Manchester Madness

Manchester is finally living up to its status as the UK´s second capital. Home of the newly crowned champions of English football, Manchester United, the richest football club in the world, and of Posh and Becks, arguably the UK´s shopping champions, the city has changed since the IRA bomb blast in June 1996.

The arrival of Selfridges´ second Manchester store last year, located in the all-new gleaming Exchange Square, provided enough of a pull for the likes of Zara, Austin Reed, French Connection, Reiss, Hobbs and Rockport to all seek sites in proximity. And then, of course, there's the 60,000sq ft Harvey Nichols store designed by Four IV set to open this autumn.

Anne Pitcher, buying director for menswear, womenswear and accessories at Harvey Nichols, says Manchester has become a huge center of fashion, culture and art: "If you look at the demographics it shows that there's a young and wealthy customer there. Both ourselves and Selfridges can introduce a further level of fashion - from luxury through to young new collections - and maintain a really quite different retail offer. There may be one or two major clashes, but it's all good fun and we're very happy with the offer we'll be opening with."

Gone are the days when people from Manchester would go to London to shop. It's a whole cultural move away from what it was and in many ways it is pushing culture and architecture to the boundaries more than London, according to Roger Wade, creative director of Boxfresh."Oldham Street in the Northern Quarter, for instance, is like the Newburgh Street of Manchester." Whereas the North/South divide in London is sometimes regarded as an extension of who you are, Manchester´s divide seems to be closing up, with the city becoming the rising star. With the average price of a two-bedroom flat in Manchester costing GBP 132,070, Londoners may be seduced by an alternative urban lifestyle and head North leaving the stresses of the capital behind.