Hot Topic

"It all started in 1988. A ton of teen retail accessory stores littered the malls, but there weren't any cool, music-inspired accessory destinations for both guys and girls. Enter Hot Topic. As 1990 rolled around, adding apparel seemed like a no-brainer. What better way than to bring in the ultimate music fan essential—band T-shirts. Customers flipped when they walked into Hot Topic stores and saw Bauhaus, The Cure, TSOL, and Depeche Mode rock tees at their fingertips. Within a year, we had about 50 different band titles, along with rock-inspired clothing lines like Lip Service and Serious. Today, Hot Topic has a growing line of apparel and accessories that includes music tees, band merch, shorts, swimwear, capris, pants, shoes, body jewelry, jeans and more. At Hot Topic, you'll find a passion for music and pop culture in everything we do, and you'll see that our customers share that same passion. It's in our stores. It's at HQ. It's in our distribution centers. It's in our products."