Shopping

It’s 2pm on a hot Tuesday afternoon and Loughton’s latest ‘it’ spot, the shiny NuBar, is buzzing with local glamazons sporting glossy manes, huge designer sunglasses and glow-in-the-dark teeth, while sipping pinot grigio (the bar’s bestselling tipple). It’s enough to crush the confidence of the average scruffy London lass and send her running to the beauty salon (handily, it’s not hard to find a good one in these parts – there are half a dozen nail bars on Loughton High Road alone).

If the former stereotype is to be believed, the Essex Girl has grown up, tidied her hair (albeit with the help of the Yuko straightening system), exchanged acrylic nails for a chic Leighton Denny French manicure and binned her white stilettos in favour of Chloé gladiator thong sandals. And Essex Man isn’t far behind.
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‘Appearance is a priority,’ says Greg Porter, sales assistant at nearby designer clothes emporium Zee & Co. ‘Men around here all like to wear labels and have a smart haircut. Essex is a bubble.’ A quick scan of the vicinity confirms his point; a group of teenage boys walk past wafting of Joop Pour Homme. The well-turned-out blokes around here seem to have more in common with image-conscious Italians – renowned for their carefully coiffured hair, good shoes and smart trousers – than the average Englishman. ‘And the men aren’t afraid to wear pink,’ he adds.

Bags of Prada at Zap

In villagey Buckhurst Hill, Zap, a reputable designer shop that’s been going strong for 20 years, sells Italian labels including Prada and Gucci to footballers, soap-stars and businessmen. Upstairs there’s an impressive selection of status-conscious designer wallets, handbags and shoes, and yes, some evidence of leopard-print – the classiest Dolce & Gabbana version, please note. Adam Forman, co-owner of Buckhurst Hill’s latest arrival, Puppy Kit, a chi-chi new ‘couture’ shop for pets, informs us that Rocky’s café-bar is the place to be seen on a weekday afternoon. ‘It’s usually the women in the big 4x4s,’ he explains.

The love of all things bling extends to interior design. There are 150 Bang & Olufsen stores in the UK, and the Essex stores figure in the top ten for sales, up there with Chelsea and Kensington. Currently, the £16,500 HD flatscreen TV is doing well at Loughton’s swanky B&O branch; it also does good trade with customised home sound systems which include outdoor speakers (in the shape of rocks!) and cost upwards of £10,000.

Locals are naturally excited by the arrival of the Mercedes showroom, just outside Loughton on Langston Road, with its sea of gleaming new black models. Business is booming here, and according to an enthusiastic salesman, the seven-seater 4x4 GL-Class (£50,000) is ‘flying out the doors’. Essex Man and Essex Girl wouldn’t be seen in a BMW let alone a Ford Escort these days; spanking new Mini Cooper convertibles are the vehicle of choice for starter cars or run-arounds. Well, when you’re cruising past Rocky’s you need to impress. So long, fluffy dice!

Where to shop in Essex
Buckhurst Hill
Buckhurst Hill’s Queen’s Road is where Essex’s footballers, their WAGs – plus those who would love to fall into either category – and even, it’s rumoured, the odd villain come to show off their huge customised cars and ostentatiously labelled clothes. At lunchtime and in the
early evening, they congregate in Rocky’s café-bar, for a glass of champagne or two and a furtive glance at what everyone else is wearing.

In the pink: Belles and Beaus, Buckhurst Hill

Of all Essex’s shopping streets, it’s Queen’s Road that embodies the young, rich and proud-of-it set. Its sleekly turnedout figureheads include Danielle Lloyd (Teddy Sheringham’s glamour model ex who found the wrong kind of fame on ‘Big Brother’) and Spurs footballer Aaron Lennon. Two shops that opened just four months ago say a great deal about Essex’s spending habits. The first is Belles & Beaus, a girly pampering salon decked out in Barbie pink which sees to the Caribbean tans of local girls. Owner Paula Mucklow cheerfully reports recent and regular visits from the county’s high priestesses of tabloid culture: the aforementioned Miss Lloyd, progeny of Gazza – Bianca Gascoigne – and, of course, the omnipresent Jade Goody. Just down the hill, a girl’s best friend – a handbag dog rather than diamonds in this case – is catered for by Puppy Kit, a boutique selling pet couture. Even those without a cat or dog cannot fail to be entranced by the contents of this gorgeous shop, which sells everything from sparkly collars to genuine chinchilla-fur pet beds.

