“Quiet luxury is not a thing for a girl on a night out up north,” says Karen Elson, the Oldham super whose Pre-Raphaelite beauty took her from the outskirts of Manchester to Milan as a teen. “You go to Flannels, you get your designer dress, you get your bling… It’s putting your best foot forward. I love it!”

Elson’s own shopping mecca back in the day was Afflecks Palace, the indie emporium in the Northern Quarter. “I wouldn’t say I was a cool kid back then, but that was where the cool kids went, so it was where I wanted to be.” She has fond memories of catching the No 412 bus into the city with her twin sister, Kate, to hit up Topshop and HMV in the Arndale Centre. “It was every teenage girl’s dream to work at that Topshop in the ’90s,” she sighs. “I do miss it.”

“I love northern style,”

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