Clothing stores of my youth

Back in the day 5 7 9 and Rave were the big draw in apparel for teen girls who wanted to be trendy.


Feeling nostalgic today, I decided to look up some of the clothing stores I frequented in my teens and twenties. This was a random exploit after watching YouTube videos on clothing hauls and what not. Most popular clothing companies can be found online. Their online presence has put a lot of mall-stores out of business. Online shopping did not exist when I was a teen.

Back in the day when I wanted to grab cheap and/or trendy clothing in high school, I would frequent RAVE for the cheap and Maurice's for the trendy. I'm from a small town, so we did not have a great deal of options. Clearly, RAVE has since shut down, but I remember going on a competition trip with my DECA group, two of my schoolmates and I went to RAVE to grab some matching silver pleather short outfits (yes...a hot mess!!) to wear to the closing party.

One of us had the matching halter, another had a matching vest, and the third had a matching v-neck shirt of some sort. We kept the tags in and returned the outfits the next day. LOL

Maurices got all of my money when it opened in the mall in my hometown. I had a little job flipping burgers at the Hardees in front of the mall. Maurices is still in that mall, and my mom reminds me of my affinity for it each time we go there when I am home.

Wet Seal closed the last of its stores in early 2017.

In my pre-college/college days... I'd shop  5-7-9, Wet Seal, Body Shop, and Charlotte Russe. I think the only one still standing is Charlotte Russe. I read somewhere that 5-7-9 became Rainbow. I've never been inside of a Rainbow store, but that may be due to being a grown woman. LOL

Wet Seal was bought by some company that is currently rebranding it from a teen/young twenties store to something else...not sure what. They have an IG where they claim to be making a comeback.

THANK YOU to all of you Seals for holding it down while we took a minute. We’re back! Now, Wet Seal is the vision of a band of SoCal artists, designers and creatives who are busy crafting the Seal of the future.  We have crazy great things coming in the next weeks and months, so hit the link in our bio to join us on this journey!  #wetseal #wetsealfashion #thenewwetseal  #werecomingback

A post shared by Wet Seal (@wetseal) on Mar 28, 2017 at 9:01am PDT

As I matriculated through college, I also matriculated in my choice for clothing. I traded in the Wet Seals and Body Shops for Express, LernerNY (NY and Company) and The Limited. Let me tell you, those The Limited America brand stores made great quality clothing. I had a suit from The Limited that was over ten years old, still in great condition and on trend, that I sold at a yard sale about a year ago.

Like I said, online shopping did not exist when I was a tween and teen and barely existed when I was in my early twenties. Malls were both a place of social enjoyment and shopping back in the day. Now, kids hang out virtually and buy clothes through ecommerce. It is no wonder that these stores are shuttering their mall locations and either going completely out of business or transitioning to online only.

Anyway, that was my little trip down memory lane. Did you have favorite stores that you shopped at back in the day that are no longer in business today?



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