The Thoroughly Exciting Arrival of Topshop
With hype for the April opening of Topshop's Soho store going into hysterical overdrive, those in charge of managing the PR must be thrilled to see that the Brit girls in New York are patriotically unequivocal in their enthusiasm for the brand. Especially since the descriptions of the clothes they share with the Observer's Meredith Bryant are so, uh, evocative, not to mention the fact that British accents—indicated by plentiful emphatic italicization—lend authority to more or less any random string of words!
Opines, for instance, our favorite scary amazon Plum Sykes: "It is very cool, it's very edgy, it's taking like an Ossie Clark–type inspiration, which is a cool dress as opposed to a preppy dress... It isn't like that sort of American Main Street brand, like a J. Crew or a Banana Republic, that is very much trying not to be too cool, do you know what I mean?" Plum, we rarely know what you mean but that's never stopped you.
Heiress Rebecca Guinness, meanwhile, avers: "It is along the lines of Club Monaco, classic basics, but slightly more fun than that." What a relief! "It's like H&M but it's more...It's very British," confirms photographer Poppy de Villeneuve. OK, we think we're slowly getting it: It's British, and affordable, and fun!
But just to warn excited local fashionistas, it won't be all fun and games being permitted access to such treasures. Regarding a purchase she once made of a Kate Moss collection green dress, model/socialite Poppy Delevigne recalls in anguish: "They did it in red and I missed it in my size and I literally cried for days." Somehow, she managed to put the pieces of her life back together, but not without the help of a Topshop "leather jacket that I live in every day." If you're curious about this jacket—and really, who wouldn't be?—Poppy says she'll "probably" be wearing it to the various events celebrating the store's launch, including a party at the Box. We expect the world's media to be alerted if and when that probably becomes a definitely.
