It opened with barely a whimper of publicity 25 years ago this month, but in the two and a half decades since, the brand has boomed - and radically changed the way Britons buy clothes.
It is the 25th anniversary this month of the opening of the first ever TK Maxx store in Britain, which opened its doors for the first time in 1994 in The Galleries Shopping Centre in Bristol.
The store was certainly something different for the shoppers of Bristol at the time, with word quickly spreading about the bargains to be had from this strange American fashion store.
Back in 1994, Britain had just been through a deep recession, which technically lasted from the end of 1990 to April 1993, in terms of economic growth, but was still being felt in factories, offices and high streets well into the mid-1990s.
It was a country ruled by a declining Conservative Government, beset by scandal under John Major, but awakening with the first stirrings of the celebration of British culture in Britpop.
Most people had few choices when it came to clothes - they would either go to high street fashion retailers, who each had their own distinct style, or to the traditional department stores which still ruled the roost.
There was no internet shopping, and the large supermarkets with huge, pile-them-high, sell-them-cheap, clothing departments were only just beginning to be built.
TK Maxx offered something no one had quite seen before - designer brands hugely discounted.
The store in Bristol wasn’t quite like other fashion shops.
The clothes buying experience at the time frequently meant going to a department store where there was an air of strict formality and the kind of overbearing customer service which seemed to date back to the tailors’ shops of the 1930s.
The same year that TK Maxx opened its first British store in Bristol, The Fast Show aired on the BBC for the first time. The characters Kenneth and Ken, department store staff played by Paul Whitehouse and Mark Williams, captured the awkwardness of the ordeal of going shopping for clothes in 1994, with their over-the-top questions and ‘Suits You, Sir!’ catchphrase.
The opposite end of the scale were the super-cool fashion stores with gum-chewing insolent staff which made the ordinary buyer feel like they simply weren’t fashionable enough to even set foot into the shop.
Into this world came TK Maxx, and it was very different. The Galleries had opened less than three years earlier in October 1991, and was still a new and shiny experience for Bristolians when TK Maxx’s sign went up.
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“This was at a time when shopping in Europe was led by department stores, boutiques and a few factory outlets,” said a spokesperson for TK Maxx.
“In the recession of the 90s, TK Maxx’s high street success was driven by its fashion proposition, offering consumers affordable access to designer brands,” she added.
Instead of an officious department store or a too cool or too expensive fashion store, TK Maxx had brand-name clothing piled high, selling cheap with the casual feel of a supermarket than a boutique.
“The first-ever store in Bristol introduced the new proposition of ‘off-price shopping’, with big brands selling for 60 per cent less than the recommended retail price,” she added.
The TK Maxx model had come from the US and was a relative newcomer even there.
The first stores opened in Auburn and Worcester, Massachussetts in 1977.
In the US, the firm was known as TJ Maxx, but a department store chain in the north of England used the TJ name, so to avoid confusion, TJ became TK.
The first store in Britain was a success, and at a time when many retailers are suffering on the high street thanks to high costs and the competition from online retailers, the firm is still expanding - there are no more than 500 TK Maxx stores in six countries across Europe, and five within 12 miles of Bristol city centre alone.
Where TK Maxx went, others followed - and now most of our bricks-and-mortar clothes shopping is done either in supermarkets or chains which have followed TK Maxx’s model.
That model is not without controversy though - while Bristol saw the first ‘off-price’ shopping experience, it also - earlier this month - saw the first major demonstration highlighting the environmental impact of this ‘fast-fashion’ trend.
TK Maxx’s store in The Galleries is no longer there - the firm moved to a bigger, standalone location in Broadmead a year ago this week.
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