“I was an Irish teen with a dream of looking like an Olsen twin and a fixation on the ‘jegging,’ a style that had yet to hit the island of Ireland, but which I’d read about in the copies of Seventeen that my aunt would bring back from New York. The shopping pages were populated with said jean-leggings, as well as ‘flirty and flattering’ longline prairie tops from Forever 21.
My first IRL experience came later in my teens, on a family trip to Orlando, where on a rainier day we forwent Universal Studios for the Florida Mall. I followed its map straight to Forever 21, and loaded my fitting room with jeggings in every denim wash. Choice paralysis ensued. The return time at the family meet-up spot, Cheesecake Factory, came and went. I slid into the booth an hour later, my white jeggings in the acid yellow F21 shopping bag. I was docked an Oreo cheesecake that I had also obsessed over from errant references on Nickelodeon TV shows, and the wash of jeggings I came to regret.” —Anna Oliva Cafolla, news editor
“I went through a phase where my go-to daytime look was an extra-long (and unnecessarily tight) paper-thin tee, paired with low-rise flares and platform sandals. Many of these tees were sourced from Forever 21, and my favorite was in the prettiest shade of butter yellow. You could say I was of the times—and also ahead of them.” —Leah Faye Cooper, digital style director
“My memories of Forever 21 are stored right next to the place where I keep my first kiss (Geoffrey at a bat mitzvah at Le Poisson Rouge) and first time wearing a scandalous bathing suit (bikini). That is to say, the store is a place for life’s great transitions, for girls becoming ladies, ladies becoming young women, young women deciding they don’t particularly care about anything beyond the perfect going-out top. The ethics of the place are dubious, and certainly in the landscape of fast fashion, we must celebrate when another giant falls. But rest in peace to Forever 21, whose crinkling neon yellow bags I can almost still hear.” —Maya Layne, entertainment associate
