TOPSHOP (originally Top Shop) is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the
Arcadia Group
Arcadia Group Ltd (formerly Arcadia Group plc and, until 1998, Burton Group plc) was a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It was best known for being the previous parent company of British Home Stores (BH ...
, controlled by Sir
Philip Green
Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) is a British businessman who was the chairman of the retail company the Arcadia Group. He owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020. As of Ma ...
, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by
ASOS
ASOS or Asos may refer to:
* Asos, a village in Greece
* ASOS (retailer), a UK online fashion store
* Association Sportive Oussou Saka, a Beninese football team
* Automated Surface Observing System, a type of weather station
* Air Support Operatio ...
on 1 February 2021. It now operates via the ASOS website and app, as well as being sold in Nordstrom stores in the US and Canada and on Nordstrom.com. TOPSHOP previously had around 510 shops worldwide.
History
![Topshop Oxford Street London 2009](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Topshop_Oxford_Street_London_2009.jpg)
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
Dame Barbara Mary Quant, Mrs Plunket Greene, (born 11 February 1930)The Mary Quant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2019-20 stated her year of birth as 1930, and that she became a student at Goldsmiths College around 1950. is a ...
and
Stirling Cooper
Stirling Cooper was a London-based fashion wholesaler and retailer that, along with brands such as Biba, Quorum, Browns and Clobber, helped to redefine UK fashion in the late 1960s.
Part of the Swinging London scene in the early years, and wit ...
. 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
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
branch and also had a large department in the
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and as ...
shop. This was high fashion for the "young and different generation" as ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' put it in 1965, and the department stocked garments by names such as Mary Quant and
Gerald McCann
Gerald McCann (born March 20, 1950) is an American Democratic Party politician who served two non-consecutive terms as mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey before being convicted of fraud in a savings-and-loan scam. When he was elected in 1981 he wa ...
.
By 1966, it had a branch in the Peter Robinson store in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
.
Peter Robinson's Top Shop buyer Diane Wadey had an eye for young talent and introduced
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
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
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
.
Other brands stocked at Top Shop included
Jeff Banks
Jeff Banks PPCSD (born Jeffrey Tatham-Banks, 17 March 1943) is a Welsh fashion designer of men's and women's clothing, jewellery, and home furnishings. Born in Ebbw Vale, Wales, Banks co-founded the fashion chain Warehouse in the late 1970s. ...
,
French Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada, sometimes through Cuba. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and ...
and
Radley Cooper.
Launch of separate retail chain
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
Sir Ralph Mark Halpern (24 October 1938 – 10 August 2022) was a British businessman, who was the founder of Topshop and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Burton Group from 1979 to 1991.
Early life
Ralph Halpern was born in October 1938 i ...
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
Miss Selfridge is a British fashion brand and former high street store chain which began as the young fashion section of Selfridges department store in London in 1966. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, which we ...
and the Way In boutique arm of
Harrods
Harrods Limited is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to other ...
.
Within two years, Top Shop had 55 standalone branches, with more to come according to an article in ''The Times''. Fashion editor
Prudence Glynn
Prudence Glynn, Baroness Windlesham (1935–1986) was a British fashion journalist and author, best known for her long-running role as the first fashion editor of ''The Times''.
During her 15 years presiding over the fashion pages of one of the ...
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
Topman is a UK-based multinational men's fashion retail brand founded by Burton Group (later renamed Arcadia Group) in 1978. Along with its women's clothing counterpart Topshop and the rest of Arcadia Group, Topman went into administration i ...
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 percent 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 and beyond
In the 1980s, Topshop struggled to maintain its profile as a fashion brand, but by the late 1990s it began undergoing a revival. 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.
![Jourdan Dunn Catwalk](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Jourdan_Dunn_Catwalk.jpg)
Under her tenure, Topshop became a key sponsor of
London Fashion Week
London Fashion Week (LFW) is a clothing trade show that takes place in London twice a year, in February and September. Showcasing over 250 designers to a global audience of influential media and retailers, it is one of the 'Big Four' fashion wee ...
, 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.
