The youngest consumers can’t yet drive themselves to the shops. It won’t stop them from buying like their millennial parents.
When I was 13 in the late 2000s, finally old enough to be dropped off at our local mall in Delaware, US, there was only one place I wanted to shop: Limited Too. The store, founded in 1987, was a younger offshoot of adult clothing brand The Limited, and was a tween fashion destination filled with logo tees, floral sundresses, plaid skirts, denim vests and plenty of sparking accessories.
Limited Too was among many stores of the time that catered to the in-between age – Wet Seal, Delia’s, The Body Shop, Lush, Charlotte Russe – where young people were playing with ideas of who they could become. But by 2008, Limited Too’s retail locations had vanished, many having merged with the tween store Justice, which, as of 2020, also shuttered all physical locations.
Dispatches From The Front 