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“Limited Too was the store you’d go to before you entered your Wet Seal beige-sandblasted-painted-on-lowrise-jeans phase,” Slack remembered.

But while its feminist credentials may have been lacking in statement tees, the brand made up for it by doing something pretty extraordinary and uncommon even now: It treated preteen and teen girls with respect ― or at least as the serious consumers they were and still are today.

As for the actual shopping, the tchotchkes and small home decor selection was just as memorable as the clothes. If you couldn’t afford that sequined skirt or pair of bedazzled bell-bottom jeans (’60s-inspired styles were having a moment), you could at least walk out with some candy (Chupa Chups Spice Girls lollipops, for instance), a slap bracelet, some butterfly clips or a fuzzy pencil.

If not Limited Too, the market seems ripe for a copycat ― a shopping experience where youth culture is celebrated and tweens could find their fashion footing.

Misfortune of misfortunes, her white-with-yellow-smiling-stars Limited Too underwear had fallen out of her bag when she rang the doorbell, only to be picked up by the big brother.

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In spite of that, teen girls and their interests (what they buy, what they watch or listen to and create fandoms around) historically tend to get written off. In the ’90s, Limited Too went rogue and recognized the spending power of American girls, said Lauren McAlpin, a millennial marketer who shopped the brand.

Limited TooPaige DeSorbo

Brittany Oblak, 33, said describing Limited Too to preteens today would be a tall order. It captured that exact moment in the authentic Y2K zeitgeist so well, you almost had to be there, she told HuffPost.

At its height, the store ― the kid sister of retailer The Limited ― reportedly had 600 locations nationwide. But by 2008, the stores had mostly vanished, converted by corporate owner Tween Brands into a less memorable tween store Justice, which, as of 2020, also shuttered all physical locations.

“It does make me sad that there is no brick-and-mortar equivalent for younger women and teens today, especially with the over-saturation of unrealistic fashion and beauty standards they face on social media,” she said.

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“There we discovered what I have come to think of as Nitwit Wear,” she wrote. “These are T-shirts with slogans such as: ‘I Left My Brain in My Locker,’ ‘I Only Shop on Days that End in Y,’ and ‘Spoiled and Proud of It.’”

Limited toomonkey

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It’s not all quiet on the Limited Too front lately. Earlier this summer, fans of the brand, many of whom are moms themselves now, had reason to celebrate: The erstwhile brand released a pop-up collaboration for preteen girls available at Kohl’s stores.

As Oblak remembers it, walking into the store was a full-on sensory experience: The logo with the cutesy font and flower power imagery practically called her name. The storefront was always enticing, with candy-colored props and mannequins hinting at the patchwork jeans, sparkly tops and a million accessories promised inside. Walking in, Oblak recalls being hit with a soundtrack of Dream, Blaque and *NSYNC while being welcomed by a cadre of helpful employees who, while just a tad older than her, seemed much, much cooler.

Fans may be vocal but the store wasn’t without its detractors. In 2007, Emily Yoffe wrote a Slate piece that was critical of a number of stores catering to preteen girls, including Limited Too. Yoffe writes about taking her 11-year-old back-to-shopping and finding the brand’s T-shirt selection severely lacking.

“I feel like an empowering, inclusive store that is age-appropriate could really make a difference for many younger folks today,” Oblak said. “It’s nice to think that some preteen girl who is a little unsure of herself could go and find that perfect Limited Too-esque piece and have her world changed, too.”

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For your entire life up until that point ― all 12 years of it ― birthday parties were a boys-only or girls-only affair. But eventually, usually around the start of middle school, a seminal moment occurred when one bold person ventured to invite the opposite sex to their event. Scandalous! The party would be a total rager just by virtue of the mixed audience. (And by total rager, we mean a parent-chaperoned party with $5 Little Caesars pizza and as much Surge soda as your little heart desired.)

Pink launched in 2003, right around the time that Limited Too folded, McAlpin explained. “Essentially, once the Limited Too girls went off to college, Pink ― especially with the launch of the collegiate collection ― was right there to see them through.”

“When I was in sixth grade I won a $100 shopping spree at my local store and I think it really was the best day of my life,” she said. “I felt like a spectacle with my bright pink shopping bags in hand ― the world was my stage and I was finally getting my flowers.”

Of course, you had to look your best, and for countless preteen girls of a certain age, that meant wearing head-to-toe Limited Too.

Maddie Toland, a brand communities strategist at Archival who monitors youth trends, liked the idea of the collab but wishes they would have leaned into the cheeky, and unapologetically “girly” aesthetic a little more. Instead, they went a little too Aéropostale or American Eagle, selling brand-emblazoned shirts and sweats but not much else.

“I think if they focused on making products that nod to their original branding, they’d bring in both young girls looking for that Y2K, hyper-feminine style and millennial women who connected with Limited Too in their youth,” she said.

