Growing up in a small, rural Canadian town, the four-hour drives up to Toronto that my parents occasionally treated my sister and me to could only mean one thing: Shopping! Shopping at a 2000s Hollister, more specifically.
Yes, we had a small local mall back home, but it didn’t have any of the good stores that the big-city ones had—and as a early-aughts teen, I was simply desperate to buy my clothes from trendy mall shops like Hollister, Abercrombie Fitch, American Eagle, or Hot Topic, all of which our thrilling roadtrips up to Toronto had to offer.
And while Hollister and Abercrombie (both owned by the same company) are currently having a comeback (the brand has been discovered and revived by Gen-Z, and even released a Y2K capsule collection this summer to celebrate its 25th anniversary), nothing will ever compare to the clothing they were making during their Y2K heyday. And lest we forget, shopping there used to be an experience—one that I would pay anything to bring back now.
The first time I entered a Hollister, at the Vaughn Mills mall just outside of Toronto, I was a junior in high school. I remember this because I turned beet-red when I had to walk by the two hot, shirtless male models in board shorts flanking each side of the entrance (a signature 2000s Hollister experience). To even enter a Hollister back then, there was an energy permeating the air that made you ask yourself: Are you cool or hot enough to even enter? I was intrigued and completely obsessed.
Once I shyly ran past the welcoming committee of hot boys, I recall banging my knee on a wooden table just around the corner—because the Hollister store design was so damn dark you could barely see two steps in front of you. If you managed to squint and see something you liked, good luck finding it in your size: It was practically impossible to read the labels or the price tags on anything, and the hot salespeople—who definitely gave mean prom king or queen energy—would scoff at having to get you anything larger than a small. I loved it, maybe in a masochistic way, because wearing Hollister made me feel like I, too, could be one of the popular kids.
The music in the store, meanwhile, was always bumping Pitbull or Ke$ha or something of the sort, at such a deafening audio level that you felt like you were in a Miami nightclub taking tequila shots (not that I would know about that at the time). The cheap, heavily fragranced aroma often gave you a hangover-worthy headache, too. (A choice not dissimilar to Abercrombie stores.) My parents hated it so much that they often refused to come in with me at all—patiently waiting outside until I was absolutely ready to check out, entering only to buy me something (as a treat!) and then swiftly exiting.
Now, were the whole 2000s Hollister stores somewhat toxic? Absurd? Absolutely unhinged? Yes. It was all very much classist and not inclusive at all. But I also, somehow, miss it, like a bad ex-boyfriend. The old stores remind me of the nostalgic days when shopping in person was a true experience, something you could not replicate online. These days, shops feel so humdrum—all modernized and stark, and playing clinically-commercial music at levels that are always approved by corporate. (Hollister back then, meanwhile, felt more lawless—like the music was being DJ’d by one of the bored teens at the checkout counter.)
So, while we certainly do not need to bring back the 2000s Hollister business model per se, perhaps brands can have more fun with how we physically shop again? I currently avoid buying things in-store at all costs, much preferring the ease and convenience of online shopping—but maybe a label out there can convince me to make the physical trek once again, by capturing that one-of-a-kind feel that Hollister s had back in the aughts.
The fun was not in buying the pieces, after all, but the wild journey it took to procure them. I drove hours to those Hollisters because of the adrenaline rush it gave me once I was inside that dark, loud store. When fashion was fun. So, if you know of such an exhilarating store still in existence, please send it to me, so I can relive my teen fantasy once again. Extra-dark lighting and in-store bullying not required.
