“It was the Stone Island Ice Jacket that set me off,” says 31-year-old Billy Pritchard who works for the Welsh Ambulance Service. “Even back then it was asought after item so to find one for fifty quid in this store in South Wales was just incredible.” The Newport County fan is recounting the moment in 2006 that he found some heavily reduced Stone Island deadstock in the TK Maxx in Cardiff city centre, leading to alife-long obsession with the high-street discount retailer.
“They were originally released in ’89 or ’90 so God knows how they ended up in there. Ibought two of them and two of the Stone Island Ice Jacket vests too. That cemented me basically spending the next 15years searching through them and driving to all these different TK Maxx’s.”
At his peak, Pritchard was getting to abranch of TK Maxx on anearly daily basis but has cut back to just two or three times aweek. And he’s not alone. In 2017, he set up an Instagram page called TK Maxx Hunting where he displays his best finds from the store and encourages other followers to send in pics for him to post too. Soon aband of dedicated TK Maxx hunters had emerged, scouring the rails up and down the country on adaily basis to find gems like Snow Peak parkas, Norse Projects gloves, rare limited edition Ralph Lauren and C.P Company sweatshirts in amongst the seeming endless sea of Crosshatch hoodies and multi-pocket Bench jeans. And with most stock discounted by at least 70 per cent, who can blame them? In fact, during the pandemic, TK Maxx was one of the only high street stores to report an increase in profits and bucks the shift to online retail with the majority of its business still happening in its bricks and mortar stores.
“I’ve got mates who wouldn’t be seen dead in there,” says Johnny Hall aka Phil Sparrowhawk, the page’s most prolific poster. “But Ijust think ‘bollocks to you then. You go and buy it for two hundred quid in End or Oi Polloi!’ Everyone likes abit of one-upmanship and knowing you got it for £40 instead of £200 – even if you had to work for it digging through the rails and driving all over the place – it gives you that little buzz.”
