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Topshop is relaunching today. Big news, right? But you’d be forgiven for letting it slip under the radar as part of Asos’s digital shopping proposition. Now included among the online high-street behemoth’s 900 stocked brands, Topshop and Topman at least have their own designated “shop front” or landing page to set them apart in the vast maze of deals and products. Banking on our nostalgia for the Toppers of yore and deep affection for Jamie jeans, the new-look label invites us in with a mix of old branding and on-trend designs, as it tries to re-stake its claim as a fashion authority.
So you’ve navigated your way there. How does this virtual Topshop compare to browsing its Oxford Street flagship (a shopping mecca that became the equivalent of a department store for teens and twenty-somethings happy to lose hours in the labyrinth of Boutique, Freedom and the Tall/Petite sections, before scoring an Eat baguette and maybe a piercing on their way out)? It’s a tough comparison.
Vanessa Spence, commercial design and visual director, who has been at Asos since its “As Seen On Screen” days and was the third person to join its design team, is overseeing the rejuvenation of one of Britain’s most beloved – and ultimately ill-fated – high-street exports. This is a mammoth job for someone who has an eye over Asos’s entire product offering. No matter. Spence sees this as a bonus. “The beauty of having a singular person overseeing all of the brands is that you can have very clear lanes: a real definition and idea of what you want each of them to achieve,” she explains.
So what is Topshop today? There is much talk of respecting the heritage – the new logo harks back to the shocking orange signage that singled out the store on any high street – while using Asos’s expertise in the digital shopping space to bring the brand up-to-date for now. The words “fresh”, “evolution”, “innovation” and “relevant” tally up during our call, with Spence expressing the team’s excitement at the acquisition, rather than any immediate pressure to make sure this comeback is a success story.
The merging of old Topshop designers and Asos’s team has helped ensure the DNA – plus the quality, fit and attention to detail – has remained, according to Spence, who admits she too experienced the thrill of descending the escalators on Oxford Street as an adolescent. So much so that escalators will feature in some of the imagery as a knowing wink for those who used to hoover up the new campaign pictures, featuring Jourdan Dunn, Sam Rollinson and Cara Delevingne, on the way down.
Strangely then, there are no blockbuster visuals featuring London’s It-girls heralding Topshop’s return. No promise of future runway shows, which once saw Kate and Lila Moss line the front row. Nor the prospect of collaborations (who’s still wearing their JW Anderson bomber?), or even star in-house creative leads (Vogue’s Kate Phelan was responsible for much of its authentic heyday). “This is a new chapter, a new journey about bringing the love and passion back to Topshop and Topman,” says Spence. Soft launch seems to be the operative phrase.
Instead, Asos has been listening to its audience. Topshop will include a plus-size “curve” line for the first time and double down on its lofty sustainability initiatives (as a company Asos aims to be “net zero by 2030”). Its regular product drops will be populated with bread-and-butter items, like denim (the Jamie and Joni styles are making a comeback), dresses and tailoring, while the cuts of garments will differ from those of its now parent brand. For example, “the It-vest of the season will be longer at Topshop and shorter at Asos,” asserts Spence, who is wearing one of said vests.
Whether this will be enough to differentiate the two high-street powerhouses remains to be seen – if, indeed, you stumble across Topshop 2.0 in its new home. Noughties kids are rooting for this forgotten fashion leader, but the space is crowded and we’ve already seen Topshop fall out of touch once.
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