As we all know, nothing stays the same for very long - and it's certainly true of our streets.
Edinburgh’s flagship shopping street, Princes Street, has changed dramatically over the last two decades - especially since the addition of the St James Quarter. Many popular stores have gone bust, or packed up and headed down to the sparkly new shopping centre at Leith Street.
We’ve put together some snaps from Princes Street's shopping heyday, as we look back on some of the loved and lost outlets that we once frequented.
READ MORE - Retro photos show Edinburgh's Waverley and Haymarket stations in the 1980s
One of the first to disappear at the turn of the millennium was the C&A department store, after the Dutch company announced they were withdrawing from the British market - leaving shoppers wondering where they would find their budget clothing. Before long, H&M moved into the building where they still operate today.
Further down the street, Virgin Megastore survived throughout most of the ‘00s despite being just a stone's throw away from HMV. The two happily coexisted through much of the decade, which was when sales of DVDs and CDs were arguably at their highest - before the introduction of YouTube and Spotify.
Another department store that Edinburgh said goodbye to was British Home Stores, a massive outlet that sat over several floors. Much like Covid-19 and cockroaches, we thought there was no getting rid of the store - until they shut up shop in 2016.
British Home Stores' distant cousin, Littlewoods, was also hugely popular in the early ‘00s. Today, it's now a distant memory - with the building now occupied by clothing giants Primark.
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Perhaps one of the most notable stores to have disappeared since the ‘00s is Jenners, the loss of which still stings for many locals. The family-founded department store closed just two years ago, after having become an institution in the city.
At the other end of Princes Street, Frasers was once a packed out spot on the weekends - and today the building continues to be packed out, though now visitors are enjoying a few drinks at the repurposed Johnnie Walker hub.
Whichever lost store you’re missing, we can all agree that Princes Street has changed dramatically over time - and may not be the shopping spot that it once was. As more and more eateries begin to pop up on the street, it may be moving toward serving a different purpose.
Check out our full gallery below to see what Princes Street looked like back in the day.
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