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Meet the Manchester students making sustainable shopping more accessible online

Shopping sustainably isn’t easy on a student budget or when stores are frequently closing. But The Closet Manchester is changing things.

Daisy Bradbury Daisy Bradbury - 29th January 2021
The Closet Manchester

Shopping sustainably isn’t easy on a student budget or when stores are frequently closing. But The Closet Manchester is changing things.

Established in 2015, The Closet is a student-led charity and clothing society that encourages people to think about the environmental impact before making a purchase.

While students are often seen as avid fast fashion consumers – filling their wardrobes with the latest trends and clubbing attire – they’re also a group that’s eager to disprove the stereotype.

Starting as a reinvention of the British charity shop, The Closet is a hybrid of a thrift shop and creative space for students to share their thoughts and showcase their creations – from artwork to film and fashion.

Ordinarily, the space would be hosting a variety of thrift sales with a mixture of vintage and donated clothing right now, but the pandemic has caused The Closet to get creative with their projects.

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One of their main methods of reaching Manchester’s student population is through Instagram – sharing countless resources including how to upcycle clothing and sustainable fashion documentaries to watch.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ_JDq9ABG0/

The Closet also hosted a sustainable gift-wrapping online session before Christmas, showing people how to wrap presents using household items.

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Currently, the founders are planning a panel in collaboration with Want Not Waste to raise more awareness about sustainability in the fashion and beauty industry.

“We are going to talk about sustainability, alongside having different perspectives from students on different courses across the university”, says the charity director, who is eager to portray how eco-friendly fashion can come in many forms.

The Closet is also dedicated to raising awareness of mental health issues in students, with all of their proceeds going towards Manchester Mind.

You can get involved with any of their online events by keeping up to date with The Closet’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

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Images of latest Stone Roses x Man United collaboration kit leak online

Danny Jones Danny Jones New blue Man United Stone Roses kit 2026

Images of the latest collaboration between Manchester United and The Stone Roses have been linked online.

Put simply, we think it looks mint, albeit very familiar.

Yes, just over a month on from the passing of The Stone Roses’ legendary bass player, Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield, his Man United look to be once again gearing up for another fashion collab.

Serving as yet another fitting tribute from his beloved football club, who already honoured the late, great, Manc musician at Old Trafford, it’s rumoured to launch later this year.

manchester united releasing another stone roses shirt 2026
new blue stone roses man united shirt
Credit: @stonerosesfan07 (via TikTok)/Footy Headlines

Leaked on social media via a TikTok fan account, the latest crossover shirt was supposedly spotted somewhere in Ireland.

Snapped alongside United’s current third kit for the 25/26 season, the rumoured ‘lifestyle’ jersey is apparently coming very soon.

This pair of images has seemingly confirmed the claims made by trusted online kit source, Footy Headlines, who specialise in sharing pictures of the football shirts, boots and more, who had already reported on the release in 2025.

As you can see, not only does the design feature a striking blue take on the band’s iconic album art style (expanded from an original painting by guitarist John Squire), but if you look closely, it also features the band’s iconic song and overriding slogan, ‘I Wanna Be Adored’, built into the crest.

You can see the rest of the existing Stone Roses collection in full down below.

Manchester United officially launch Stone Roses collection with Adidas

We’re sure there are loads of other little details besides the twist on the badge still to be spotted, but for now, all we know is that the world-famous sporting franchise is continuing to capitalise even further on The Stone Roses connection.

Since the last batch of officially licensed adidas x Stone Roses merch quickly became collector’s items, we can only assume that this latest shirt won’t be the only new addition.

For instance, one user already commented, ‘Where’s the bucket hat?’

As for Manchester United, they’re no doubt looking to generate as much revenue as possible after having to pay another sizeable severance package following the sacking of Ruben Amorim – the question is, who is going to be next?

Read more:

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — adidas x Man United/@stonerosesfan07 (via TikTok)/Footy Headlines

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Manchester has been ranked one of the ‘most influential cities’ in Europe

Danny Jones Danny Jones Manchester named one of the most influential cities in Europe

As per a development that we’d consider so obvious it’s barely worth writing about (even though we are), Manchester has been ranked one of the most influential cities in Europe.

