A fashion retailer with a national presence is to open a new shop on a UK high street, bucking the trend of closures hitting the the country’s town centres.. Founded in 1993, Weird Fish will open its latest venue next month in Stamford, Lincolnshire.
The 32-year-old British lifestyle clothing brand said the new store will be located at 44 High Street, in the premises once occupied by Wilko, which shut its doors in 2023. The new store launch is scheduled for Saturday, November 1, with the first 50 customers who make a purchase receiving free goody-bags valued at £50 each. The chain already has an outlet in nearby Spalding, making Stamford its second location in Lincolnshire.
Weird Fish was founded in Cornwall and has grown over three decades to become a recognised UK lifestyle brand. According to its website, the brand’s original mission was to “produce well-priced, well-made and distinctive clothes that become instant feel-good favourites”.
Despite the surge in high-street store closures across Britain, with around 13,500 shuttered in 2024 alone as shoppers move online and costs soared under inflation and business-rate hikes, Weird Fish is expanding its retail estate. The Stamford opening forms part of its strategy to strengthen its physical presence even as many chains make cutbacks or vanish altogether.
The letting agent for the Stamford site, Eddisons, confirmed that the former Wilko unit was divided into two retail units, one taken by apparel brand Weird Fish, the other by specialist kitchen retailer Magnet.
Eddisons described Stamford as having “emerged as a retail hot-spot in recent years” and said the two new tenants would “add to the town’s premium retail profile”.