An ode to brands we’ve already lost to the mists of time (and economic disaster).
It’s not really the pandemic that has meant the death of the British High Street, although a global virus hasn’t really helped. The main culprit, of course, is the dawn of online shopping. Whilst catalogue shopping was an option for decades, and is such a sweet, wholesome-seeming way to shop IMHO, online shopping has taken home delivery to a whole new level.
Just think about the ease at which you can shop these days; next day delivery, instant access to films and games and music, fashion, so fast it’s basically just a blur. Well and truly gone are the days when I’d have to save up to buy an album or with a whole week to rent a video. Even clothing can be bought and delivered for little more than the price of a song these days; despite their ethical cost, Boohoo sell dresses for as little as £4 and Missguided churn out a new polyester crop top every couple of minutes it seems.
Shopping has changed entirely in the last decade, let alone the since the 90s. TV scenes like Miranda ordering Chinese food on the phone or the same in Sex and the City (Chicken with Broccoli and brown rice- literally the world’s most boring takeaway surely?) are historical relics now that Postmates, Justeat and Deliveroo let you order your boring static order with little more than a click of a mouse (or a scan of a fingerprint). Meanwhile, Mallrats and the Mall scene in Mean Girls become obsolete- kids these days aren’t shopping at fluorescently lit malls, buying Auntie Anne’s pretzels and miss Millies Cookies, they’re ordering from Urban Outfitters and Depop, never wasting their precious youthful energy on trawling round a weird glassy shopping centre.
I know I’m showing my age here, but after all, you’re the one who clicked on a post about the UK high street, so I think I’m probably showing your age, too. I feel genuinely nostalgic about the shops and the brands that have fallen to internet shopping, and not only because 90s and early 00s fashion are ‘in’ at the moment. When I think about the weekends I spent trawling around central Bristol it is with genuine fondness.
The shops we used to visit which no longer exist, such as Woolworths (pic n mix), Virgin Megastore (CDs and DVDs) and Borders (books and stickers and reading books without buying them) are pillars of nostalgia for me. Almost as much as, but not quite as much as the Clothes Shops.
The first shop that springs to mind, when I think about the 90s or the 00s is, obviously, Tammy Girl. I miss Tammy Girl with all my heart. If you have not had the glorious experience of going into Tammy, smelling that synthetic vinyl scent of sticky-fronted graphic t-shirts and gritty glitter glue hair butterflies, then you have well and truly missed out on a key part of British high street culture. Younger sister to the also defunct Etam (although actually, Etam still sells lingerie online), Tammy was the sensible sartorial choice for fashion-conscious, self-respecting teen or tween in the 00s.
I genuinely do think it’s a shame that shops like this have closed because the leap from children’s clothes to adults clothes for teenager seems huge, to me. Anyway, Tammy isn’t the only shop that our high-street sorely misses.
Blockbuster is held to a kind of bizarre standard of idolatry. It encompasses nostalgia for a certain group of people (of which I am one) who still fantasise about Friday nights with Butterkist and Practical Magic. But for some unknown reason, no one, myself included, seems to remember Choices properly. Choices, video store supreme, sold all the good snacks: Ben and Jerrys, popcorn, Haribo, Candyfloss in a tiny bucket… The high street is truly poorer for the loss of Choices (and obviously Blockbuster too).
Another shop that is sorely missed is Athena, which was basically a framing shop but it also sold all those posters like the Jack Vettriano beach dancers, the lady playing tennis in a tiny skirt and the ‘hang in there’ kitten. Kind of like the frames bit of Ikea but way better. There isn’t anywhere quite like Athena now as far as I know, where you can buy mass-produced art but in a way that makes it feel a bit more personal and a bit more like you’re making a cultured choice about what you put on your walls. Athena also sold things like photo holders which were heart-shaped lumps of resin with glitter in or small inflatable phone holders (so weird).
Now, all we’re left with to remind us of days of yore is Topshop, River Island and HMV. None of which are as interesting, or as cutting edge, as their historical counterparts.
