00:00And to put it simply, you can't do weird and wonderful in Manchester without talking about the building behind me, and that is Affleck's Palace.
00:06And it says quite a lot about the importance of Affleck's to the Manchester folk, that the Manchester shop is located here on the bottom floor.
00:13In there you'll find stuff like you can see behind me with lyrics of famous songs from famous bands from Manchester.
00:18And again, it just goes to hammer home how important Affleck's is to the people here and to the culture.
00:23As well as having a shop that is an ode to Manchester, Affleck's is home to a great many weird and wonderful shops.
00:28Places like Hempology, which sell t-shirts made of hemp, and Occult, where Lu Moon works.
00:34I remember coming here when I first moved to Manchester in 2011 and just being blown away by all of the choices of all the independent shops in here.
00:43It's like a real hub of acceptance and a place that you can feel very safe. We get a lot of tourists as well.
00:51They just love it here because it's a bit novel, but it's also a real kind of welcoming, familiar feeling as well being here.
00:58Affleck's Palace has been around now for 40 years, and one of the oldest shops in here is Milner & Tons, which has been around since the 80s.
01:04And Sam, who works there, is keen to emphasise just how important Affleck's is.
01:08I wandered into Affleck's one day when I came to visit the city. I thought it was the most creative place in the world.
01:14It was so weird. There was so much going on. Everybody here was categorically cooler than I thought I was at the time, and I was like, yeah, I want in.
01:22This is the scene. This is the culture. This is Manchester, like, condensed in a little ball.
01:29I feel like, you know, if you're a young kid coming and you're trying to figure out your style or what you want to be when you grow up,
01:34this is like the first place to kind of get that, like, tester of just different things that you have an actual interest in.
01:41Just around the corner is Harry, who visited once and now works here.
02:04For Alistair, who runs Vinyl Resting Place, community is key to Affleck's.
02:08I first started coming to Manchester on, like, weekends, you know, from school.
02:11But this was exciting because there was, like, loads of different shops.
02:14You had the chance of maybe seeing someone like Ian Brown or, like, a local celebrity just shopping here as well.
02:19Everything it stands for with the independence and letting people just blossom and do their own things is a great thing,
02:25and there's not many places... It all seems to be revolving about money, but with this place, it's got, like, a heart to it.
02:32So, a photo booth on the second floor is a perfect summation of what Affleck's is, really.
02:37Random, brilliant, exciting things, perfectly curated to the people of Manchester and the people who want to spend time here.
02:43You know, everyone in there works together. Everyone's running a passion project, and they all want each other to succeed.
02:49And that's why, if you visit in Manchester, you'll have to come.
02:52And if you visit once, you'll end up visiting again and again and again, because it's just that kind of place.
02:57So, for Manchester World, I'm Theo Huston-Betts.
