MANCHESTER


Q&A with Stanley Chow, artist and illustrator


cover, footballer Eric Cantona and Warburtons Toastie bread. Even the street signs are unique: blue and


white and in a stylised typeface. The font is called Cypher, and was designed especially for the Northern Quarter by local artist Tim Rushton. One such sign announces Tib Street, where, on cast iron tablets beneath my feet, set into the pavement, the same font spells out a poem by Lemn Sissay entitled ‘Flags’. “Pavement cracks are the places where poets pack warrior words,” reads one line. Up above, terracotta parrots roost on the second- storey window sills of the redbrick Victorian buildings — a nod to the street’s former life as a hub for pet shops. As I wander, I see evidence everywhere


for Nicole’s claim that Mancunians have a distinctive sense of style, too — there are as many mod haircuts, paisley scarves and neon bucket hats to be seen today as in the city’s ‘Madchester’ heyday of the 1980s and 1990s. But more than anything, it’s about the attitude; anything looks great when worn with cast-iron confi dence. Consider Liam Gallagher, who has attained fashion-icon status by dressing like a Norwegian trawler fi sherman for the last 30 years. The prevalence of Gallagher’s beloved parka in Mancunian fashion has a practical element, of course — Manchester is famously rainy — but it has been elevated to a fashion form by brands like Private White VC, which still uses traditional manufacturing techniques and local materials in its original 19th-century factory on the banks of the River Irwell. Visits to the factory to meet the highly trained makers can be arranged on request. Mancunian craftspeople are also making


their mark on the city’s blooming culinary scene. My walking tour has made me hungry, so I head south of the Northern Quarter to bistro


Higher Ground for a bite to eat. The interior is typical Manchester — modern and stylish but with nods to the industrial past including polished concrete fl oors and bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. I order a burnt honey tart — the honey courtesy of beekeepers in the Manchester suburb of Chorlton — and it arrives on a beautiful plate created by Frida Cooper, a ceramicist working in Pollard Yard, a hub of converted shipping containers in Ancoats. Even the table I’m sitting at was made by local artisans — Easy Peel, who carved it from a London plane tree salvaged from the entrance of a Stockport shopping centre. By the time I emerge from the restaurant,


the sun’s going down but Manchester’s art and design scene shows no sign of winding down with it. In the Northern Quarter, poetry and philosophy bookshop Anywhere Out of the World holds evening life drawing classes, while nearby bar Foundry Project hosts art evenings where you can learn to paint while enjoying a drink under the tutelage of a professional artist. Meanwhile, Islington Mill, a six-storey Georgian redbrick building close to the River Irwell in Salford, is a collection of makers’ studios by day and a venue for music, theatre and performance by night. This new role given to Manchester’s historic


mill buildings, relics of a time when this was the fi rst industrial city in the world, is a neat symbol of the city’s modern character. Neglected for decades, these former furnaces of industry now house artisan workshops and designers’ studios — erstwhile cathedrals of mass production repurposed as homes for the boutique and one-of-a-kind. George Orwell once described Manchester as “the belly and guts of the nation”. That visceral quality still abides, but modern Manchester demands a more delicate analogy: the painter’s eye, perhaps, the potter’s wheel, or the jeweller’s hands.


HOW DOES THE CITY INSPIRE YOU? I hung out with and made posters for local music artists like Badly Drawn Boy and Elbow, and their success played a big part in motivating me to forge my own path. I also love the Industrial Revolution-era architecture — factories with billowing smoke often feature in my illustrations.


WHY IS MANCHESTER SO GOOD FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE? Historically, Mancunian designers and artists would move to London, but this has changed. Manchester’s cheaper than London, and increasing numbers have realised that building a career here is a possibility. Creative people will always attract other creative people, and naturally create really cool communities.


WHERE SHOULD VISITORS GO FOR LOCAL ART AND DESIGN? I love the Whitworth Gallery [which exhibits local and international artists]. A great event worth checking out is Art Battle, a live painting tournament which has been going in Manchester for the past 10 years now.


Clockwise from top left: The breakfast room at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel; the Kitty Bridge in Ancoats; small plates of heritage tomatoes with burrata, sardines with chimichurri, and miso-roasted cauliflower at Jane Eyre; a sign on the corner of Afflecks


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