Limited TooMagazine

“I guess it’s almost like if you took the best parts of Target and put them in a smaller mall store specifically for teens born in the early ’90s,” said Oblak, who’d go to the Beachwood Mall location in Cleveland, Ohio, with her grandma almost every Friday. (But first, the pair would fuel up with Frappuccinos at the Starbucks in Barnes and Noble. If she was lucky, Oblak would get a Teen People or J-14 magazine while she was there.)

As Slack’s outfit description suggests, Limited Too catered to those with a hyper-girly, femme aesthetic. Its clothes were cool without being too avant garde or weird ― style-wise, millennials tended to be thirsty for approval. We were never as edgy or trailblazing as Gen Alpha is today.

“Can you think of anything a preteen girl would love more than being styled by a savvy older teenager with a highly coveted job at the mall?!” Oblak said.

Limited Too90s

If you were exceedingly lucky ― maybe you’d scored multiple gift cards on your birthday or racked up enough “Too Bucks” through your purchases ― you could walk out of there with clothes and some very hip blow-up furniture for your room.

Admittedly, it’s a fair critique. Some of those statement tees were a little dumbed-down, a little too sassy and baby bimbo-ish for their own good. I’m pretty sure Limited Too was where I got the sweatshirt below with “FLIRT” emblazoned on the front in a cute plaid print.

“It was mortifying, but it also exemplifies how tween-focused their stuff was,” Slack said. “Not sexy or trying to be older, just something the 8-to-12-year-olds would like.”

Oblak still remembers her favorite fit from the store: A one-shoulder orange tank top with a big white bedazzled ‘02’ in the middle and a matching skirt, which she wore to her first boy-girl party. (For her, the milestone moment happened in the summer between 4th and 5th grade.)

Limited Too2000s

Not a weekend went by when Slack and her little sister didn’t beg their mom to take them. Decades later, she still gets nostalgic about the store, even though she also has some embarrassing memories associated with the brand.

As the BBC reports, Gen Alpha’s economic footprint is expected to reach $5.46 trillion by 2029 — almost as much as the spending power of millennials and Gen Z combined.

Limited toologo

In a dream world, millennial women we spoke to said they’d love to see standalone Limited Too stores open one day, especially since generations Alpha and Z seem to be reviving in-store shopping and mall rat culture. Plus, so much of the magic of the brand was the physicality of the store, Oblak said.

Limited Too as a preteen shopping mecca was born in 1996, when a new senior management team refocused Limited Too into a tween fashion store. (Outside of Claire’s, which only sells accessories, there are a few stores that go all in with the demographic the way Limited Too and catalog brands like Delia’s did in the ’90s. Today’s tweens tend to shop secondhand or go directly to the retail brands adults gravitate to ― the “Sephora tweens” trend is a good case study of that.)

if you mention Limited Too to women of a certain age you'll quickly get a conversation going that inevitably ends up with: Let's revive Limited Too! pic.twitter.com/JFCQolwFVe

The brand walked a delicate line and did it well. The clothes were just adult enough to appease two historically opposing forces: middle schoolers wanting to look like total baddies at their promotion parties and school dances, and moms eager to put the kibosh on anything even remotely revealing.

A true daddy’s girl, and an amazing opportunist, Brady presented her dad with a quality solution: “Every Thursday was ‘my night,’ and somehow, every Thursday I was walking away from our favorite mall with a new Friday outfit,” she joked.

You always remember your first “boy-girl” party ― and if you were born in the late ’80s or early ’90s and loved girly fashion, you were probably wearing Limited Too.

Mall visits to Limited Too were also a weekly pilgrimage for Brittany Brady, 35. The small business owner remembers going with her dad, who she said worked hard and always wished he had more time with his family.

“In 8th grade, I went for a sleepover at a friend’s house and after being there for a bit, her unbelievably cute high school brother came home and announced to the house, ‘some little girl’s underwear is on our porch,’” she said.

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“I’m pretty sure the boy’s dad made him invite the whole class even though he made it very clear he did not like me, but I didn’t care, I was going to show up in style,” she joked.

“I think it was a clear departure from your OshKosh B’Gosh era and a precursor to the ‘tween’ identity we see today,” she said. “It was for the ‘it girls’ before they were ‘it.’ A place where girls could be loud, vibrant, and colorful and not told to shrink.”

Jaz Palmer, a millennial studio manager at Archival, a creative agency that focuses on youth culture, said she still yearns for a brand to make her feel as excited about shopping there as Limited Too did.

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But for a brief, fleeting moment in time ― let’s say 1999, if you want to put a year on it ― Limited Too was everything and a bag of Auntie Anne’s pretzel bites.

“I definitely remember going to the mall to buy an outfit from Limited Too for a ‘boy-girl’ party in 7th grade,” said Becca Slack, a senior creative copywriter. “It was a long-sleeved pink ballerina top with black velvet flares. I danced with my crush that night and from then on that Limited Too outfit was lucky.”

“In its heyday, the Limited Brands owned Limited Too and Victoria’s Secret. My humble opinion is that Limited Too walked, so that Victoria’s Secret’s Pink line could run,” McAlpin told HuffPost.