There's a good article in the Guardian today by Oliver Balch, about independent shops in Hay, and the way Hay business people tend to go for the quirky rather than the conventional - which is one of the reasons that Hay is such a good place to live in.
The title of the article is Anti-Establishment Hay is a Breeding Ground for Independents, and mentions the new Keep magazine, the bookshops (with comments from Elizabeth Haycox of Booths and Ann Brichto of Addymans), Bartrums' stationers and the Fairtrade Eighteen Rabbit (Andrew Williams is also the head of the Chamber of Commerce), and the lingerie shop Underwhere, and the taxidermy shop.
Here's the link to copy and paste:
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2016/may/27/anti-establishment-hay-on-wye-breeding-ground-independents
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This isn't anti-establishment but the direct opposite. The boutique shops in Hay are largely the result of Southern money moving out of London, it's a colonisation by the wealthy with "big fish in small pond complex".A middleclass (in the Cameron sense) ethnic cleansing. The battle of modern Hay retail was won on the battlefields of Eton. Though these victories am merely pyrrhic. These stores appear then disappear again in a couple of years finding they can not make a fortune after high rents are factored in. They don't even have the business nous to realise that opening an underwear store, virtually in the same place that the last one had a short lived career makes little business sense. Mind you the article is written by one of their own, a John the Baptist style figure who has discovered the beauty of the area, a revelation that every local knew before hand. Having probably contributed to another influx of Southerners inflating prices he'll be off in a couple of years singing the praises of some quiet European village which he'll promptly get filled with the detritus of Notting Hill as well
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