"Two new shops have just opened and I've had a number of enquiries about the empty shop unit," says Sally Clark, Forum publicist.

"The Forum is known for doing its own thing," she adds. (As evidenced by Sally herself.

She can talk about creative and unique offerings and symbiotic retail experiences like the next marketing officer but she's also sporting a new wave parka, an alternative hairstyle and a small mongrel.)

The Corn Exchange in Leeds is on its way to becoming a food hall, Afflecks Palace in Manchester has been bought out and rebranded by its landlords but the Forum in Devonshire Street, the third of the nationally famous independent northern alternative shopperies, is doing ok, it seems.

"The independent shops here are a step ahead of the game," says Sally. "They're giving people something different to the High Street."

And the shopping public knows it.

And this week a Channel Four youth film crew was on hand to record the continued success of the Forum, which was one of the catalysts for Sheffield's cosmopolitan Devonshire Quarter.

Yet given the continued dominance of the High Street chain store and the supposed retail downturn, how are the Forum retailers still attracting shoppers and TV crews?

Claire Middleton

Claire has been running the Alice Takes a Trip shop for a year-and-a-half. She doesn't really approve of the word 'vintage'. The problem with 'vintage' was that the clothes didn't fit, she says bluntly.

"Everything was tiny in the 1960s. The waistlines were a lot thinner."

A sign of the times, perhaps.

Claire works from the sewing machine at the back of the shop and recycles old clothes and materials into new one-off gear for the discerning Sheffield shopper. "I'm getting old clothes and making them into new ones," Claire explains.

Her customers are the Forum staples of students and young people but she says she's also getting an increasing number of slightly older professional types from the city's upmarket apartments.

"Shops like Primark are all right for the basics but I wouldn't want to be seen in the same dress as everyone else.

"People who come here want to be different."

Stuart McAdie

Stuart has been involved in the Forum since the early 1990s.

"There has definitely been a drop in footfall recently and people aren't spending as often," he says. Stuart owns the Fuse and Fusion stores in and just outside the Forum. "But people are buying things that they really want."

Crocs, for example. Stuart has a wall and website full of the plastic clogs and he's gearing up for the winter range – watch out for the boots and furry versions, he says.

A web presence is becoming very important for independent retailers, says Stuart.

Forum retailers don't have the vast Manchester conurbation around them like Affleck's Palace – although they are quite good at getting known in Sheffield, Rotherham and Ches Vegas (as some shopkeepers know the areas of North Derbyshire prepared to make visible use of their disposable income).

The Forum has changed in Stuart's time from a shopping destination in a rundown corner of central Sheffield to one of many retail quarters on the western fringes of the city. And now the Forum is as much about eating and drinking as shopping.

Stuart is hopeful that the £600m New Retail Quarter will also help the Forum – as long as we're connected, he says.

"We've got a good mix of shops now and we're being well promoted. And people know that independent retailers are different to the High Street. That's the key thing."

Richard Ledger

Richard's tee-shirt shop, Toast, has been open for about three months.

"I saw a gap in the market for a shop supporting local designers and artists. There are enough people in Sheffield willing to spend an extra £4 or £5 to buy something they believe in and know other people won't be wearing it."

Richard stocks tee-shirts by several local people who make shirt designs almost as a hobby, along with designs from the USA, Manchester and elsewhere.

There are also boiled sweets and packets of tea available and Richard says "no worries" quite a lot. He is 23 and keen and is currently breaking even while he awaits the deluge in September and October. "I'm confident, certainly when 55,000 students return."

For him the lower overheads in a centre like the Forum make it possible for him to do business in a good location. And he likes the fact that the Forum has a variety of shops, from the "staples, who've been there for donkeys" – ie, ten to 15 years – "to the triers like me trying to give it a go".

Again he believes that shoppers are fully aware of the distinction between a shop like Toast and the High Street. "The High Street sell the brand but I sell the design."

That said, he's not expecting to earn a fortune.

"I just want to live my life and have a cool little shop, really."




MORE:
Local News
Local Sport
Arts Guide