Our story

Much like the Queen, SWALK has two birthdays. We celebrate the Anniversaries both of the online launch and also when we opened our store at Manchester’s iconic Afflecks.

After leaving the corporate life behind, I (Megan) spent a couple of months soul-searching and rediscovering a love of drawing, ultimately deciding life should be about doing what you love. In September 2014 the SWALK Creative Etsy shop went live followed by nine-months of market appearances.

Having stocked in a few places locally I was inspired to open up a shop of my own. I wanted a place to sell my creations, but also to create a space that would be affordable for other local artists to showcase their work. I grabbed a couple of creative pals, trawled the #ManchesterArtists hashtag to find a couple more, and signed a lease at Afflecks. That was in May 2015, and since then we’ve gone from strength to strength!

Originally opening on the third floor, we knocked down walls to expand twice before moving into a dreamy unit on the second floor. What started as five artists has now grown to a whopping 11 local creatives, with plenty of guest artists sprinkled in through the years. We’ve run pop-ups, hosted workshops, collaborated on products and forged some fab friendships along the way.

After 5ish years I launched swalkcreative.com so our fans outside of Manchester can shop more easily, and you can get some of the SWALK experience without coming in store!

We’re always looking to connect with local artists and art lovers so do pop in to see us at the shop!