In December 2012, Philip Green sold a 25% stake in Topshop and Topman to the US-based
private equity group
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...
Leonard Green and Partners for US$805 million. Under the terms of the deal, Arcadia retained Topshop's flagship Oxford Street shop (said to be worth between £400 and £500 million).
Green said that the deal would enable Topshop to speed up its expansion, particularly within the US.
In 2015, Topshop started collaborating with the online retailer
Zalando
Zalando SE is a publicly traded German online retailer of shoes, fashion and beauty. The company was founded in 2008 by David Schneider and Robert Gentz and has more than 50 million active users in 25 European markets. Zalando is active in a vari ...
and began selling their merchandise in their shops. Advertisements featuring model
Cara Delevingne
Cara Jocelyn Delevingne ( ; born 12 August 1992) is an English model and actress. She signed with Storm Management after leaving school in 2009. Delevingne won Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2012 and 2014.
Delevingne sta ...
were broadcast in Germany, Switzerland and France.
Designer collections
Topshop has been among the UK chain shops to work with high-fashion brands on capsule collections. In 1994, it launched a collection with
Red or Dead.
It continued to work with designer talent, such as former
Clements Ribeiro
Clements Ribeiro is a London-based fashion house established in the early 1990s by husband and wife partnership Suzanne Clements and Inacio Ribeiro.
It is known for its feminine designs, bold prints and luxurious knitwear.
Named as one of fashio ...
assistant
Markus Lupfer
Markus Lupfer is a German fashion designer and founder of the eponymous company, based in London, United Kingdom.
Life and career
Lupfer was born in Kisslegg, a small town in Southern Germany. After attending the University of Trier he moved t ...
– described in 1999 as "so hot he's practically steaming" – also working with, among others,
Hussein Chalayan
Hussein Chalayan, (; tr, Hüseyin Çağlayan ; born 12 August 1970) is a British-Cypriot fashion designer. He has won the British Designer of the Year twice (in 1999 and 2000) and was awarded the MBE in 2006.
Chalayan is currently teaching a ...
, Tristan Webber and Tracey Boyd. Typically, such ranges sold out quickly, and attracted column inches in the fashion press.
In May 2007, British supermodel
Kate Moss
Katherine Ann Moss (born 16 January 1974) is a British model. Arriving at the end of the "supermodel era", Moss rose to fame in the early 1990s as part of the heroin chic fashion trend. Her collaborations with Calvin Klein brought her to fas ...
, designed her first collection for the brand. The appointment of Moss was announced just before the departure of Shepherdson for
Whistles
Whistling without the use of an artificial whistle is achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips, usually after applying moisture (licking one's lips or placing water upon them) and then blowing or sucking air through the space. The a ...
.
In the same year, artist
Stella Vine
Stella Vine (born Melissa Jane Robson, 1969) is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting, with subjects drawn from personal life, as well as from rock stars, royalty, and other celebrities.
In 2001, she ...
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
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' 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."
[Moody, Paul]
"Everyone's talking about Stella Vine"
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 12 July 2007. Retrieved 9 December 2008.
In 2014,
Beyoncé
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Beyoncé's boundary-pushing artistry and vocals have made her the most influential female musician of the 21st century, according to ...
signed a deal to launch an activewear brand with Topshop. The 50-50 venture was initially called Parkwood Topshop Athletic Ltd and was scheduled to launch its first dance, fitness and sports ranges in autumn 2015.
In November 2015, it was revealed that the brand would launch in April 2016. The brand was later revealed to be called Ivy Park.
Administration
Arcadia Group went into administration at 8pm GMT on 30 November 2020. On 25 January 2021,
ASOS
ASOS or Asos may refer to:
* Asos, a village in Greece
* ASOS (retailer), a UK online fashion store
* Association Sportive Oussou Saka, a Beninese football team
* Automated Surface Observing System, a type of weather station
* Air Support Operatio ...
said it was in "exclusive" talks to buy Arcadia's Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands out of administration, though it only wanted the brands, not the shops. A consortium including
Next
Next may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare
* ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage
* '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film
Lit ...
had earlier dropped a bid to buy Topshop and Topman; interest in Arcadia operations had also been expressed by
Mike Ashley's
Frasers Group
Frasers Group plc (formerly known as Sports Direct International plc) is a British retail, sport and intellectual property group, named after its ownership of the department store chain House of Fraser. The company is best known for trading pr ...
