MY TRIBUTE TO RIVERS.

The year was 1991, and I was in my final year of high school, and we were about to go on work experience. On the Wednesday afternoon before the Easter Holidays, as my parents were going away and I was staying home with my grandfather, my mother took me shopping to buy some clothes and a pair of shoes for work experience. That was when I bought my first pair of Rivers shoes, not from a Rivers outlet but from Williams the Shoe men, and I remember the female sales assistant told me that I’d still be wearing them when I got married. Well, I guess that depended how old I would be if I got married, as I was 16 at the time, and unlike some of the shit talking bullies at school, who’d say, “I want to get married at 21, and have the first kid when I’m 20,” I wanted to wait beyond that. I have never married, and I don’t have any kids, but if that shit talking bully did achieve his objectives, he might have been thinking at 20, “Oh, gee, I can’t join my friends at the pub on Friday night or go to watch sport (I didn’t do either) because I have to take on a second job to be able to pay rent or a mortgage, buy food and clothes for a baby and the like.”

As time went by and I had a pair of Jeans West jeans, I later looked for further Rivers clothes and shoes. They were well-priced and comfortable, and I liked them.

Now, I know that in two weeks’ time, Rivers will be closing down for good, and I feel sad to think that in time, my Rivers clothing items and the company, will be memories. Part of the reason for that is that they could not find a buyer for the company, and with companies like Temu and Amazon offering cheaper products out of warehouses, other retailers are suffering.

Rivers will always have a place in my heart and conscience.