When teenagers go shopping

By Rebecca Willis

The youth of every generation, it seems, finds a way to keep parents out of its shops. When I was young—a phrase which causes my children to roll their eyes, and at which I remember rolling my own eyes when I was young (there I go again)—it was ear-achingly loud music to which the shop “assistants” were self-absorbedly gyrating while ignoring the customers. The atmosphere was more disco than retail, and it had the desired effect: any parent unwise enough to enter would soon make tracks for the door.

Today’s solution is even simpler. Instead of going for the ears, they go for the eyes. As anyone will know who has been inside a branch of the upmarket teen-brand Hollister, they just turn the lights off. Or at any rate, they’re on so low that, for anyone over 30, they might as well be off. You feel as if you’ve wandered into someone’s bedroom in the small hours. Tables hold piles of fabric, which you guess are clothes. If, once night-vision has kicked in, you are able to discern something clearly enough to be interested in what it costs, you stumble around until you trip over an assistant, who will kindly—so kindly it feels patronising—read the price-label out to you.