Topshop

1960s–1970s

Topshop started as a brand extension of the department store Peter Robinson in the 1960s and originally sold fashion by young British designers, such as Mary Quant and Stirling Cooper. Peter Robinson was a women's fashion chain that had been acquired by Burton in 1946. Topshop was founded in 1964 as Peter Robinson's Top Shop, a youth brand within the Sheffield branch and also had a large department in the Oxford Street shop. This was high fashion for the "young and different generation" as The Times put it in 1965, and the department stocked garments by names such as Mary Quant and Gerald McCann. By 1966, it had a branch in the Peter Robinson store in Norwich.

Peter Robinson's Top Shop buyer Diane Wadey had an eye for young talent and introduced Royal College of Art graduate Jane Whiteside to Jeff Cooper and Ronnie Stirling. The Stirling Cooper brand they created soon had its own sections in Top Shop shops in London and Sheffield, as well as being stocked in Peter Robinson stores in Norwich and Bristol. Other brands stocked at Top Shop included Jeff Banks, French Connection and Radley Cooper.

In 1973, parent company Burton Group launched a major expansion of its womenswear division, splitting Top Shop by Peter Robinson into two chains to be known as Peter Robinson and Top Shop. It was announced that while Peter Robinson would target the over 25s market, Top Shop would focus on the age range from 13 to 24, with Ralph Halpern directing the new venture. By 1974, Peter Robinson had been reduced from 22 stores to six, while Top Shop was developing independently (still retaining the one co-branded shop in Oxford Street) and was described as "highly profitable". Its key retail rivals included Miss Selfridge and the Way In boutique arm of Harrods. Within two years, Top Shop had 55 standalone branches, with more to come according to an article in The Times. Fashion editor Prudence Glynn described it as having a: "sharp definition of purpose". It made profits of £1m that year. By 1978, Top Shop accounted for a third of Burton's operating profits.

Also in 1978, Burton embarked on a drive to win a larger share of the men's fashion market in the midst of declining sales of men's tailoring, launching the Topman brand along similar lines to its women's retail arm. It was described by an executive as: "more of a 'brother to Top Shop than a son of Burton'." The following year, Burton announced sales and profits up by 30 per cent in womenswear, with Topman also being cited as highly profitable. By the start of the 1980s, the brand was being referred to as Topshop.

1980s–2010s

In the 1980s, Topshop struggled to maintain its profile as a fashion brand, but by the late 1990s it began undergoing a revival. In 1994, it launched a collection with Red or Dead. It continued to work with designer talent, such as former Clements Ribeiro assistant Markus Lupfer – described in 1999 as "so hot he's practically steaming" – also working with, among others, Hussein Chalayan, Tristan Webber and Tracey Boyd. Typically, such ranges sold out quickly, and attracted column inches in the fashion press.

The brand pioneered online fashion, launching UK's first online fashion store for Topshop This turnaround is often credited to the promotion of Jane Shepherdson as brand director. Having begun her career as a buyer, she rose through the ranks at the company. When she took on brand direction, Topshop had an annual profit of £9 million; by 2005 it was making over £100 million annually.

In May 2007, British supermodel Kate Moss, designed her first collection for the brand. The appointment of Moss was announced just before the departure of Shepherdson for Whistles. In the same year, artist Stella Vine designed a limited edition range inspired by her artworks. These included T-shirts, vest tops, and T-shirt dresses, with the labels designed in pink glitter. The Guardian commented that "the fact that the range of T-shirts she has recently designed for TopShop – emblazoned with slogans like Breaking Up With Her Boyfriend – are flying out, speaks volumes for her public support."

Under her tenure, Topshop became a key sponsor of London Fashion Week, sponsoring its Newgen arm that supports emerging British designers from 2002 and the Fashion East initiative – which acts as a bridge between London's fashion colleges and the Newgen scheme – a year later. This sponsorship continues and since 2005 it has been part of the London Fashion Week catwalk schedule.

Topshop had around 510 shops including those that are franchised; over 300 shops were located in the UK. It had operated across 37 countries and via online operations in several markets.

Topshop expanded into Singapore in 2000 with an outlet opening at Orchard Road.

Topshop began planning its expansion to the United States in the mid-2000s and was tipped to open in New York as early as 2007. Currently it operates via a website and sells in Nordstrom shops. A small number of wholly owned shops were located in major cities. On 5 November 2014 it opened a flagship shop in New York City, located on Fifth Avenue. The shop was the largest international site, and second only to the Oxford Street, London shop in square footage. This was its second shop in New York City, the first having opened on Broadway in 2009. On 23 May 2019, Arcadia filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the United States and announced that all 11 US freestanding Topshop stores would be liquidated and closed; however, Topshop would continue to sell its merchandise exclusively at Nordstrom locations.

Topshop expanded into New Zealand in 2010, opening a small concession within a department store. Located on Auckland's Queen Street, the flagship shop sold out of some of its ranges before it had opened. In September 2017, the franchise went into receivership and both shops closed on 28 September 2017.

Protests and controversy

Topshop was criticised for its overseas sourcing policies and its tax arrangements. In December 2007, the Edinburgh branch was targeted by student campaigning network People & Planet for allegedly using cotton picked by "slave labour".

In December 2010, some 200 campaigners staged a sit-in that closed Topshop's Oxford Circus shop, and in Brighton a number of protestors glued themselves to the branch windows. Other high streets in towns and cities across Britain saw similar protests in a day of action by UK Uncut against corporate tax arrangements. Two months later, police arrested a man for writing "pay your taxes" in washable ink on the wall of a Topshop branch in Colchester.

In July 2013, the singer Rihanna won a lawsuit against Topshop to prevent it using her image unofficially on a T-shirt. The lawsuit was launched on the premise that Topshop customers would assume Rihanna endorsed the company, that would lead to a false representation of her celebrity image and increased tensions with her then endorsement deal with River Island, a high-street rival. Judge Justice Birss agreed that customers would likely be deceived into believing it had the singer's approval. Topshop launched an appeal to the High Court, accusing Rihanna of wrongfully advocating that: "only a celebrity may ever market his or her own character" and Judge Justice Birss of misreading the law on "celebrity merchandising". The appeal was rejected unanimously at the Court of Appeal in London on 22 January 2015.

In July 2015, Topshop was criticised for its mannequins which some judged as too skinny. After a customer complained on Facebook, the fashion chain stopped using its tall and skinny female shop mannequins. It was also criticised in October 2018 for removing an in-store pop-up in its London flagship store that was used to promote feminism with publisher Penguin after only being up for 20 minutes. The fashion retailer had agreed to host the pop-up with Penguin, to help launch the book Feminists Don't Wear Pink (And Other Lies), written by Scarlett Curtis, with products for sale supporting the UN charity Girl Up.

In May 2016, the UVW union organised a large protest outside Topshop's Oxford Circus store attended by the Shadow Chancellor and Labour MP John McDonnell. It was the headlining event in a national "day of action" involving 16 other Topshop stores around the country, supported by various trade unions and activist groups, calling for the Living Wage and dignified treatment of outsourced cleaners being victimised for trade union activity.