Monday, February 10, 2020

Whatever Happened To...


Whatever happened to some bottom dollar but popular fashion names of my youth?

 I crossed the threshold into becoming a teenager in the year 2000.

That means, for me, those ever so crucial years of scoping out fashion trends from teen magazines and weekend mall-hopping with my mother and besties fell during the early 2000’s.

My favorite mall stores in 2003 and 2004 and beyond still exist today. The early 2000’s were part of the heyday of preppy teen fashions like polo shirts, low rise boot-cut jeans with “bedazzling”, shirts with brand names in bold across the chest and overpriced colorful leather flip-flops. At least, that’s what was king in Florida at the time.  The “cool kids” (AKA the rich crowd with no rules) donned Hollister hoodies, LaCoste Polo shirts, Abercrombie and Fitch Jeans that were so low they bared the entire midriff and American Eagle graphic tees. Each tee had a secret hidden adult message in its image, like an ad for a fictitious Laundromat that said “Drop your shorts here”.

As one of the more oddball children in my class, I was not wealthy enough to drop hundreds at these stores each month nor was I permitted to wear clothes that would have basically made me into a walking sexual innuendo. Still, despite all the odds, my favorite brands were Hollister and American Eagle in those days. I would buy it second hand, accept the hand-me-downs from my next-door neighbor who WAS one of “the cool kids” and shop the clearance sales. My mom would filter the content and require that I wear colorful layering tank-tops, also a trend at the time, under the crop tops that didn’t leave enough to the imagination. (That’s right. Crop tops aren’t just something that’s become popular since the late 2010’s.) Both stores still exist to this day, as well as Abercrombie and Fitch and LaCoste, but most of them have had to re-brand at least once. Some have gone through financial hardship, and all but LaCoste have had to adopt and adapt the “hipster” look that became huge for the youth of the late 2010’s. Form-fitting polos in bright pink (for BOTH men and women) have been replaced by loose-fitting, over-sized black “cozy” sweaters, grunge plaid and purposeful tears.

Since I was NOT one of the wealthy “it” crowd, and my parents did shop on a budget, I also got acquainted with some lower-end but still cute names in fashion. My mother always preached “quality over quantity” but sometimes I would indulge these made-in-China knockoffs of the most popular styles for teenage girls. Around that time, Forever 21 was starting to rise to fame. In my area. It might have already been popular in bigger cities but in my neck of the woods in central Florida, it didn’t exist. To have a shopping spree at the gigantic low-cost fashion retailer, one would have to trek 45 minutes to a very classy upscale mall in Orlando. Once I moved to an area south of Jacksonville, I had to make a trek to one of two not-so-upscale malls to go to a mini version of this store, until the two-story one opened in an old Belk space at the closer of the two malls. Forever 21 still exists to this day, but is falling into some hard times. And the quality gets cheaper every year.

But what about some of the other names? The names that were very common at that time, but that you never see now? Models in Seventeen would be wearing cute outfits with at least one piece being from one of these stores. My friends would want to go to these stores on our girls-day-out, because most of the time, we didn’t have $100 between us. These stores were in every mall and sometimes the large strip malls in the area.

Welcome to “Whatever Happened To...”

#1: 5-7-9


This low-cost fashion retailer was created in the 80’s to cater to young women that were three of the most common sizes in America at the time. It neither catered to emaciated girls nor curvy ones.

Today it has evolved to offer sizes for all body types, from petite to plus. Most of the stores have closed, but the ones that still exist seem to be owned by Rainbow. These two companies were intertwined.

I only saw the stores in the malls of bigger cities than mine, like Tampa and Orlando. I frequently saw an article of clothing from the store on a model when I would paw through Seventeen or one of the other teen magazines for outfit ideas. The girl would be wearing an outfit with a theme, like “spring weekend” and her cute jacket worn over her floral, flowy top would advertise as being from 5-7-9. I don’t think I personally ever shopped there, though.

#2: DOTS

If Forever 21 was lower-cost fashion, DOTS was bargain-bin fashion. We’re talking about the types of clothes that start to unravel or fade within a few washes. Still, I would happily join my girlfriends in burrowing through those bargain racks on a Saturday to find essentials like tanks and tees for only $3.

The DOTS store in my town was located in the largest strip mall on the Southside at that time. This strip included a movie theater and three discount “department stores”: Marshall’s, Ross and Stein Mart. A larger outdoor shopping center has since been built, and while all three of those stores are still there, the movie theater is now Hobby Lobby. DOTS has been extinct for at least a decade.

DOTS filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2014 and closed all 360 of its stores since then.

#3: Gadzooks

This store was fun. Every location contained half of a classic Volkswagen Beetle, either coming out of the wall or attached to a display table. This store also seemed to channel remnants of 90’s “Rave Culture” well into the 2000’s. I was too young to be part of that, but I liked some of the looks, especially the resurfacing of 60’s “flower child” style. I remember being fourteen or fifteen and finding huge platform sandals, bell-bottomed jeans and colorful tops that looked like party clothes to me.

Gadzooks, like 5-7-9, had also been created in the 1980’s. It was originally just meant for T-shirts. Where they went wrong was when they reduced the merchandise to only women’s in 2003, they ran some backwards-seeming ads that went against the feminist culture that’s been slowly rising up in America since around that time. Later on, they would have to file bankruptcy twice. Forever 21 Purchased many of the stores as the brand went defunct.

I actually remember this merger. It was in the late 2000’s. I lived south of Metro Jacksonville by then. There was a tiny Gadzooks store in the mall closest to me that informed me one day that Forever 21 was buying them out. I was happy... I loved Forever 21! The tiny store received its Forever 21 logo above the door. Then, Forever 21 rented out a huge two-story space in the mall and that store closed to merge into the larger one.

#4: Anchor Blue

This one was not on my radar for most of my youth. In fact, it didn’t even exist in my area at all until (I think) after I left that town to go to college. Somewhere in that time frame, an Anchor store opened up in the mall in my hometown. I still would not have known about it, if it weren’t for a boy I dated in my senior year of high school. While he liked more gothic-seeming attire, His younger sister and her friends adored Anchor Blue. They had gotten familiar with it during the few short years he and his family lived in Arizona. They talked about it more than once, which made me curious.

During one visit home while I was in college, most likely one of the two summers I went back, I went for a walk through the Anchor Blue store that had opened up in the mall there. To be honest, it wasn’t anything special to me. I saw a collection of jeans that were mostly embellished on the back pockets. This was popular in the mid-2000’s. I also saw a wide selection of graphic tees with either band references or comical content, and some short dresses and other popular teen fashions for that time. To me, it looked like a mash-up of Hot Topic’s graphics minus the “goth”, Don Ed Hardy jean knockoffs, Forever 21’s skirts and dresses, and all of it Beall’s Outlet quality at American Eagle prices.  I’ll be honest: these friends I used to have talked it up so much, I was actually kind of looking forward to it. Then when I arrived, I was disappointed. I don’t even remember if I bought something or just kept window-shopping.

If that was around 2006 or 2007, its run was short-lived. In 2011, the brand filed for bankruptcy and closed all of its stores.


To be continued...



*I do not own these logos or images

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