I miss malls the same way I miss Blockbuster.

I don’t necessarily want to give up the convenience we have now and go back to wandering aisles hoping the movie I wanted was still in stock, but there was something about the experience that Amazon, streaming, and two-day shipping have never quite been able to replace.

That thought came back to me when I heard Fashion Fair was undergoing its largest renovation in more than 40 years.

For millennials who grew up in Fresno, Fashion Fair wasn’t just where you went when you needed new clothes. It was where you went because you needed somewhere to be.

I was born in the ’90s (I know, gasp), which put me at just the right age to experience the mall in all its early-2000s glory.

If you gave teenage me $20 and dropped me off at Fashion Fair, I was going to find every free sample available because I understood fiscal responsibility at a young age, then take most of that money to the food court while walking around with friends and inevitably running into everyone I knew.

Hopefully not an ex, although I probably would because, again, where else were we all going to be?

Fashion Fair Is a Time Capsule

Fashion Fair is basically a physical timeline of some of the most questionable stages of my adolescence. Around 12, I went through my Abercrombie and Hollister era, when I was convinced I had what it took to become one of their models.

Please allow me the confidence I apparently possessed before adulthood beat it out of me.

By 14, I had moved on to my scene/emo phase, which meant Hot Topic and Vans, along with buying gauges for my ears at the mall. They were the little ones, so I would appreciate it if everyone, especially my mother, remained calm. My ears are fine.

Then came 16, when I apparently became a “sophisticated” man of culture and started spending money at Teavana, because nothing says maturity quite like a teenager walking around Fashion Fair with unnecessarily fancy loose-leaf tea.

Eventually, I went from wandering the mall to working there, first at the circular Sunglass Hut kiosk in the middle of Fashion Fair and later at The Body Shop. Standing inside that Sunglass Hut kiosk was possibly one of the greatest people-watching opportunities in Fresno.

Some days were so slow I could have sworn the clocks had stopped, while others were so busy that finding time for a break felt like an unreasonable request.

The Holidays at the Mall Felt Like Something Out of an Old Movie

The holidays were a completely different animal, and those are some of the memories I miss most.

I can still picture Santa’s setup in the middle of Fashion Fair, families waiting for pictures, Starbucks advertising whatever holiday drink we had all collectively decided we needed that year, and shoppers moving in every direction with bags hanging from their arms.

Going to the mall during Christmas wasn’t something you casually squeezed into your afternoon. It was a mission.

Even when Fashion Fair wasn’t packed, plenty of us were teenagers wandering from store to store looking at things we knew we couldn’t afford, and that was fine because buying something wasn’t really the point.

We could spend hours walking around, eating at the food court, and talking about absolutely nothing important, and somehow that counted as an entire afternoon.

That’s the part of mall culture I think I miss more than the stores themselves.

Teenagers Then Aren’t Teenagers Now

Teenagers today have more ways to communicate than we could have imagined growing up, but I still think they need physical places where they can meet their friends and experience what’s happening around them. Growing up in Fresno, Fashion Fair and River Park were those places. You didn’t necessarily need a reason to go; you showed up, walked around, and eventually found somebody you knew.

Now, nearly everything can be delivered to our doors and much of our socializing can happen without leaving the house. I’m as guilty as anyone because if I need something these days, I’m probably ordering it from Amazon.

It’s fast, convenient, and returning something doesn’t require turning it into a Saturday afternoon project. I still make the occasional Old Navy run because I am, first and foremost, a man on a budget, but Fashion Fair has become somewhere I usually visit only when I need something that day.

Going there also feels less like a quick stop and more like a commitment. Between finding parking, dealing with crowds, and summoning the energy to navigate the whole experience, I sometimes feel like I should pack snacks and tell someone when I expect to return.

The World Is More Dangerous Now

My perspective has changed, too.

During one recent visit, I watched two young women leave a restroom when one of their purses opened and an unsheathed knife popped out, hitting the floor.

I walked into a bathroom stall and called security because whatever heroic instincts other people possess apparently skipped me, and I had no intention of becoming the next day’s headline (which, if you follow along my reporting, I would most likely write myself).

I don’t blame Fashion Fair for that experience.

It simply reminded me that I don’t see the world the way I did as a teenager wandering the mall without thinking twice about it.

Maybe some of what I remember as the safety and simplicity of the mall was really just the safety and simplicity of being young.

Malls Still Have a Place

That’s why I’m interested to see what happens with Fashion Fair’s renovation.

New stores and a refreshed layout aren’t going to turn me back into a teenager who can spend an entire afternoon at the mall for no particular reason, but seeing Fashion Fair invest in its future makes me think malls might still have a place in our lives if they can figure out what that place should be.

I don’t think millennials miss malls because we desperately want to buy our clothes in person again.

We miss wandering around with our friends when nobody had anywhere else to be, stretching $20 across an afternoon (remember when $20 was a lot?), and seeing everyone we knew, including the people we were desperately hoping to avoid.

We miss Christmas at the mall, when it felt like half of Fresno was packed into the same building and somehow that was part of the fun.

More than anything, I think we miss the slower world that existed around the mall. Blockbuster couldn’t compete with streaming, and malls will never beat Amazon at convenience, but every once in a while, I think we realize that some of the inconvenience was actually part of the experience.

Fashion Fair has been there through enough versions of my life that walking through it feels a little like walking through my own timeline, from the aspiring Abercrombie model to the scene kid at Hot Topic, the “sophisticated” Teavana customer, the mall employee watching Fresno pass by from a Sunglass Hut kiosk and, eventually, the adult who mostly shows up because his phone broke.

Fashion Fair used to be the place to be. Maybe it will never be exactly what it was when we were teenagers, but as the mall changes again, I’m rooting for it to become somewhere we want to be again.

About the Author

Anthony W. Haddad is a Fresno-based reporter and columnist known for his award-winning Millennial View column series, feature writing, and festival coverage. His work blends personal storytelling with cultural commentary, highlighting the people, issues, and experiences shaping the Central Valley and beyond.

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