
The idea was a success and a concession in the Oxford Street branch of Peter Robinson soon followed, marking the start of the brand’s decades-long presence in the West End.
In the early 1970s, parent company the Burton Group split off Top Shop into its own independent chain of stores focusing solely on shoppers aged 13 to 24. Peter Robinson would continue to focus on shoppers over the age of 24.
But by 1974, Peter Robinson, which had been a mainstay of British retail since the 1830s, was floundering and reduced its 22 branches to just six.
Meanwhile Top Shop was booming. Within two years, Top Shop had 55 standalone branches and was reporting annual profits of £1million.
Its next major image revamp came in the 1990s, the same decade that the Oxford Street flagship opened in its current location.
Under the stewardship of Jane Shepherdson, who was Topshop brand manager from 1999 to 2006, the brand went from teen clothing store to a serious fashion brand with industry clout.
‘It was a time when we were trying to prove Topshop had its own design credibility compared to a cheap high street retailer that used to copy everyone else,’ Mr Shepherdson previously told The Standard.
In 2001, Topshop launched its own label, Topshop Unique, and in 2005 became the first high street label to show at London Fashion Week.
The move cemented its place as a brand worthy of the coolest names in British fashion, with It Girls including Zoe Ball, Sara Cox, Donna Air and Jemima Khan sitting front row.
At the same time, Mr Shepherdson focused on collaborations with young British designers like Christopher Kane, and turned the Oxford Street store into a must-visit destination for schoolgirls, tourists and fashionistas alike.
Mr Shepherdson added: ‘We wanted to make it everything that a young girl wanted from a fashion store and for it to feel like a real luxury, special experience. I think for a time we achieved that.’
In 2005 Topshop reported profits of £100million.
After Mr Shepherdson’s departure came another great Topshop milestone: the first Topshop x Kate Moss collaboration.
Topshop started life in 1964 as the ‘Top Shop’ concession within the now defunct Peter Robinson department store in Sheffield. Pictured, shoppers queue outside the entrance to the Peter Robinson Oxford Street store in 1978
Peter Robinson had spotted a growing need for fashion made specifically for teenage girls who wanted to embrace modern design. Pictured, the Rag Doll Boutique in the Peter Robinson Sheffield store in 1966
Peter Robinson had spotted a growing need for fashion made specifically for teenage girls who wanted to embrace modern design. Pictured, the Rag Doll Boutique in the Peter Robinson Sheffield store in 1966
The 2007 release was a hit with shoppers and graced the pages of fashion magazines. The supermodel would go on to produce 14 collections with the retailer up until 2014, with each one selling out within hours.
‘The Kate Moss collaboration cemented the Topshop brand and allowed it to expand worldwide piggybacking off the name of the world’s most famous supermodel,’ pop culture commentator Nick Ede previously said.
‘It was the biggest fashion breakthrough and led to his products being featured in magazines that would normally turn a blind eye to his designs in a snobbish fashion.’
Other high profile designer collaborators include Mary Katrantzou, Richard Nicoll, Jonathan Saunders and Meadham Kirchhoff.
The idea was replicated at Arcadia’s other brands including Dorothy Perkins, which launched a Kardashian Kollection in 2012.
Mr Ede added: ‘These iconic collaborations were the top of their game. Many imitated but none were as good at tapping into the fashion zeitgeist of the times.’
In 2009, Topshop arrived in the US, with Kate Moss and Sir Philip jetting to New York for the launch that saw shoppers queue up around the block.
However, during the 10 years that followed, Topshop’s shine started to fade.
On the high street it faced greater competition from new rivals like & Other Stories, Urban Outfitters and Arket, as well as from established retailers like H&M and Zara, which offer designer lookalikes within weeks of their catwalk debut.
Topshop also had a large number of brick-and-mortar stores – some 510 around the world, including 300 in the UK – which became less and less of a draw in the age of online shopping. In 2019 all of Topshop’s US stores closed, just 10 years after opening.
Compounding the problem was Topshop’s sluggish digital investment and the aggressive rise in online, fast fashion retailers like Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing and Missguided, which have become the go-to destinations for Gen Z shoppers looking to snap up new, social-media worthy looks.
