Day: 20/06/2020

Is Topshop Really Closed?

Posted by

5

The store at ION Orchard is boarded up, including the windows

20-06-21-15-39-07-264_decoTopShop at ION Orchard

What is perhaps more telling is that Topshop is no longer in the store listing of ION Orchard’s website. On the doors of the shop—boarded up in black—a terse message reads, in full caps, “SORRY WE ARE CLOSED” (are they really apologetic if they have to shout at you?). Even the windows are similarly covered. Topshop is entirely sealed, except for one still-lit light box.

The shop-front message could indicate permanent closure. Most retail stores, not yet able to open due to COVID-19 and the Circuit Breaker period, mostly state so and communicate that opening dates would be advised later. Topshop does not.

Staff at the store opposite, Charles and Keith, when asked, said they know nothing of the operational state of their neighbour. Telephone calls placed to the branch at Vivo City went unanswered. A Google search for all existing branches showed that they are “permanently closed”. Further to that description, marked in red, Google wrote, “Topshop is recorded closed at this location”. No announcement is made on distributor of Topshop, Wing Tai Holding’s website. It still lists Topshop as a brand it carries. Back in February, The Business Times reported that Wing Tai’s retail arm retrenched 20 staff in a “restructuring”.

20-06-22-02-08-25-000_decoA very closed TopShop and TopMan at ION Orchard20-06-21-16-14-55-597_decoAn unambiguous notice

Topshop was at a time considered to be one of the best fast fashion labels here. Its shine started to fade in the past years and was considerably dulled since media reports emerged nine months ago that the UK’s Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop (and other high-street brands), had agreed to a “rescue deal” with creditors. The BBC reported, at the time, that the retail empire of Topshop’s main man Philip Green “plunges to huge loss”. Closure of some of the Arcadia Group’s more than a thousand stores in 36 countries, including concessions or franchises, was predicted.

Here, many customers started noticing how lacklustre Topshop had become. One fashion stylist told us that “it looked like they were closing down. The merchandise was very miserable”. For those who remembers Topshop as a “happening” place in 2000, where shoppers had access to free use of computers in the Wisma Atria store and enjoyed the British indie music played non-stop, its closure, if confirmed, truly marks the passing of an era.

Note: Topshop’s SG online store is still operating, but, as the ‘add to bag’ button is unresponsive, appears not to be accepting purchases.

Update (11 Sep 2020, 14:00): Two months after our post, Wing Tai Retail confirmed to the media that all Topshop stores (including TopMan) will be closed. It is understood that the UK brand will be available online to local shoppers thereafter. The last standing store is at VivoCity, but it will shut down permanently on 17 Sep 2020.

Photo: Zhao Xiangji

Two Of A Kind: These Doodles

Posted by

0

Serial imitator Philipp Plein is one daring guy to do Dior. If you want to see the real deal, go to ION Orchard and ride an escalator

 

20-06-20-21-30-05-716_decoThe escalator plastered with repeated text of Dior, at ION Orchard. Photo: Zhao Xiangji

By now, you’d have read about one designer who had the nerve to put out something clearly associated with another. Philipp Plein, a German lawyer-turned-designer was recently called out for sharing an image of typographic play on his name which bears an uncanny resemblance to what Shawn Stussy has done for Dior in the current season. For some, it isn’t enough your clothes are not original, your communication material has to be too.

The similarities (see below) are not vague. The text, in flowy/wavy hand-drawn style, placed side by side with Dior’s is as different as Brie and Camembert. Mr Stussy’s flowers are replaced with skulls (its use itself is in clichéd territory), but that differentiation is a stroke of futility. Yet, Mr Plein, a noted bling “king of crass”, to paraphrase Bloomberg, sees his neoteric version good enough to stand on its own without immediately evoking the very recent work of someone else, a noted and just-celebrated illustrator/designer, whose influence is acknowledged by Kim Jones in his pre-fall collection for Dior.

Dior vs Plein June 2020Variations on a theme: (clockwise from top left) Dior, Philipp Plein, Dior. Philipp Plein. Photos: Dior and Philipp Plein, respectively

If you need a close encounter of the original, your best bet is to go to ION Orchard and ride—or look at—the escalator on the first floor, just outside the Dior men’s store. This is striking brand communication. Although advertisements stretched across the balustrade panel of escalators are nothing new (these days, almost anywhere can be ad space), Dior did not use this part of the moving stairway. Instead, it employed the much wider skirt panel (inside which the entire system under the steps is hidden) for the textual pattern that, when seen in its entirety, is almost installation art. No selfie-serving-as-fashion-shoot required.

But for Mr Plein, there may not be the need to concern himself with art, let alone art already created by someone else. For as long as he can amplify what is already illustratively stated, he will do so, and it will be consistent with the label’s inherent crassness. Mr Plein, of course, has a different—not necessarily cognizant—sense of what is refine or sophisticated. His eponymous label, including a men’s wear line branded ‘Billionaire’, represents the excess of wealth and embraces what to many others is plain tacky. Bloomberg quoted the designer saying, “Philipp Plein is a brand that’s very polarizing—you either hate it or you love it.” Which side to take isn’t a hard decision to make.