Chichester: enjoying all the pleasures of shopping

Emma Schwarz believes shopping is an art, a skill and a pleasure. She will help you discover all three when the Rare Brand Christmas Market celebrates its sixth year at Goodwood Racecourse.
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Emma

Starting at 9am each day and with entrance £7.50 on the door, the market runs from November 19-21, offering you the chance to individualise your shopping experience.

“We have got more than 120 brands, amazing emerging brands in the UK at the moment, people who mainly trade either as one small independent shop or online or through events like ours. They are all young businesses, usually within one to three years of establishment,” Emma said.

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“What we hope is that it brings something new to the consumer that they just can’t currently get on the high street. We have been careful to choose brands that have got interesting back stories about how they started, how they procured or created what they do, what makes them unique, different, rare. Seven times out of ten, I’d say, the founders themselves are manning the stall so you will get the chance to meet them and can actually talk to them about the processes and the products. Our latest tagline is about trying to make shopping more pleasurable.”

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Emma

Emma says she’s not a pioneer when it comes to this kind of event; it’s more the case she’s recognised that outside London, it is harder to find the smaller, independent businesses, which is why she is keen to bring together so many in one place. Lewes generally does well in attracting the small, independent brands; Chichester less well - something the event aims to correct.

For Emma, it’s about individualising your choice of gift for your friends and loved-ones: “When you are giving a present to someone, it is really important you think about it. When you are buying a unique present, you are tailoring it to that person, to their interests, to what you know they like. It is so easy to buy a gift voucher or a bit of music or a book, though a book is always a nice present. But it is so much better to get something that is different and distinctive. This year we have got something like eight art brands, a mixture of artists and digital prints, and certainly things like that offer the chance to offer something really individual. You can commission things. You can personalise things. It’s about thinking about their life, what they do, what they like.”

Around 40 per cent of the businesses are based within an hour of Chichester; the remainder are probably all within three hours of Chichester.

More details on therarebrandmarket.co.uk/2015-event.

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