Mary Queen of Shops - H.T.Burt Manchester

The incredible Mary Portas continues her quest to save ailing the ailing independent shop clothing retail sector. This week she visited H.T.Burt, a long established Manchester men's outfitters that has seen better days. The first reaction I got when looking at the footage of her first visit was that a conservation order should be slapped on the place. It took my right back to my childhood in the seventies when most shops looked like it. Some of the stock may have been there since then as well. On top of the generally dated look of the clothes, there was also a strange attraction to the colour brown. They also stocked neither jeans nor t-shirts. Mary P was incredulous both at what was on sale - which presumably was likely to sit on the shelves until someone wanted to do an authentic remake of Crossroads - and at the apparent complete lack of knowledge of the men's clothing market of the proprietor and his staff. Only Gordon, the oldest member of the team seemed to have any idea at all. With the energy of superhero Portas dragged them around the local shopping centre and showed them how people who successfully sold clothes did it. The almost unsellable stock was sold off cheaply to the local bowls club (I don't suppose that they were pleased with how they came out on telly!) and replaced with a set of top name brands. Advice from GQ editor Dylan Jones was followed to create an easy to understand and classic complete set of outfits for the average frankly clueless man. The revamped shop looked great, and even better looked like the sort of place that the average frankly clueless man like myself could visit and hope to come out with some decent togs. Take home message - a successful shop should look good, understand its customers' needs and give them a solution to their shopping needs.