, a consortium including
JD Sports
JD Sports Fashion plc, more commonly known as JD Sports or JD, is a British sports-fashion retail company based in Bury, Greater Manchester, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Pentlan ...
, and online retailer
Boohoo
Boo hoo may refer to the sound of someone crying.
Boo hoo may also refer to:
* ''Boo Hoo'', a 2002 album by musician Voltaire
* "Boo-Hoo", a 1937 hit song recorded by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians
* Boo Hoo the Bear, the mascot of Queen's ...
.
On 1 February 2021, ASOS announced it had acquired the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands out of administration for £265 million, paying an additional £65 million for current and pre-ordered stock. ASOS will keep 300 employees on as part of the deal but will not keep any of the brand's stores, putting 2,500 jobs at risk. In July 2021, it was announced that
Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...
had acquired an unspecified minority stake in the Topshop
Topman
Topman is a UK-based multinational men's fashion retail brand founded by Burton Group (later renamed Arcadia Group) in 1978. Along with its women's clothing counterpart Topshop and the rest of Arcadia Group, Topman went into administration i ...
,
Miss Selfridge
Miss Selfridge is a British fashion brand and former high street store chain which began as the young fashion section of Selfridges department store in London in 1966. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, which we ...
and HIIT businesses from
ASOS
ASOS or Asos may refer to:
* Asos, a village in Greece
* ASOS (retailer), a UK online fashion store
* Association Sportive Oussou Saka, a Beninese football team
* Automated Surface Observing System, a type of weather station
* Air Support Operatio ...
, with the intention of selling the brands online and instore across North America
International operations and franchises
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.
![Top Shop Sutton High Street, Greater London](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Top_Shop_Sutton_High_Street%2C_Greater_London.JPG)
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
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...
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
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
. 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 announced a five-year international expansion plan in early 2011, planning to open new shops across Asia, Australia and the US as well as seeking opportunities in Europe.
Although the Japanese flagship shops launched in 2006, all 5 shops in Japan shut in 2015. In 2013, parent group Arcadia began stepping up its franchise deals, announcing a planned 150 new shop openings with partners in Canada, Australia and Vietnam, to include Topshop and Topman shops.
In November 2012, Topshop launched its first shop in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
. In April 2013 a Topshop-Topman shop launched in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
, at the
V&A Waterfront.
On 24 October 2013, Topshop opened a concession at
Galeries Lafayette
The Galeries Lafayette () is an upmarket French department store chain, the biggest in Europe. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris but it now operates in a number of other locations in France and othe ...
in Paris, its first outlet in France.
Discontinued international operations
Topshop expanded into Australia in 2011, with shops in New South Wales and Victoria. In 2013 it opened a shop in Brisbane's CBD in a location previously occupied by Borders. However, in mid-2017 Topshop's Australian operations went into
voluntary administration
As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions, similar to bankruptcy in the United States. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry o ...
. By mid 2019, only Sydney's
Market Street Market Street may refer to:
*Market Street, Cambridge, England
*Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
* Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia
*Market Street, Manchester, England
*Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
...
store remained opened, after the closure of stores at
Westfield Bondi Junction
Westfield Bondi Junction is a large, upmarket shopping centre in the suburb of Bondi Junction in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.
Transport
The Eastern Suburbs Line offer frequent services to Bondi Junction station which is a short walk fro ...
and Melbourne's
Emporium earlier in the year. In March 2020 Topshop closed its final Australian store, 11 years after its initial launch.
In 2015, Topshop opened a flagship shop in
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...
and 10 months later a shop in
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
. The company has had a presence in New Zealand since 2010, opening a small concession within a department store in 2010.
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 September 28, 2017.
Topshop had originally expanded into Singapore since 2000 with the outlet opening at Orchard Road. On 17 September 2020, all stores were eventually closed down citing losses, before the acquisition by ASOS in February 2021.
