Beloved vintage clothing shop closes down after one year as owners say ‘it’s been amazing’
A BELOVED clothing store is closing its doors after a year of operations.
Vintage shop Glass Onion inside Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping centre pulled the plug following a poignant social media post.
Glass Onion started in 2005 with its founder, John Hickling, selling from his Grandma’s coal shed in Barnsley.
It also has stores in Leeds and Nottingham and says it processes up to 20,000kg of second hand clothing a week which would otherwise end up in landfill.
On Facebook, they stated: “Our Meadowhall Pop Up shop is coming to an end tomorrow (Wednesday 30th April).
“We want to say a massive thank you to everyone who’s supported us there over the past year.
“It’s been amazing and we’ve loved being Meadowhall’s go-to for sustainable, second-hand fashion.
“Absolutely everything must go so it’s £10 each or 3 for £25 on all stock- no exclusions, just unbelievable bargains. Come raid the rails at Meadowhall one last time!
“And don’t worry – you can still find us in Sheffield at our Division Street store, long after the Meadowhall Pop Up is gone.”
The closure of Glass Onion adds to a growing list of well-known UK stores disappearing from the high street in recent months.
Stationery chain WHSmith has shut almost 500 stores after being taken over by the owner of Hobbycraft, with its remaining focus now on travel locations like airports and stations.
Branches in Halstead and Woolwich closed earlier this month, and three more will go in May — which started with Oldham on May 3.
Toy giant The Entertainer is also cutting back. Its Barrow-in-Furness store, which opened in 2017, will shut on the same day.
Morrisons has announced the closure of 17 of its Daily convenience stores, along with several of its cafés, flower stands, and counters.
The Haxby store will be the last to go on May 14, with hundreds of jobs at risk.
Meanwhile, Poundland is facing financial strain, and the store inside Liverpool’s Belle Vale Shopping Centre will close on May 6 after being served notice on its lease.
Shoe Zone has also confirmed more closures due to “challenging trading conditions,” with its Bexhill branch on Devonshire Road closing on May 13.
Even big names like Next are scaling back — the Darlington Retail Park outlet store will shut its doors for good on May 24, though the main high street branch will remain open.
With high street closures mounting across the country, Vintage Outfitters is the latest independent favourite to say goodbye — but it’s giving fans one final chance to bag a bargain before the lights go out for good.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”