Firstly, sorry its been a while since the last blog, but I can tell you that the last few months have been hectic within The Alternative Store/Fuse HQ. We are so close to being complete with our re-branding and new look. So many new amazing and fresh brands are now in stock both on-line and in our shop in Sheffield. As fast as we get new snap-back designs in, they're going out of store so fast its making our heads spin. ..they seem to be the headgear to be seen in this season. With such brands as The Hundreds, Rebel 8, FSAS, King Apparel, Mishka and fresh this week the new Rebel8 x FSAS hook up, the best place to get new and fresh designs is obviously The Alternative Store. The same can be said for our new huge range of streetwear brands, such as Mishka, some seriously beautiful designs.... We also got an amazing drop from one of our other favourites, The Hundreds featuring this amazingly kitsch but seriously stylish tee, which two of our members of staff have already eyed up for payday!! Also, the highly anticipated co-lab between FSAS and Rebel8 dropped into store at the end of last week, and it hasn't let us or any of our customers down. Infusing some tattoo inspired influences as well as street-culture references, crew necks and t-shirts are in there as well as the aforementioned Snap back caps....... We are having new deliveries of new snap-backs and other hats in store every week, and they are selling out so fast. We have some of our hats online, but we have a wider selection in our store in Sheffield...... What better excuse to come and see our mugs??

Read more...

So as you will have seen over the past few months we have been going through huge changes and our new brands, products and items have been attracting a really exciting and positive response. Due to pre-orders in retail, we buy almost a year in advance so we have been working on re-branding ourselves and transforming our site and store for the last 2 years but only now are we nearing completion of the 'new us.'

Our men's section has seen the most changes of recent and the addition of new brands. Our women's section took more time and needed more work on perfecting our current brand stock too, focusing on buying with a female eye with our new female buyer and also increased amount of female staff. We are so excited and confident you will be too with our latest drops and offerings for women.

We aimed to represent all shapes, sizes, looks, identities and presentations of women and girls and really provide a wide range of options, sizes and designs to try and cater to everyone.

With this, we took on several new brands, namely Rebel8, Volcom, Get Cutie, Rock Steady, Vacant, Insight 51 and we also progressed with our current brands such as Famous Stars and Straps (FSAS), DC Womens, Criminal Damage and Iron Fist, ensuring we are up to date with the hottest styles and designs and operating on the forefront of women's fashion progression.

The drops have started to arrive to complete our transformation and we will feature new brands as they drop, picking out all of our favourite key pieces, staff picks and brand introductions etc.

Right now, there are some sneak peaks of the new sections in our store on facebook. We'll also post some product links to our site for the key items shown too on there!

http://www.facebook.com/thealternativestore

As the city recovers from another Tramlines Festival, we're back at work as per normal. We did manage to catch a few things over the weekend though, so we thought we'd take a bit of time to write this new blog post to cover the awesome bands we managed to see.



Friday - After managing to miss The Kate Jackson Group, team Alt Store arrived just in time to stand watching Heaven 17 on the Nokia Sheffield Showcase Stage in the rain. One of our number is a big 80s fan, so their renditions of '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' and  the obligatory 'Temptation' went down very well. They even did a version of The Human League's 'Being Boiled', though it was arguably their song all along...




After that, we headed along to The Washington for Mixed in Sheffield's Rock and a Hard Place night. A showcase for some of Sheffield's best new bands that reside on the rockier end of the spectrum, we hit our first queue of the evening here. Once inside we found that we'd missed the hotly-tipped Stooges-esque Oblong so we retired to the beer garden for a while. Later on we made our way back inside for what one of our highlights of the evening: Dearne Valley metallers Steel Trees, a three-piece who blasted their way through their grunge-inspired set with glorious abandon. The kings of the night as far as we were concerned though were Sheffield's mighty indie-garage two-piece Drenge. Brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless are the latest in a chain of duos from Steel City that are causing a significant stir. They recall to mind the finest moments of The White Stripes and succeed in being one of the most exciting live prospects we've seen in ages.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our Tramlines 2011 adventures...

This coming weekend is Tramlines 2011, Sheffield's annual free city-wide music festival and we're officially very excited about it. We thought we'd take the opportunity to write this blog post to tell you about the bands and artists we're looking forward to seeing from the Tramlines 2011 lineup as well as letting you know about some fantastic clothing shoes and accessories that will set you apart from the crowd when you're finding your way from venue to venue.