Many of the stores are closed worldwide due to the acquisition by ASOS such as Israel, Philippines, Hong Kong, Egypt, Indonesia, Netherlands, Singapore, Thailand and United Kingdom. Other areas that are likely to close down will be Malaysia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain.
UK flagship stores
![Topshop and Topman (17th December 2012)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Topshop_and_Topman_%2817th_December_2012%29.JPG)
*Oxford Circus, London – The flagship Topshop shop in the UK was , covered five floors and attracted an average of 28,000 customers each day.
In May 2019, Arcadia Group confirmed it planned to close multiple stores,
including Topshop's flagship store on London's Oxford Street.
* Fifth Avenue, New York City – The Topshop shop, which opened in November 2014, was located opposite
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street and ...
and comprised of retail space.
* Liverpool One, Liverpool – In 2009, Topshop opened its first
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
-style concept shop in the UK at
Liverpool One
Liverpool ONE is a shopping, residential, and leisure complex in Liverpool, England. The project involved the redevelopment of 42 acres (170,000 m2) of land in the city centre. It is a retail-led development anchored by the department store ...
. The site provides of retail area and includes a Topman, hair salon and two shoe shops alongside the Topshop branch.
* Briggate, Leeds – In 2012, a shop on
Briggate
Briggate is a pedestrianised principal High Street, shopping street in Leeds city centre, England. Historically it was the main street, leading north from Leeds Bridge, and housed markets, merchant's houses and other business premises. It cont ...
opened, becoming the third-largest Topshop in the UK. It is part of the
Trinity Leeds
Trinity Leeds is a shopping and leisure centre in the city centre of Leeds, England, named after the adjacent 18th-century Holy Trinity Church. Developed by Land Securities and designed by Chapman Taylor, it opened on 21 March 2013, with over ...
shopping development.
* Victoria Square, Belfast – In 2008 Topshop
Victoria Square, Belfast
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
opened its doors as one of the largest shops in the new shopping centre development at ; the largest Topshop in Northern Ireland.
Protests and controversy
Topshop has been criticised for its overseas sourcing policies and its tax arrangements.
In December 2007, the Edinburgh branch was targeted by student campaigning network
People & Planet
People & Planet is a network of student campaign groups in the UK. It is "the largest student campaigning organisation in the country campaigning to alleviate world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment."
Organisation
Pe ...
for allegedly using cotton picked by "
slave labour
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
".
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
UK Uncut was a network of United Kingdom-based protest groups established in October 2010 to protest against cuts to public services and tax avoidance in the UK. Various sources have described the group as left-wing in its political orientati ...
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
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...
.
In July 2013, the singer
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty ( ; born February 20, 1988) is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, Rihanna auditioned for American record producer Evan Rogers who invited her to the ...
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
River Island is a London-based, multi-channel fashion brand, founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis. The retailer has a presence in over 125 of worldwide markets, in stores and online.
Best known for its trend focused womenswear offering, River Isla ...
, 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 has been 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. Its also been 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 Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP. 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. Two weeks earlier, an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons supported by 11 MPs noted:
''that contract cleaners employed at Topshop stores by the contractor Britannia Services Group are paid below the living wage, forcing hard-working staff into debt and poverty; believes that there is no excuse for profitable multi-national companies which provide huge payouts to shareholders refusing to pay decent wages; fully supports cleaners contracted to work at Topshop stores who are unionising, protesting and campaigning for the living wage; is extremely concerned by reports that these staff are being victimised and bullied for asking for a decent wage; further believes that it is utterly disgraceful for the Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, or its contractors to punish staff for asking for decent wages''
References
External links
Official website
{{Arcadia Group
1960s fashion
1970s fashion
1980s fashion
1990s fashion
2000s fashion
2010s fashion
2020s fashion
1964 establishments in the United Kingdom
2021 disestablishments in England
2021 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
2021 mergers and acquisitions
British brands
British companies established in 1964
Clothing companies established in 1964
Clothing retailers of the United Kingdom
Retail companies disestablished in 2021
Retail companies established in 1964
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020