Freshmans vintage store Sheffield: Inside the shop loved by Alex Turner, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Jarvis Cocker
A Sheffield vintage store which has helped shape the look of some of music’s biggest fashion icons has revealed the secrets behind its success.
Freshmans, located on Carver Street in the city centre, is part of a thriving vintage scene in Sheffield.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor recently popped in ahead of her City Hall show, Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner is a fan and even applied for a job there, and Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker used to trawl the racks for the velvet jackets which completed his unique style.
It’s not just about the celebrity customers, though, as owner Louisa Froggatt explains, but the whole community which she lovingly refers to as her ‘Fresh family’.
Speaking within this fashion treasure trove, sandwiched between the bars and nightclubs of West Street, and Division Street’s independent shops, she describes how the store would be nothing without its legions of loyal supporters.
‘In the vintage world there are no wrongs or rights’
“When we reopened after the last lockdown, we had people queuing down the street for weeks and weeks, and we had customers crying because they were so glad to be back in the store,” she says.
“This shop’s a bit of an icon. People compare it to Henderson’s Relish or Sheffield Steel.
“It’s not a perfect shop but people like that about it. It’s very eclectic because of the cross-section of customers you get. Everybody has their own style, and in the vintage world there are no wrongs or rights.”
A riot of colour, echoing with the ghosts of eras past, from the mods and rockers of the 60s to the Friends-inspired threads of the 90s, and rocking to the beat of an impossibly hip soundtrack, Freshmans exudes cool without feeling pretentious.
The shop started life in The Forum on Devonshire Street some 26 years ago and Louisa has been involved from the beginning, starting work there as a teenager before realising her dream when she bought the business from Paul Lincoln four years back.
Focus on sustainability buoying Sheffield’s vintage shops
It was the first vintage store in the city centre, she says, but is now part of a much bigger scene which includes Vulgar, Thrifty Store, Glass Onion and Jojo’s General Store, among others – though one of the mainstays, Cow, on West Street, sadly closed last year.
Vintage is riding a wave at the moment, buoyed by the growing focus on sustainability which Louisa believes the pandemic sharpened as people saw the planet ‘healing itself while we were all stuck indoors during the lockdowns’.
Asked what makes something ‘vintage’, rather than simply second-hand or used, she says it’s about the age.
“Anything from about the early 2000s or before is classed as vintage now. I’m definitely vintage,” she jokes.
Part of the appeal of vintage clothes, for Louisa at least, is how they’ve been loved before and have their own stories to tell – you’re not just buying some fabric, you’re buying a piece of history.
What are the vintage trends today?
They were also built to last, she explains, unlike much of the fast fashion filling the hangers of high street chains today.
To illustrate the point, she brings out the oldest items in the shop, a pair of French smocks dating back to the late 19th century, whose frayed seams and plentiful patches are part of their charm.
Caressing the material, she says: “These depict what I think vintage means. They’re imperfect but they have this energy which makes them perfect. They show the scars of all the years they’ve been around, and you get a feeling about the people who have worn them.”
Freshmans’ prices range from about £10 for Hawaiian shirts and T-shirts to as much as £2,000 for the most sought-after jackets, which have been sold to customers around the world, including in Japan, Mexico and Italy.
The biggest trends right now include oversized sweats, macs and jeans which were originally popular in the 90s and early noughties, along with varsity jackets, and flares from the 70s, though Louisa says ‘we tend not to be trend-led’.
How Freshmans played a role in the Arctic Monkeys’ rise to fame
Freshmans boasts a slew of celebrity fans.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor popped in last year and bought two dresses, later giving the store a shout-out on Instagram when she wore them on stage, and she returned earlier this month while in town for her Kitchen Disco Tour.
Alex Turner applied to work there before the Arctic Monkeys achieved global fame. Louisa still has his CV and tells how the band’s former manager Geoff Barradale used to work at Freshmans and clothes from the store were loaned to the group when they started gigging.
Jarvis was a regular there, as were other members of Sheffield pop royalty, including ABC’s Martin Fry and The Human League. It continues to kit out many of the up-and-coming bands who are part of what Louisa describes as the city’s ‘amazing gig scene’, and last year ran its own ‘Freshtival’ to coincide with Tramlines.
Layton Williams, best known for appearing in BBC sitcom Bad Education and playing the title role in the stage production of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, has been a frequent visitor, even performing a meet-and-greet at the store.
‘Sheffield needs to support its independent stores’
Freshmans also works closely with the Crucible and the Lyceum, providing costumes for both theatres, and is a popular haunt for drag queens.
Sheffield city centre is in a state of flux at the moment, with cranes dominating the skyline as numerous big developments take shape, while many existing premises sadly stand empty.
Freshmans is not immune to the challenges facing high streets, with Louisa no longer opening on Sundays since John Lewis closed, because of the resulting decline in footfall.
She hopes Sheffield Council and the developers it works with will support independent traders and not just the big names they are desperate to attract to the city centre.
“There’s so much talent here, with lots of people making and designing clothes, and it would be nice to see some pop-ups being introduced to help create a bit of a buzz,” she says.