In other news, water is still very much wet.

While there’s plenty of it here in Greater Manchester, given our standard rainy forecasts, when it comes to anything besides the weather, we deliver in spades.

Let’s be honest: we know it, you do too, and apparently so do plenty of other folks – and there’s some concrete statistics to back it up.

chanel show northern quarter manchester
vogue show manchester
Case in point – First Chanel, now Vogue… (Credit: The Manc Group)

You’ll find all manner of surveys, polls and studies diving into how Manchester ranks across various categories, but knowing we boast nods such as ‘the original industrial city’, the place that helped split the atom and the place that the first modern computer was born, we know all about our global impact.

With that in mind, when we saw that Sixt had recently named us as one of the most influential cities in all of Europe, we couldn’t ignore the well-deserved pat on the back.

That’s right, although you might not associate the car rental company with this sort of stuff, as part of their new exclusive ‘Sixt Ride’ offering (think a posh taxi service), they looked into which cities have the most luxuries, tourist attractions and other cultural bonuses to their name.

Per their recent research, Manchester city centre didn’t just break into the top 100 but found itself among the 30 most influential cities in Europe.

You can see the full rankings table down below.

#CityCountry*Fortune 500 CompaniesFashion weeksFilm FestivalsInternational Airports5-Star HotelsHigh End/Luxury Shopping areasMichelin Restaurants
1ParisFrance10677212211134
2LondonUnited Kingdom1232413182581
3MilanItaly1452329522
4RomeItaly2097265421
5StockholmSweden0314212213
6MadridSpain5038142229
7ZurichSwitzerland6010112418
8MunichGermany5010116417
9BerlinGermany1176140221
10HamburgGermany1016217316
11AmsterdamNetherlands4024129130
12CopenhagenDenmark1212112220
13BarcelonaSpain0045147131
14LisbonPortugal1038149120
15AthensGreece0041152212
16ViennaAustria1024124314
17BucharestRomania002221220
18WarsawPoland002221713
19GlasgowUnited Kingdom00172422
20LyonFrance00927016
21PragueCzechia001616012
22BrusselsBelgium0018114129
23OsloNorway01816111
24ManchesterUnited Kingdom00201732
25BudapestHungary001612417
26DublinIreland201611106
27NaplesItaly003415022
28PortoPortugal008128010
29TurinItaly102114010
30SofiaBulgaria002211410
31HelsinkiFinland00511015
32BelgradeSerbia00321901
33MarseilleFrance00514012
34BirminghamUnited Kingdom00121406
35MinskBelarus00111000

Read it and weep; we Mancs landed 24th on the leaderboard, just behind Norway’s capital, Oslo, and ever so slightly ahead of Budapest in Hungary.

That’s according to this study by Sixt, anyway.

As you can see, to identify the ‘most influential European cities’, they broke down how the 35 most populous cities on the continent and here UK (barring Russia and Ukraine) and what noteworthy cultural touchstones they possess.

For instance, did you hear that our very own Warehouse Project recently found itself breaking into the top half of the best nightclubs on the entire planet?

Going on to analyse everything from the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the city, their connections to film, fashion, fine-dining and more, they found that Paris, London and Milan were the most influential (no surprises there), but we’re glad to be keeping such good company.

After all, in the last couple of years alone, Manchester city centre has welcomed the Metiers D’art fashion show, opened one of the biggest indoor entertainment venues in all of Europe, and still takes eternal credit for giving the world Oasis and, therefore, the Live ’25 reunion. Again, you’re welcome.

What do you make of Sixt’s study, and do you agree with their findings on the whole?

It goes without saying that we’d probably put ourselves higher on the list if anything, but then again, maybe we’re getting too used to being told how brilliant it is to live in this region.

Greater Manchester town named one of Britain’s ‘happiest’ places to live in 2026

Read more:

For all the latest news, events and goings on in Greater Manchester, subscribe to The Manc newsletter HERE.

Featured Images — Anthony Parkes (via Geograph)/The Manc Group

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