BLEAK, dystopian, barely a sign of life, except somehow, in the middle of the emptiness, these shops remain. What are these sinister retail relics?
Holland & Barrett
You might think a deprived high street in an area with high unemployment and child poverty wouldn’t want a shop that charges £15 for a bag of almond flour. You would be wrong. For reasons surely related to an international conspiracy, this scam-factory is here selling all the health supplements you never knew you didn’t want.
An off-brand pound shop
The almighty itself – Poundland – died years ago. But this knockoff currency-based retailer remains, destined to mop up the prime market for criminally pungent shower gels and multipacks of toffee crisps. Its logo is so ugly it doesn’t bear looking at. Nothing within costs a pound.
Claire’s
Are you a tween girl? If not, it’s hard to fathom the vast consumer potential of hair slides and phone cases, the accessories that have kept this millennial nostalgia factory afloat while it begs to die. On the upside, the stabbings that take place here are legal, if not morally advisable for young earlobes or sanctioned by parents.
Generic women’s clothing shop
In every shopping centre’s dying stages these shady unbranded stores begin to proliferate like cockroaches post-apocalypse. Their names, placements, and signage change with the seasons, but the fashions inside remain trapped in whatever era they were inadvisably produced and immediately warehoused.
Card Factory
Greetings cards have never been easier to buy, send, or do away with altogether. But perhaps you don’t want one that’s funny, interesting, or remotely aesthetically pleasing. Fear not, for within these drab shelving units you can find the perfect card for the person you’re indifferent to, emblazoned with humour at least two decades out of date.
A perfume shop
Where the minimum wage is the median wage you’d expect scent to be the first luxury good to go, but this shop endures. A whole store dedicated to celebrity perfume should feel deliciously decadent. On closer inspection? The celebrities in question are Lauren Goodman, Helen Flanagan and Tyson Fury. Ah.
