A new vintage and pre-loved clothing store has opened in Manchester city centre, selling some seriously big labels for £20 or less.
Catch My Thrift isn’t all about the designer goods either, with plenty of high-street names like ASOS and Levi’s being sold alongside Burberry, Nike and Armani.
But if the item falls under the ‘fast fashion’ umbrella, founder Scott Joseph will donate the money from the sale to the Forever Manchester charity.
The shop has opened at Great Northern Warehouse on Deansgate (down towards Beetham Tower), with rails upon rails of flannel shirts, band tees, denim, sportswear and sweatshirts.
Catch My Thrift is promising to take the ‘musty’ out of vintage clothes, with gender-neutral items sold washed, ironed, and ready to wear.
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For less than £20, you could be shopping for a classic Burberry shirt, a Kenzo sweatshirt, or a pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans.
Scott, whose background is in luxury, high-end fashion, including Armani and Harvey Nichols, started buying vintage clothes for himself, selling on anything that wasn’t the right fit.
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A Patagonia flannel shirt for only £16 at Catch My Thrift vintage shop in Manchester. Credit; The Manc GroupA wall of brightly-coloured vintage shirts at Catch My Thrift, Manchester. Credit; The Manc GroupA beer shirt at Catch My Thrift. Credit: The Manc Group
It didn’t take long for him to realise there was huge demand for ‘quality thrift’ – and the business has flourished.
With Catch My Thrift, he’s hoping to make this sustainable alternative to fast fashion more accessible to a wider audience.
The stock is replenished weekly with new garments on display at every visit.
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You’ll find a wall of band t-shirts, featuring the likes of Kurt Cobain, Iron Maiden and Def Leopard (as well as Doja Cat and Ariana Grande), in addition to cotton, denim and flannel shirts, jeans, corduroys, casual bottoms and sweatshirts.
Catch My Thrift vintage store in Manchester.Catch My Thrift vintage store in Manchester. Credit; The Manc Group
Scott’s chosen to price everything by category, rather than label, so designer brands rub shoulders with high street labels in the same price brackets.
Scott says: “Vintage and pre-loved clothing has a story to tell, and it’s a shame that they often end up in landfill. I wanted to create a platform that makes vintage wear more accessible to people, gives them the opportunity to express their own unique style without fear of imitation and at the same time, help the environment by reducing waste.”
He plans to host classes on up-cycling and capsule wardrobe planning in the space, plus a series of talks and roundtables.
Mark Schofield, centre director of Great Northern Warehouse, said: “Catch My Thrift is a great addition to our thriving community of independent businesses at Great Northern Warehouse.
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“The pop-up store highlights the step-change in consumer purchasing behaviours, with Deansgate Terrace, now increasingly recognised as a hub for independent businesses offering a range of services including vintage clothing, coffees to go, and even tattoos, in addition to great restaurants and estate agents.
“We’re committed to supporting local businesses in the early stages and look forward to seeing Catch My Thrift grow and thrive on Deansgate.”
To celebrate its new home on Deansgate, Catch My Thrift will be hosting a weekend of partying across Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 September from 1pm each day, with complimentary refreshments.
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Tesco are introducing ‘VAR-style’ self-checkouts in the UK
Danny Jones
Many people think VAR has already gone too far and want it gone from football full stop, and we’re here to tell you that you’re a fool; your hopes are in vain, and the technology is only going to become more common as time goes on. Sorry.
So much so, in fact, that Tesco look are bringing in their own virtual referee into self-checkout systems in shops. You could say the ‘game’s gone…’
Of course, we’re being a bit flippant here, but if you have seen ‘VAR’ and ‘Tesco‘, you’re not seeing things: this is genuinely a thing that is being rolled out here in the UK, with video footage of the supermarket chain’s next self-checkout technology going viral online.
Thought you’d got away with sneaking an extra little something in the bag without paying? Think again.
— UB1UB2 West London (Southall) (@UB1UB2) May 28, 2025
We’ll admit, this was the first time we’d come across the technology, but as it turns out, the updated self-checkout service has been in place for a while.
Similar VAR checkouts have already been installed at other retailers, Sainsbury’s and ASDA, although some reports claim that while stores capture footage of shoppers to check if they’ve scanned all of their items, it is thought that not all of these self-service tills show a playback when an error is detected.
Although this particular speculation has sparked some uproar and debate online, many have quite rightly pointed out that CCTV records your movement in any given shop.
Regardless, it’s fair to say that aside from the obvious memes and people poking fun at the new system, many on social media have shared some pretty strong opinions on the matter.
Not that it matters much – it’s likely this will soon become increasingly the norm, with the likes of Sainsbury’s having already introduced barriers which require customers to scan their receipt in order to leave at branches such as the site on Regent Road Retail Park over in Salford.
As yet, it’s unclear how many of these new self-service tills are in operation and whether they are limited to larger supermarket locations of their Express convenience stores, but don’t be surprised if you come across one.
Put simply, if a barcode isn’t registered before being put on the scale and/or set aside to be packed away, the Tesco till will read: “The last item wasn’t scanned properly. Remove from bagging area and try again.”
Addressing these new VAR-style checkouts in an official statement, a company spokesperson said: “We are always looking at technology to make life easier for our customers.
“We have recently installed a new system at some stores which helps customers using self-service checkouts identify if an item has not been scanned properly, making the checkout process quicker and easier.”
What do you make of the new Tesco and their new VAR self-checkout technology?
Daisy Jackson -
1st September 2023 
