Do you remember the horror that was communal changing rooms in clothes shops?

[Sidebeforeself]

Just reflecting on this today .. I remember cowering in a corner trying to show as little as possible ( I was obese as a teen) . Then the shame if something was too small ( everyone’s looking!) . Also the wait for the mirror
It made clothes shopping a nightmare for me

I was very skinny and flat chested in my teens. I remember trying on a strapless dress for the school dance (that’s what everyone else was intending to wear) in a communal changing room. May have been Top Shop. It fell right down. I was mortified.

I’m surprised at people asking how old posters are to remember these. I’m 36 and there were several shops on our High Street that had communal changing rooms in the early 2000s. Usually the cheaper shops.

I had forgotten all about Mark One!!! We used to call it Marconi 🤣

Yes, miss selfridge, late 90s.

I only ever went in the once, it was awful. Like a locker room covered in mirrors.

SO brilliant. 😂

We had the communal changing rooms in secondary school and they had shower cubicles… but we weren’t allowed to use them. It was really weird because the boys would all come out showered but the girls weren’t allowed to. We all stank and were muddy too.

I’m 30 and assume schools still have communal changing rooms.

I don't remember this!
I shopped in topshop, miss selfridge etc throughout the 1990s and there were always cubicles with a curtain.

Only marginally worse than cubicles with curtains in the middle of the shop! I always had visions of myself tumbling through the curtain with my jeans around my ankles in front of all the customers 😂

One of the first Laura Ashley shops in London in the 1970s (possibly Notting Hill or High Street Kensington?). A tiny communal changing room downstairs, and nowhere to hang anything so if you weren't careful someone else might start trying on the clothes you'd brought down - or even your own clothes. And the dresses were all very voluminous/milk maid style so took up a lot of space!

I’m sure the Next in Milton Keynes shopping centre had them in the nineties. I remember them well.

In my local next (not MK), there’s a floor to ceiling mirror at the end if the central aisle. Quite often people come out if their cubicle to get a full length
image of their outfit. It’s quite nice to get opinions from other shoppers doing the same.

I was a 90s teen and don't remember this at all!

Just imagine how this would work now that some shops would probably let men who "identified" as women in 🙄

Yes I remember them well, and also that a few of them were mixed sex in the 1970s. It didn’t bother me then when I was skinny but I would probably avoid them nowadays if I came across one.

I'm a year older than you and I distinctly remember Top Shop changing rooms being communal in the 1970's. Also Miss Selfridge and Bus Stop. They were horrible!

Luckily our PE teachers would piss off to their room and come back later so we used to keep our towels n and just dip our toes in the water at the bottom of the shower to make wet foot prints to make it look like we showered when the teachers came back.

I remember them with horror, I’ve never been slim.

Ah the days when we just got on with things 😅

Nowadays they’d take a photo of you and circulate it on social media.

only vaguely,
but now i am annoyed at the lack of changing rooms,
sainsbury's for example, no where to try things on any more, the shops love it as people buy to try and probably dont return

the communal showers at school were awful,
first time horrible large girl kicked my towel across the room!
after that i had a permanent verruca

Hated them!

I was a gawky, 5, 10 self harmer with major self esteem issues. They were my absolute nightmare. I used to try things on on top of my clothes in the shop instead to avoid them. I'd forgotten all about that particular teenage pain...

Chelsea Girl. A truly awful place. I always used to end up a sweaty mess and yes your bag and clothes were on the floor with everyone else’s. I think Next became so popular as it had individual cubicles.

Oh God yes, it was hideous. Especially if you met someone you knew. It was somehow far worse than a swimming communal changing room. I guess it was the fear that you couldn’t get the clothes on you.

I remember being in topshop and one of the women changing was clearly a model. Absolutely stunning with sky high legs. I wished the floor would just swallow me up as I couldn’t button up the jeans I had brought in to try on.

Yes I was specifically thinking about Top shop!

Good grief, yes! It seems extraordinary now that they were everywhere. All along Oxford Street in the early 90s. Definitely that big Top Shop at the top of Regent Street.

Im 56 .