A huge second-hand shop has opened in Manchester city centre and has already become the talk of the town.
Bare Necessities has taken over the former LOFT showroom on High Street, where you’ll find up to 20,000 items of pre-loved clothing on sale at any one time.
The thrift shop specialises in sourcing high-quality used clothing, which is then expertly cleaned and put back on sale as an affordable price.
And it really is affordable – prices start from just £1.
You’ll find row upon row of denim, coats, knitwear, t-shirts, skirts, and accessories, including a rainbow display of tops that greets shoppers as they come in.
ADVERTISEMENT
There’s even a whole section of ski clothing, crochet blankets, and fancy dress items.
Inside Bare Necessities / Credit: The Manc Group
Brands like Carhartt, Tommy Hilfiger, Dickies and Barbour are all stocked alongside items like patchwork crop-tops, that have been repurposed from other fabrics.
ADVERTISEMENT
Bare Necessities says: “Our mission is to source our forward-thinking customers with the highest quality of used clothing at the lowest possible price.
“Slow fashion shouldn’t break the bank, and only when second-hand fashion becomes more affordable will there be a larger shift towards the used clothing industry.”
The team who work there individually source clothes from piles of second-hand items that are heading for landfill.
ADVERTISEMENT
The items are given a full facelift, from de-bobbling knitwear to fixing zips and pockets to being washed and ironed.
Bare Necessities will also rescue damaged clothing and reuse the fabric as much as possible.
Inside Bare Necessities / Credit: The Manc Group
Since the pop-up shop opened in the last few weeks, dozens of people have been sharing TikToks and social media posts of their hauls.
TikTok user Francesca Perks’ video from the store has now gained hundreds of thousands of views.
She described it as the ‘best thrift haul of my life’ and said it was ‘like no other’, before revealing two bulging bags containing a £30 coat, a knitted red jumper, and one of the aforementioned crochet blankets.
One person commented: “Omg this place seems magical,” and another said: “Literally no idea where this place is but we must go for my sanity.”
Someone else said: “I’ve been debating going but now I’m SOLD.”
Bare Necessities is now open on High Street in Manchester city centre.
Featured Image – The Manc Group
Shopping
IKEA are hosting a wide range of FREE Christmas activities this winter
Thomas Melia
The flat-pack champions are putting on lots of fantastic events for IKEA members and customers to get involved with this Christmas.
What better way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year than to get stuck in with some festive arts and crafts while spreading Christmas cheer?
Even better still, it’s all free!
IKEA have hosted many free events across the holidays and they’re back again this December running a whole host of holiday craft and creative workshops over at their big Ashton-Under-Lyne branch.
Credit: IKEA
Although there may be no seats left at Santa’s breakfast table on Saturday, 7 December, visitors who book now can expect to decorate some delicious decorations at their ‘Gingerbread Creations’ workshop from 11:30am to 4pm.
The following day, you can try your hand at sprucing up your own Christmas tree (once again 11:30am-4pm) by making personalised ornaments with the help of their ‘Tree-rific Decorations’ event on Sunday, 8 December.
There’s also a chance you can show off your ultimate seasonal style in another free festive event which is even suitable for those who might not have a creative streak in them.
Start curating your best snazzy outfits and frocks this festive period, with the homeware retailer putting on a weekend set to feature more Christmas jumpers than any fashion week ever has.
If you aren’t all Christmas-sed out, from 13 to 15 December, you can also embrace the festivities by sporting your best seasonal stuff in-store from 9am until 5pm for their ‘Festive Wear Weekend’.
Once again, all these free festive activities are suitable for everyone, especially families, so why not treat yourself to a nice day out and embrace the holiday season in true Swedish fashion? Quite literally.
You’ll have to act fast if you’re planning on getting involved though, as the Scandinavian furniture company is making way for a total of seven free Christmas activities; their ‘Saint Lucia’, ‘Santa’s Christmas Eve Plate’ and ‘Winter Wreaths for Adults’ workshops are all fully booked already.
Anyone looking to stock up on Christmas activities and squeeze in some quality time in their ever-so-hectic December calendar can do so on IKEA’s website HERE.
Featured Images — IKEA/Zboralski (via Wikimedia Commons)
Shopping
Bents Garden Centre – the Christmas wonderland that everyone, including Molly-Mae Hague, obsesses over
Daisy Jackson
Don’t ask us when it happens, but there’s a point in life where you favourite place on earth becomes a garden centre.
And garden centres don’t come much fancier than Bents Garden Centre, an enormous sprawl of a building filled with the obvious stuff (like, you know, garden plants) but also so much more.
The Warrington favourite is never more popular than at Christmas, when it turns into a twinkling wonderland and people from across the north west make the pilgrimage.
There are colourful decorations spilling out from every corner, from themed baubles to fairy lights to festive soft furnishings.
Bents Garden Centre does not hold back on its decorating – this year alone there are Alpine dining scenes, a life-size car with presents spilling out of the boot, and an arctic landscape with polar bears and igloos.
That’s on top of a whole display inspired by an ice cream parlour, and others that take inspiration from woodland and The Grinch.
There’s also a winter food market, where wooden lodges sell everything from Yorkshire pudding wraps to bratwurst sausages to beef brisket sandwiches.
Inside Bents Garden Centre at Christmas. Credit: The Manc Group
In the outside space there are heated dining globes, decorated with plants, blankets and bunting.
Bents garden centre is so popular, it even had a fairly famous visitor a couple of years ago, when Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury popped in for a day out, documenting the whole thing to her (at the time) 1.7m YouTube subscribers.
She proudly showed off a trolley piled high with food-themed baubles, in the shape of cakes, doughnuts, gingerbread men, candy canes, and even a giant pink lollipop.
She said: “Don’t ask me why we’ve never come here before. It’s SO cosy.”
Molly-Mae added: “This garden centre, Bents, in I think Warrington, it’s unbelievable. I don’t know why we’ve never come here before.
“It’s kind of like a farm shop too, they’ve got food and food stalls. I am so excited to come back here with a baby next year, like it’s so special.
“It is quite expensive I’m not gonna lie, to get all the decorations and things, but we’ll keep them each year and reuse them.”
Daisy Jackson -
16th September 2022 
