Dundee ‘institution’ Manifesto is in danger of extinction unless a new initiative leads to an upturn in business for the clothes shop, its owner has warned.
Businessman Forrey Rosscraig, who owns the independent designer store, says the combined effects of Covid, Brexit, the rise in online shopping, competition from retailing giants and the energy and cost of living crises, mean the shop faces a bleak future.
But rather than let the business quietly fade away, Forrey has decided to take the bull by the horns and fight for his 36-year-old company.
He is now launching a £50,000 fundraiser which, he hopes, will save the business and maintain Manifesto’s presence in its prominent Commercial Street location in Dundee.
“It’s been a really hard struggle over the past few years with everything that’s happened,” Forrey told The Courier.
Independent shops are struggling
“To add to that, with Zara closing just down the road, the footfall in Commercial Street has just died.
“It used to be that our male customers would come in and spend time trying on clothes while their wives and girlfriends were shopping in Zara. It’s just really dead around this area now and to be honest if this doesn’t work we won’t be around much longer.
“We had to close our shop in Perth a few weeks ago and there’s just the two left now, the other one is in Kirkcaldy.
“It’s getting really difficult for independent shops now. I still think we carry a wee bit of goodwill in the town but it’s really dead, the pubs are quiet, there’s just not enough people going out.
“The banks aren’t helping either, the interest rates are going up as well as our energy bills and we’re now having to pay for a lot of our stock up front, which means because we can’t afford to do that the bigger companies just swallow everything up.
“Two of the biggest companies, JD Sports and Sports Direct are having a fashion war just now and the fallout from that hits the independent stores.
“I’m from Dundee and I know the Dundee people and what they want, but our customers are getting older and the younger people don’t really come into the town shopping any more. People don’t have the cash to spend and online shopping is so much easier.
“Brexit has made it much more difficult to get clothes in from our suppliers in France and Italy, and we can’t get enough stock quickly due to border controls with Europe.
“We don’t have the buying power of the big national companies so it’s just really difficult.”
Forrey founded Manifesto in 1986 when he opened the first shop in Whitehall Crescent, before moving to Commercial Street a few years later.
“We’ve had a loyal customer base for a lot of years, some of our customers say they met their wives because they were impressed with their clothes and the way they dressed,” he says.
Now the 64-year-old has decided to have one last throw of the dice and has launched a crowd-funding appeal, offering a range of rewards that won’t be available anywhere else, in the hope of raising sufficient funds to continue trading for a few years yet.
“I’m determined to keep the shops going for a few years yet, we celebrated our 30th anniversary in 2016 and I want to see our 40th anniversary at least,” he said.
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