TopFlop
Merely blocks away from NYU’s Washington Square Campus, TopShop was the word of the week. Plans to skip early classes were made, TopShop catalogs were flagged with desired purchases and cameras were charged in hopes of capturing coke head Kate Moss in all her glory. A group of girls, TopShop gift-cards in hand, planned their shopping outfits while gabbing how great the London based apparel would be. Me? I sat back and laughed.
Avoiding the dirty downtown mess, I decided to take a peak at NY Magazine’s video tour, just to see if there was anything I truly missed out on. After minimal analysis and a few more laughs, these were my findings: TopShop isn’t new, it isn’t different, it isn’t high-end for less and it most certainly isn’t British. Topshop is an overpriced, poorly constructed, run-of-the-mill mix between H&M and Urban Outfitters. Everyone got their hopes high for nothing. Trust me, if I wanted a horrendous $250 “leather” jacket, I’d throw on a garbage bag and convince everyone I bought it at TopShop. Nobody would know the difference.
What saddens me is how naive some of these shoppers truly are. TopShop must have hired some decent psycho-analysts to assist in marketing, because people really believed they were getting unique, high quality items for less. Come Monday, I don’t think people are going to be too happy when half of the Chemistry lecture is wearing the same dress or when the zipper breaks on their Kate Moss jacket.
People need to realize that stores like this come to America for a reason…they’ve been AMERICANIZED and many American shoppers are oblivious to what they buy. Now, I’m not saying that I’ll never own anything from TopShop. What i’m saying is there’s nothing at this store worth wasting a whole day for, getting overly excited about or dropping mad cash on.
While all of New York looks like a clone of TopShop conformity, I’ll be rocking the $39 Diesel jumpsuit I snagged this weekend. Yeah, that’s right.
Thanks for the photo Pipeline!
