Topshop has re-emerged from retail purgatory. There’s a Liberty pop-up, a John Lewis rollout on the horizon and a pretty epic show in Trafalgar Square to announce its return. But attention is one thing, relevance is another. Can it still play tastemaker in a world that’s moved on?

Topshop was always more than a shop. At its peak, it was the shop. Back when I was a fashion editor at magazines, Topshop was a tastemaker, a cultural barometer - part runway, part Saturday hangout, part fashion fantasy at the Oxford Street scale. It sold the idea that fashion could be both accessible and aspirational. The photographers who shot for Vogue also shot Topshop’s campaigns, the top fashion editors styled them. It played a big and important part in championing emerging designers like Jonathan Anderson and Christopher Kane with NewGen and even landing a spot as the first high street brand on the London Fashion Week schedule in 2005. For a while, it pulled off the trick: a high street brand with actual cultural clout.

And then it didn’t. Clinging to the store experience as the world went online, they collapsed when the music stopped. The “experience” that was integral to their success meant nothing to a lockdown world. By the time that it closed its doors, collapsing under its own weight, it felt less like the front row of fashion and more like yesterday’s party. Relevance evaporated. 

Enter ASOS, which bought Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge in 2021. But what looked like a lifeline tuned into a slow fade. ASOS only wanted the names, not the stores. Topshop became just another line in an endless online catalogue - lost in the scroll, stripped of atmosphere, and quietly irrelevant. IKEA moved into the Oxford Street flagship; Topshop moved into the algorithm. It didn’t vanish, but it may as well have. Nobody talked about it. Nobody cared.

Now, as Topshop is trying for a comeback, it has big boots to fill. Its own. Nostalgia is doing the  heavy lifting. Indie sleaze is back. Money is tight. People are craving the fun of in-person shopping. On paper, the conditions are perfect for Topshop. But nostalgia is a fragile business model. 

And then there’s John Lewis. Practical, polite, perfumed-with-fresh-linen John Lewis. The partnership is smart financially and for stability, but can it deliver cultural clout? It’s hard to picture teenagers queuing around the block to hang out next to cookware and cafetieres. Experience was always Topshop’s secret weapon. Without it, it risks becoming just another rack of dresses.

And without risk of contradicting myself, maybe that is the point. If Topshop wants to matter again, it needs to do more than copy and paste the past. To become a Modern Legend once again, it has to do what it once did best: set the pace. Go bigger. Take risks. But set for a different world than before. Set for a different audience. And arguably, a very different fashion set. 

I have high hopes that Topshop will bring some creative innovation to the table. In a high street that is drowning in sameness, they have the opportunity to show up differently. To surprise. To delight. The Trafalgar Square show was a great start, but we are all craving uniqueness, freshness, something to stop us in our tracks. I would love to see them disrupting the digital world with this creativity and edge they are renowned for. While they shouldn’t be exactly what they once were, they do need to be Topshop.