I was six years old. My legs stuck to the vinyl of the seat and my mum held onto my clammy hand. As the gun approached my ear, I shut my eyes tight in anticipation of the pain. “1, 2, 3,” the lady counted out loud, and to my relief, I didn’t feel a thing as she punched a small hole in the flesh of my lobe.
As I slowly opened my eyes again, I saw two elderly women the other side of the glass, giggling lightheartedly at my (over)reaction. I was then handed a mirror to admire my new, sparkly earrings – just like the ones my older sisters had and most likely made of cubic zirconia – and I beamed from ear to ear.
On hearing the news that Claire's would be shutting all 154 of its stores in the UK and Ireland yesterday, I felt a wave of sadness. Not just because 1,300 people would be losing their jobs, but because this once-staple high street chain was one of the last physical remnants of childhood.
Yes, administrators Kroll said that 350 concession stores would remain open, but the fact still stands: there are fewer and fewer spaces for kids to be kids in 2026 – especially for young girls.
Over the years, we've not only seen stores like Tammy Girl and Topshop vanish, many magazines geared towards this target audience have also become extinct. The alternative? Fashion brands largely selling clothing for adult women and, well, TikTok.
Gone are the days where you would save your pocket money and get your monthly edition of Smash Hits or Seventeen with their free CDs, posters and samples of glittery nail polish and bright blue eyeshadow. In their place are makeup tutorial videos on how to create fake freckles with a stem of broccoli or, worse still, make it look like you've had lip filler without seeing a cosmetic surgeon.
Call me sentimental, but there was something sacred about those makeup mistakes we all made, in learning from our older siblings how to apply blush – or even blu-tacking a photo of a boyband on our walls, complete with a crease and holes where the centrefold staples were. A shopping trip was a highly-anticipated event, not something you do on your laptop when you're bored (who even had laptops then??).
And it's not like Claire's was just for little kids, either, or that it was babyish. Years after getting my ears pierced there, as a teen who was desperate to find her own sense of style, I would go into a Claire's store with my best friend and, as she perused the aisles for boho-style beads and feathered headbands, I went straight to the “emo section” at the back. I'd buy myself a Pucca notepad and yet another sweatband and/or studded belt to add to my sizeable collection. (Avril Lavigne was a personal icon back then).
When we weren’t shopping with intention, the two of us would buy an opaque purple mystery bag – a £10 bundle of all kinds of discounted jewellery, scented lip balms and, as happened to me on occasion, diamanté tiaras – before we excitedly went through our booty back at her house, trading items and posing in front of the mirror with some of the more outrageous items.
Yes, times change – so, too, do our shopping habits, as experts often tell us. It's also clear that high streets across the country are being gutted (I've lost track of how many vape shops and American candy stores have cropped up over the years). But without these physical spaces and precious artefacts from their younger years, I fear today's kids won't have the same ability and freedom for self-expression, experimentation and innocence.
