Cheap Vodka, Cheaper Skirts: Forever 21 and the Great American Hangover

The year was 2010, and our generation was nursing one hell of a hangover. Sitting in the space somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, we had been sold the American dream only to find it repossessed and repackaged at double the price. Yet, at 21, optimism (okay, maybe it was delusion) was the currency we traded most freely, convinced we'd figure it all out eventually—or at least after Saturday night.

My mornings were unceremoniously spent sporting a neon visor inside a Jamba Juice at Chicago’s UIC campus, where I forced frozen fruit into bright-colored submission for a wage barely covering rent and cheap vodka. It wasn’t lucrative or glamorous, but we never expected glamour—not from our jobs, anyway. Glamour came from somewhere else entirely.

For many of us, Forever 21 was the gateway to that somewhere else. Ask any millennial woman about 2000s Forever 21 and her eyes will momentarily flash with nostalgia. The store understood us—young women standing on shaky ground who, despite the economic doom and gloom, refused to stop celebrating. {Just Dance. Please Dont Stop The Music. Because Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good (Good) Night.}

She was the friend who insisted that despite your better judgement, you absolutely could pull off galaxy print. And a fedora. She gave us the Twelve by Twelve and French Twist collections, and assured us the sparkle was 100% worth the overdraft fee. She sold us possibility and the uniform for the lives we wanted, all folded neatly in a yellow plastic bag.

And yes, we knew the clothes weren’t meant to last. But neither were the nights. That was the point. We didn’t buy pieces to hand down. We bought outfits to show up.

And then she, like us, felt the change. Time passed, culture shifted, and those glitter specked Saturday nights, once dazzling, became as irresponsible as fast fashion itself. Instead, we're older, wiser—and learning, reluctantly and inevitably, to savor things that last just a bit longer.

Still, as Forever 21 plans to shutter its stores, her exit feels oddly personal— like saying goodbye to a friend who, however reckless, was there for us through a pivotal point in time. One where, in those brief, bright moments, we felt unstoppable, infinitely young—forever, improbably, 21.