Firstly, there's The Kate Jackson Group. Kate used to be the singer in Sheffield indie-rock darlings The Long Blondes, and when they split up, Kate started work on her own material with ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler and more recently with her new band mates. This will be a welcome return for one of Sheffield's finest rock stars and you can check KJG out when they play the Nokia Sheffield Showcase at Barkers Pool on Friday evening.

The perfect attire for such a gig is a pair of rather nice Iron Fist Shoes. We've got a huge range of styles available, many of which are currently at great sale prices, so click here to view our full range of Iron Fist Shoes at The Alternative Store.



Also on Friday, the Washington plays host to hotly-tipped Sheffield two-piece Drenge, who will be turning in several performances at venues across the weekend. They're noisy, garagey, grungey types, and we loves em.

Also on the same bill are local noisemeisters Steel Trees, who make the kind of noise that makes you think it's 1991 and that Mudhoney are number one in the charts. Yep, THAT good.



Fitting for this sort of racket is the fine clothing courtesy of Actual Pain. Death Metal and Horror-inspired tees that make you look like the kid everyone is scared of at school. Click here to check out the full range of Actual Pain Clothing at the Alternative Store.



Saturday night is all about Toddla T for us. Sheffield's hip-hop/electro/dancehall impresario is one of our finest musical exports, and he's taking over The Octagon Centre at Sheffield University during Tramlines to bring a lineup including Shy FX and Ms. Dynamite as well as his own inimitable performance.



Our range of New Eras is better than ever, including the ever-popular snapbacks. Click here to check out our full range of New Era Hats...



One of our must-sees is The Ghost of a Thousand on the New Music Stage at Barkers Pool. These Brighton-based punks are sadly due to disband shortly after this gig, so see them while you still have the chance.



Macbeth Shoes are the chosen brand for many of today's pop-punk and alternative bands, and it's easy to see why. Their mix of style and ethical practice makes them one of our best-loved brands. Click here to check out our full range of Macbeth Shoes at The Alternative Store.



We've shied away from the Tramlines 2011 Main Stage on Devonshire Green until now, but Sunday's lineup is pretty killer. With local indie boys The Crookes and The Futureheads handling things the crowds are going to be spoiled rotten, while pop-punkers Ash are headlining to bring the main stage to a close.



The good news is that Fuse, The Alternative Store's real-life store location in The Forum Shops on Devonshire Street will be open all day Friday and Saturday during Tramlines 2011, so between bands you can drop in and check out the wide range of clothing, footwear and accessories and feel sorry for us that we're shop-bound while all of this festival fun and excitement is going on...

You can browse the full lineup for Tramlines 2011 at www.tramlines.org.uk and you can shop to your heart's content at www.thealternativestore.net

We thought it was about time to get onto a new blog post featuring some of the videos that have caught our attention this week. As usual there are some videos relating to some of the great brands we sell such as Rebel8 and Iron Fist, and there's also the obligatory cat videos and some of the movie trailers that are getting us excited.



First up, how to de-activate a cat. Before anyone gets concerned, the cat in question isn't harmed in any way. It's admittedly a bit questionable, but the likely reason that this works is due to cats having been picked up by the scruff of the neck by their mother as kittens (and it's a vet doing it, so it's ok)



Juan of the Dead appears to be Cuba's answer to Shaun of the Dead, which is no bad thing. From the look of the above trailer, the film seems set to include a decent mix of laughs and social commentary, along with loads of gore. WE NEED TO SEE THIS FILM...





Here's a nice little tale of a Breakdancing Jesus having a dance-off with a trackied-up devil, courtesy of Iron Fist USA.



Also from Iron Fist (this time on this side of the pond), here is a catwalk video of Iron Fist Clothing at Pure London.



More cats here, this time having a little R&R....




Finally, following on from our last video blog post which featured one half of Rebel8's creative team Mike Giant, we figured it's only fair to give the Rebel8 Co-creator Joshy D a shout as well. This video goes behind the scenes at Rebel8 and shows why they're one of the hottest streetwear brands on the market today...

Stay tuned for more updates and in the meantime, follow us on Twitter @thealtstore and 'Like' us on Facebook