This post comes to you on a wave of illness, drama, long days at work and hospital visits so forgive the spelling mistakes and slight ramble… The fashion press have a love-love relationship with Topshop, there’s nowt but sweet nothings that pour from the pages of fashion mags. Until Tuesday when Jess Cartner Morley wrote a [...]]]>

This post comes to you on a wave of illness, drama, long days at work and hospital visits so forgive the spelling mistakes and slight ramble…
The fashion press have a love-love relationship with Topshop, there’s nowt but sweet nothings that pour from the pages of fashion mags. Until Tuesday when Jess Cartner Morley wrote a swansong for her love of Britain’s favourite high street store. It’s hot on the heels of the news that New Look initial public stock offering which I’ve been following from the inside, as it were. An article like this is inevitable, but it also shows that high street reatailers are catching up with Topshop. Take River Island for example, a shop I wouldn’t have been seen dead in a few years ago until I met the tireless an lovely press team and started paying attention to the great items instore.

This brings me to the real subject of my post, the Topshop dilemma. Everyone else raves about TS and as much as like what I see, I own three things from Toppers. A nude jersey and muslin top, an admittedly fab Erdem-style watercolour top and my OMG necklace, obvs. I don’t really know why I own so little from the store that people all across the world revere, so I had a little think and this is what came tumbling out of my brain…

I like to approach fashion in the same way as life, a roundabout way. I’m a fashion history nerd turned science student turned art student turned fashion writer. It’s not that I stopped loving fashion, clothes and the history of dress I just approach it from all sides before I really get to the core. Being a Jack of all trades is seen as a bad thing but I positively embrace it and let it take me where it will, which means lots of adventures in life!

The same for fashion, I like to wear a mix of hand me downs, borrowed items, charity shop faves, sample sale bargains and high street finds. This is why I have never really been able to get my head round Topshop. Sure I coo and sigh at press days like everyone else but when it comes down to it I can’t commit to buying. I can definitely apportion blame to my ingrained thriftiness and youth spent in Cromwell’s Madhouse; as one of the pricier chains I balk at Topshop’s prices. The other thing is that Tozzashozza (which is my preferred nickname btw) is pretty much all killer no filler, I walk and think, I could wear that, I could wear that, I could wear that. There’s no thrill of the chase, ferretting out something special is harder when it’s all special. In life, like in style if you’ve really worked hard for something the rewards taste sweeter, and seamlessly bagging all my SS10 trends doesn’t sit well with my hawk-like shopping system.

I once compared Topshop and Dorothy Perkins to Barbie and Sindy. If you’re a child of the ’80s you’ll remember Sindy had a round flicky-eyelinered face and distinct ’50s air. Barbie was more popular but then I’ve always had a chronically soft spot for the underdog. So much so, that when everyone at school was into Nirvana, I declared them boring and got into Boyzone out of spite. I know, Boyzone. Contrariness is a funny thing. I love to go into Dorothy Perkins and hunt out the few amazing items they put out every season, in Topshop it’s not the same. I’m obviously in the minority, but it’s something that interests me because no one actually admits to feeling anything less than total utter adoration for Tosho.