EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK: Oi Polloi's New London Store And A Candid Conversation With Its Founder

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Complex Original

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"If something's not totally Oi Polloi, I won't fucking have it."

It's an idea that runs through the veins of the store, who are opening up their first in London.

"I only buy from places that fit what we're about. The personality of the shop is front and center," says Steve Sanderson, one half of the cult shop's founders. "We're not gonna sell stuff that ain't what we're about. Ninety-eight percent of the stuff I wear is from us because I fucking like it and that's how it should be."

It's refreshing to hear someone in fashion talk in such frank terms and Oi Polloi—you know, that tiny Manchester store that Four Pins once called the eighteenth best on the entire Internet—is a total reflection of that attitude. You'd be hard-pressed to call it an ethos when it feels way more natural than that. It's just a different way of thinking. If Mr. Porter is the headmaster, Oi Polloi is that teach who low-key sold weed to kids at prom. He was like you once. He's just helping out.

"I think we put a lot more humor in what we do because the nature of men being into clothes is just a bit…well, it's weird, innit? We're just some guys who get really into it and obsess about the details and obsess about the labels and what it is and where it's from," says Sanderson.

As much as any label, Oi Polloi has helped shape the look for a generation of lads for whom looking ace and "not getting your head kicked in" comes hand-in-hand. It's about wearing luxe gear that costs the same as your rent with a pair of old Gazelles in an area quick to call out frauds.

"In Manchester, clothes are a bit dumbed down and a bit quiet," says Sanders in the basement of his new shop, hidden just off London's iconic Carnaby Street. "It's all slightly scruffed up." This look has been key to Oi Polloi's enduring charm, acting for plenty, me included, as an entry point into something which felt impenetrable.

It's a look, though, that has been fiercely guarded by many in England's notoriously clannish northwest for decades, and it's this same lot that'll likely consider the shop's opening in London as the ultimate betrayal.

It's a risk, but when I asked Sanderson if he was worried about being labelled a snitch, he said it was just a natural progression. "We're not coming down here to do a Manchester store in London," says Sanderson. "We're coming down here to do a fucking London store in London. It just feels like an extension of what we do and I think what we do here should fit."

The Internet's kinda wiped the floor with the militant regionalism of old, anyway—there's no longer much of a north/south divide in England when it comes to style. People used to gripe about how "them lot in London dress," but now that Manchester's style has spread so wide, it pretty much just boils down to those that dress well and those that don't.

"We're doing a store that will fit the area. It's for people like us in London. We'll be getting involved in what happens around here and it'll be London-centric. London is going to drive what this store is about. I'm hoping down here influences the stuff in Manchester as much as Manchester influences the stuff down here, so we get that balance," says Sanderson.

It's a tightrope act that anyone would fucking hate. While the us versus them stuff no longer has basis in much reality, it's still important that the store gets it spot-on or they risk alienating its fervent fan base. In this, their thirteenth year, it'll be their personality and authenticity that'll see them through.

"You'd think there'd be loads of menswear places, but there's just nothing like us in London," says Sanderson, scratching his short beard. "There's Garbstore and Present but nothing else in London that has any through line. It's just stuff in a room. It's rubbish.”

I'm inclined to think he's right. There are precious few shops in the UK which boast a personality you can really identify with. There's no one out there claiming End Clothing really speaks to them as a man.

"When you're a multi-label store, it's all about how you put your stuff together. You're judged as much by what you don't sell as what you do sell. Jordans? We don’t sell 'em cause we're not into fucking basketball," laughs Sanderson. "It's just not our thing so we don't do 'em."

Much like the rise of niche magazines, people want niche stores that cater to them. People want collections of clothes that sum up their lifestyle in the way style tribes of old were treated to.

"As a business, you might think that's a shit decision, but in a weird way our integrity and what we're about is a lot more important than selling a few hundred pairs of a particular shoe."

Sat in the basement of their at that point unfinished store, boxes and dust everywhere, beaming grin on his face, Sanderson lets off a hearty laugh as we finish up. He's about to open up a new shop in one of the most economically batshit areas of Europe and he retains the spirit that has seen them go this far.

"People expect a lot these days. People have standards and what the big boys do, they expect the little boys to do the same, but it's not that fucking simple," adds Sanderson as we stand. "We try to make it look easy, though. But then we're the victim of that. It's not fucking easy."

Sam is a writer from London and can confirm they don't let you bring Rubicon into Dover Street Market. Follow him on Twitter here.

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