Fashion in Birmingham

I went home for a night this weekend to see my family before I go to New York and I wanted to complete my comparisons of what shopping is like in Nottingham and Birmingham and see how they are different.

Today I headed into Birmingham to try and get around all the shopping areas we have in the city centre. I established that there are not exactly more than Nottingham it's just on a waaay bigger scale.

I didn't manage to get to all of them today because of the actual mass of the city but I did the main ones and the nicest out of all of them because some areas aren't the nicest/ safest by yourself. Birmingham has Grand Central, Link Street, Bullring, High Streets surrounding the Bullring inc New St, Dale End, The Birmingham indoor markets, The Mailbox and Digbeth.

Grand Central

Grand Central is the shopping and food floor above the train station. It has a 6 floor John Lewis on one end of it also. It was only built a few years ago and is home to high end skin care stores and nice clothes shops that my Mom likes going in like Cath Kidston and The White Company. I mainly use Grand Central for its amazing food choices; Slim Chickens, Nandos, yo Sushi. I think the only store I use in there is Tiger for miscellaneous shit I can't find in Poundland.

The John Lewis cafe is quite high up and gives you such a beautiful view of Birmingham overlooking the South of the city. It's over really late too so working there in the dark is even better because you can see the hustle and bustle all lit up!

To a non- Brummie I'd recommend Grand Central for gift shopping for your Mom if you have a semi- reasonable budget. Grab her a Jo Malone candle or a lovely dainty mug from Cath Kidston and you'll be in the good books for a while!

Link Street

Link Street connects Grand Central to the bullring, it has the big TK Maxx connected to it too. Link Street is a small strip of mainly independent stores that shoppers use to get from Grand Central to the Bullring or vice versa quickly and easily.

A lot of the shops change around a lot to give other small independent businesses the chance to have their product seen by thousands of people per day.

I think this is such a good idea whoever thought about making this small section of our city more of a space for small businesses instead of like the rest of the main city centre being home to hundreds of shops that everyone knows about and that can get customers easily anyway.

Bullring

The Bullring is home to hundreds of shops and is the biggest shopping area that we have in Birmingham. It has quite a few flagship stores inside it and 2 department stores on either end. It has been modernised and expanded over the years and shops have came and gone but it's always been so buzzing.

I can't say I like many of the shops in there but that's just my style. It does have a shop for everything you need though. A massive TopShop, Zara, H&M and Victorias Secret.

Selfridges

This is the best part of Birmingham's retail spaces in my opinion. If you've got an endless budget you could do absolutely crazy in there and come out with some peng pieces but even if you aren't minted you can look at all the pretty window displays and the groovy layouts in the store that they have. Selfridges also have art spaces curated using the more couture pieces that they sell in the store such as Off White.

On the top floor is the most expensive floor which has been done out in the past year. Brands like Tiffany, Louis vuitton, Gucci and Christian Louboutin have their own little stores in the store. Meaning their own little small space where they can decorate it uniquely, sell only their products and do their own visual merchandising. I believe they can also use their own branded shopping bags when you buy from those brands too.

Customers then feel like it is more of a unique and special experience when they spend that extra cash buying from that store. As we know, it's commonly said and proved that shopping has become a massive 'experience' based activity too even though you're spending your own money, and a lot of it!

Surrounding High Streets

So around the Bullring there are streets leading off from it that have hundreds of more shops on like the worlds biggest Primark (lol cringe), a huge H&M, more department stores and whatever else you can think of selling what you need.

It is very cringe to say the worlds biggest Primark but I have to admit it is amazing. It's spacious so you don't end up knocking into people all the time like in the old one. The layout is perfect, there's so many escalators to get to the 4 different floors. There are a few different cafes in there for bored husbands to sit and have a drink in whilst their wives shop. The layout of the actual shop is really good too, everything is spaced out nicely, tidy, kept together correspondingly in terms of department and the clothes they stock are actually quite decent in my opinion and in terms of price point you can't go wrong.

The Mailbox

The Mailbox, again, like Selfridges and the top floor of the Bullring is where you can shop in Birmingham if your budget is a bit higher. Harvey Nicholls is inside of the Mailbox, I think they do visual merchandising so well and get so much stock into quite a small space. I wish they ha a better women's section but they beauty and accessories section does make up for that. I included some pictures of their displays, the lighting is so bright and uplifting and you can really see all the stock so well and it just looks so expensive and desirable.

I really love how Birmingham is improving it's retail spaces because it brings more people from other cities, into our city and then they eat here, stay in hotels here, go to bars here and experience the wonderful culture that we have here. Can you tell I love my city? Lol