What’s most noticeable about Buckhurst Hill is that the majority of retail outlets are hairdressers, barbers and beauty salons. Barber Adam Jane, Unique Nails, La Roma (‘cosmetic and aesthetic skincare treatments’), French at 48 and Level One Hair is not even an exhaustive list on this high street on a hill. There’s even Les Groves Tailor for those all important alterations.

Of course, it’s no good looking after your bod and bonce if your clothes aren’t up to scratch. Zap showcases two spacious, cream-carpeted floors of seriously designer fashion, with menswear at ground level and womenswear upstairs. Labels for ladies include Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and the showy WAG’s favourite, Roberto Cavalli; men choose from a similar list plus Dior Homme and, rather daringly, Viktor & Rolf.

The atmosphere inside is suitably hushed and reverential; after all, designer fashion is the church where many regulars worship. What’s also
worth noting is the buying choice. You can acquire any of these labels in London boutiques and department stores, but the stock here – though undoubtedly elegant and beautifully made – is undeniably the more prominently-branded end of the ranges. There’s no shame here in showing what label you’ve got on (and implicitly, how much you paid for it).

Anyone going on the razzle could do worse than visit Virgo and Briannagh for something a bit more racy. If the presence of Sam Brookes Exclusive Overseas Property is anything to go by, swimwear and lingerie shop Pretty Things – a local favourite catering for all shapes and sizes with brands like Lejaby, Premi Donna and Marie Jo – is another must-visit shop here – the staff are helpful and full of good advice.

Sign of the times in Loughton High Street

Loughton
While the house prices are hardly any cheaper over in Loughton, the high street is a little less rarified than Buckhurst Hill’s villagey parade, with a long stretch of all the shops you’ll ever need – plus a clutch of great independents. Bored boyfriends and husbands (BAHs?) can be immediately dispatched to Bang & Olufsen. If he needs a quick trim, the self-styled ‘best little barber’s in Essex’, Foxy’s Barbers, is just up the road. For women, London hair stylist Anita Cox has just opened a branch of her respected hair and beauty chain, the first outside the capital. There’s also an above-average quota of nail bars and beauty parlours.

At Zee & Co labels are the name of the game once again. This shop is the starting point for Loughton residents on the hunt for posh designer clothes, and the spacious shop (which has a smaller sister on Islington’s Upper Street) makes for pleasant, easy shopping. Current best-selling labels for men include Ralph Lauren, Armani and Maharishi along with a few niche brands such as Y3 and UCLA T-shirts. On the women’s side, Juicy Couture features pretty heavily as well as Victoria Beckham Denim. Eye-wateringly expensive handbags by Chloé are casually stacked on an unguarded display unit, quite unlike the West End’s stores. Just down the road, women’s clothes shop Chic Boutique supplies pretty, gauzy and vaguely ethnic dresses and tops to girls who want to dabble with the boho look without, you know, looking like a scruffy and barefoot Sienna Miller. After that, it’s surely time for sit-down and a cocktail at Nu Bar.

Epping
Close to the forest bearing the same name, Epping feels like an old-fashioned, sprawling village, with a butcher, Church’s (established 1888
and still making the famous Epping sausage), as well as a selection of cottages set back from the High Street. Chain shops aside, there are two real gems to visit here, and both are aimed at home improvers. Geoffrey Drayton – a sister shop is in West Hampstead – is packed to the rafters with sleek kitchen equipment and tableware from the likes of Le Creuset, Stelton and David Mellor, as well as specialising in designer furniture of the loft-dwelling variety, from Ligne Roset and Cassina. Pretty bits and bobs – gorgeously patterned cups and saucers, garden lanterns and arty greetings cards – make a nice treat if you’ve only got pocket money. Close by is Latham’s, popular for miles around with local residents who are redecorating their homes, which features a mix of smart, elegant furnishings with a dash of glitz such as a very impressive leopard-print chaise longue.