Almost opposite the entrance to The Lanes is Bond Street. This leads you north into Gardner Street and Kensington Gardens, collectively known as the North Laine. If the exclusive, expensive establishments of The Lanes are not to your taste (or your wallet) then try here instead. This is where you find the alternative shops, the strange places, and the shops selling things that you did not realise existed. If you cannot find that "something different" in North Laine then you are really not trying.
To start with, North Laine is where the serious clubbers buy their clothes. Brighton is a major night club destination and it is almost impossible to get a hotel room in the area over the weekend in the summer. You want something really outré to wear? North Laine is the place to get it. I particularly like Tuff Tarts, an establishment that you can find in the arcade at the south end of Kensington Gardens. They do all the sort of stuff that comic books back in the 60's assumed that people would be wearing in the 21st Century, with lots of rubber spikes for added attitude. Wild.
If clubbing is not your scene (and let's be honest, I'm way too old to be dancing all night and way to average-shaped to fit into most of it) there are plenty of other options. Need a bonsai tree, a vinyl record, something mystical and New Age, an exotic cheese, jewellery for a Goth, Japanese comics, herbal substances that are not yet illegal? This is the place to find it. There are so many different shops in North Laine that it is hard to characterise the place except to say that it is, most definitely, different. I could browse all day. This is shopping heaven.