before I launch in to a verbal attack on the quality of watchable people you are attracting, i would like to state, for the record, that on the whole you can give yourselves a pat on the back for excellent work in retail. it’s invariably a topshop label peeping out from my hemline, and it’s becoming more and more dangerous for me to walk in to your shop as the likelihood of my exact outfit being replicated by a nearby mannequin is far too high on the richter scale of likeliness. i would love to sit here and claim that i am one of those horribly thrifty people that only shop in markets and charity shops and won’t buy anything unless it smells faintly of my great aunt margaret or has a fag burn in the sleeve, but that would just be a big fat lie now wouldn’t it? i am one of those people that likes a neatly folded paper bag, the satisfaction of ripping off the price tag (more so I can forget how much I paid for it than for any real practical reason), and clothes that smell faintly of sweatshops in asia. i like a t-shirt that I’ve clearly paid too much for, will break in six weeks, but has kate moss’s name in the neckline… mmm… coolness by association. that’s the baby for me. therefore, madame top of the shops, you cater to my instant gratification needs excellently. well done you.
alors, you may be wondering at this stage, what the bejeebus are you doing writing me an imaginary letter of complaint then?! if i’m so bloody marvellous?! well, i shall tell you. starting with the positive - i don’t often do this, i am an agreeable soul 90% of the time, so i will try to put a friendly wee slant on this complaint. Just as a token of my gratitude, and because i’m still on a retail high from your rather wonderful suspender tights I’ve just bought (nice work).
i used to revel in the people watching available in topshop. almost better than your impeccably styled mannequins were the real, live, walking specimens floating about your shop in their size 6 whimsical chiffon numbers. most provided me with a source of inspiration- they had the guts to wear what I wouldn’t have even tentatively fingered on the rail, but seeing it paraded with panache about the floors of topshop spurred me on to dizzying fashion heights I never thought possible. to be honest, others were just pure comedy value - there is a line, dearest shop, that i’m sure you are ever-aware of while churning out your many and varied lines, that just cannot be crossed by the mere mortal. certain pieces were made for people who contain more genes from the ‘baby foal’ pool than the human one - legs up to their neck, hair down to their ankles, eyes bigger than the average human face. however, occasionally a few brave souls try to carry off what they are clearly genetically incapable of. and so the fun begins…
it was much to my disappointment, therefore, that on a recent trip to your flagship store, that i encountered none of the above. the mind boggles, really it does, at how you have managed such a hideous, startling turnaround. from being the mecca for london hipsters everywhere, or at least the mecca of quasi-fashion-victims everywhere, topshop has become a veritable playground for those most despicable ‘young ladies’ coming under the category of ‘under 16 and out with daddy’s credit card’.
these sloany ponies graze on a diet of legging, jegging, breton and back-comb. they look like electrified french onion sellers in nappies (due to the unfortunate habit of wearing their leggings as far down on their hips as possible, thus leaving their crotch hanging somewhere round their knees in the most uncouth manner). they are brace-faced, tiny squirts of the fashion world and, frankly, i would be more inspired watching multiplying amoeba. at least they show some initiative. they stand in the queue shuffling their uggs and pushing up their fringes (as if they weren’t quaffed enough), and dragging their hair over from a parting that starts somewhere halfway down their neck. frankly, i felt that i had past the stage in life where i would have to stand in topshop listening to outpourings on daddy’s maximum budget for prom. really.
so, topshop, i leave it in your hands. there really is, in my opinion, nothing else for it but a mass culling. you could entice them to the shop with a miley cyrus tshirt signing or something. then shoot them all on sight, and send them off to be made in to glue. or something more legal, depending on your preference.
yours contemptuously,
[charlotte skeoch]
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