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A shop. An unhealthy interest in clothes. Manchester.
Oi Polloi began on Tib Street in 2002, when Nigel Lawson and Steve Sanderson opened a small shop with a fairly straightforward idea: fill it with things they liked, and find other people who liked them too.
There wasn’t a vast budget. Steve cut hair in the basement to help pay the bills. Buying trips involved getting in a hire car and going looking. Vintage sportswear, Swedish outdoor clothing, unusual footwear — things worth bringing home and showing people. Fjällräven was an early discovery. Belstaff helped things along. The selection grew from there.
Manchester supplied the education. Music, football, going out, getting dressed. Paying attention to what somebody had on and wondering where they’d found it. That curiosity travelled well: across Europe, over to Japan, wherever something interesting was being made. A familiar classic could sit beside a label you’d never heard of. It all made sense once you put it on.
By 2010, the rails needed more room. Oi Polloi moved around the corner to Thomas Street, with a proper shoe wall and considerably more space for looking at things you hadn’t realised you needed. A London shop followed in 2015. Meanwhile, the website took a little piece of Manchester to customers much further afield.
There was plenty to read while you were there. Pica~Post, the Deck~Outs, product descriptions that occasionally took the scenic route. Clothes were the starting point for an entire world of references, characters and questionable adventures. Getting dressed was supposed to be enjoyable. So was buying a pair of trousers.
Then there were the collaborations. Henri-Lloyd sailing jackets, Clarks Wallabees in “unicorn leather”, the green adidas Ardwick. Opportunities to get involved with things we already loved and give them an Oi Polloi turn. Some caused rather more excitement than you might reasonably expect from a shop.
We all have our ups and downs. That's life isn't it? The shop and website closed in 2023, following the subsequent sale to JD Group. After two decades, there was a sizeable gap where Oi Polloi had been.
But Nigel still had the appetite. Own-label pieces and Saturdays at Manchester’s Campfield Market got things moving again: a rail of clothes, conversations with customers, the pleasure of putting an outfit together. With Steve pursuing his own project, Karevan, Nigel began building Oi Polloi’s next chapter with a new team.
Which brings us here. Oi Polloi is back, with Nigel choosing the gear and plenty left to discover. Familiar favourites, new finds and things of our own.
Have a look around. You might find something you didn’t know you were looking for.
“It turns out I’m still far too interested in clothes to leave it alone. There are things I want to make, things I want to find, and people I want to show them to. So here we are again.”