Cara Delevingne on the new Topshop: ‘There's something for everyone'

Times

a day ago

Riding the escalator down to the basement floor of Topshop's Oxford Circus branch was once a rite of passage for British teenagers. Fledgling trend hunters from across the country flocked to the hallowed rails of 214 Oxford Street, where identities were shaped, first loves were forged and an epic number of very (very) skinny jeans were purchased.
At 32, the supermodel turned actress Cara Delevingne is just old enough to remember experiencing her own awakening at the now defunct store (an Ikea opened in its place earlier this year). 'You'd get off the escalator with a group of friends and Saturday would begin,' she tells me over the phone. 'I discovered my own sense of style among those rails. I'd look at something on the rack and I'd go, 'I don't really know if that's me but I'm going to try it.' It was there I learnt to take risks.'
Topshop, which rises from the ashes at the end of this month with a new 2025 approach and, perhaps most crucially, a new owner (its former boss, the disgraced Philip Green, now most commonly spotted bobbing around on a superyacht in Monaco, is no longer involved), couldn't have chosen a more impassioned ambassador than Delevingne to lead its new era. The star, a regular in many of the catwalk shows that dominated its heyday era as well as the face of many an ad campaign, fronts the comeback campaign shot by Bartek Szmigulski, and has curated a collection of her favourite pieces. Among the highlights is an art deco black-and-white faux-shearling coat ('a statement piece you can wear with anything', Delevingne says) and the signature Jamie jeans ('I think it's time we brought back the skinny,' she adds).
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'It's all the things that I want in my wardrobe. Going from my twenties into my thirties, I wanted to kind of start dressing with a bit more thought. This collection lets me do that,' Delevingne says. 'You wear it with more Topshop or with vintage or other brands. Each piece stands out so much — there really is something for everyone.'
Next year, the model, who has worked for some of the world's most prestigious fashion houses and starred in a handful of movies too, will continue her involvement in Topshop's great rehabilitation process, working on her own range with the brand. Snaring 'the super' is a statement of intent from Topshop, which is hoping that Delevingne's involvement in its comeback story makes fashion fans believe Topshop 2.0 is the real deal.
'Cara is original, she's creative and she's bold. Those are all the things that we want Topshop to be,' the retailer's managing director, Michelle Wilson, says. 'Authenticity is so important to us. We want to work with partners who genuinely love and care about the brand. Cara is absolutely that person.'
Undoubtedly Topshop has its work cut out if it is to get even close to the glory days of high street domination, specifically 1998 to 2007 when, under the guidance of the brand director Jane Shepherdson (a legend in fashion circles), the chain was transformed into a globally recognised brand.
The responsibility rests with the Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, the owner of Bestseller, who bought a 75 per cent stake in Topshop in 2024 (it had been owned by Asos since 2021, when the e-tailer bought it along with fellow Arcadia brands Topman and Miss Selfridge). Asos has kept a 25 per cent stake and continues to distribute the brand and host Topshop products online, while Bestseller (through its parent company) will distribute Topshop to its partners across the globe, making world domination a viable possibility. Under Povlsen's direction, Topshop now has its own design team, which, as Wilson puts it, 'is its own space to tell the brand's story and to show its collections in the way we want to show them'.
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Part of the strategy is tapping into the nostalgia of those who miss the real-life experience of Topshop. This includes a catwalk show — the brand's first in seven years — on August 16, with members of the public present and customers invited to 'shop' the collection immediately. There's also an appetite to collaborate with designers in the way Topshop did in its glory years, helping to bolster the careers of young British talent (see Christopher Kane, JW Anderson and Richard Nicoll) with collaborations and London Fashion Week support.
'We think there's still a huge gap in the market for working with designers in this way. Customers love it because they're getting to interact with up-and-coming design stars. And, of course, it is a great platform for the designers as well,' Wilson says.
'We're trying to pick all the positives of what Topshop was and then set it up for success in the current retail climate. Our big picture vision is to be the go-to accessible fashion brand for tastemakers and to bring the best of fashion to everyone.'
Among the objectives for 'new' Topshop is that customers do not consider it a fast fashion retailer. The brand sits within Asos's Fashion with Integrity strategy (a means to monitor factory standards and supply chains), and the price points are purposefully not at the budget end of the scale — customers can expect to pay about £50 for jeans and up to a £100 for a dress; premium ranges are also expected. 'I think there are other players that have entered the market with very cheap products that are targeting that teenage group,' Wilson says. 'A real testament to our success is going to be if, in ten years' time, people are still wearing and talking about products that they bought during this relaunch period in the way they do previous Topshop collections.'
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Delevingne, who has been holding on tight to that Kate Moss for Topshop floral minidress for more than a decade, had the same realisation when trying on the clothes for the shoot. 'Each piece is purposeful. What matters now is quality over quantity,' she says.
Having got the chance to road-test the collection at Glastonbury in June, the model is also convinced of its versatility. 'I wore the pinstripe trousers with the faux-fur jacket and was so excited to tell people that they were part of the 'new' Topshop collection.
'You can dress these pieces up or down and wear them for everything from a meeting to going out to lunch to hanging out at home.' Top [e-mail]