The Bloomfields Centre is a small, exclusive little "shopping space". Sandwiches in the local Bewleys come with a garnish and cost about a fiver, which makes the T-shirts for £10 in Vero Moda look wonderfully inexpensive. This is a pleasant store, uncluttered without being intimidating, with sand-coloured, painted walls, wooden floors and plenty of space for browsing. Lighting is by way of lots of spotlights, and music is of the club-spawned variety.
The stock is well displayed. Although the racks are a little high for rifling through, tags in most cases were legible enough to compensate: the fact that the clothes were not crammed together on the racks helped this browser. Some items, such as Tshirts, are folded on shelves - this method of display can be irritating if the piles of clothes are high, but here there seemed to be a limit of three or four - very customer friendly. I spent a while looking through the stock undisturbed. Like everywhere else, Vero Moda is in mid-sale - although there seemed to be plenty of reduced stock left on the racks. The material on sale was on one side of the room, the regular stock on the other.
Sadly, however nice the store, I thought the clothes unexciting, and it was quite hard to find anything I wanted to try on. Eventually I took a couple of items and headed for the changing cubicles. There are six of these, solidly built, clean, with small stools inside for handbags, children etc, and four hooks, two on each wall. The curtains are pieces of canvas which hook across - how very practical! I couldn't fault them.
As I disappeared inside, a young assistant caught my eye and smiled. Sure enough, when I emerged she was arranging clothes on a nearby rack and came over with an offer of help, so I asked if a pair of trousers came in a smaller size. She headed over to the rack from which they had come and, finding nothing, suggested another colour, then another style, holding up a pair for my approval. I thought not. Would they have the original pair in any other store, I wondered? She didn't think so, as the chain's sale had been on for a while, but helpfully went to look in the stockroom for a T-shirt I wanted. Not all the stock was available in every size, which was irritating - as was the over-loud music. There were very few customers in the store when I called, and obviously this makes a visit less stressful and the assistants less busy, but I was quite impressed.
Vero Moda will exchange and refund, and will hold items for a short time. They may also take deposits "on some stock". Marks out of 10: 8.
