BamBam

HANDBAGS GALORE!

Last week I attended the opening of Designer Exhange’s store in Manchester, Unit 15 of the Royal Exchange arcade. The London based company buy and sell a range of good quality, designer handbags for men and women.

Upon arrival, I was greeted with champagne, canapés, and a goodie bag - the perfect cure to nip my dormant hangover in the bud; one acquired after a belated celebration of my role as Assistant Editor for The Tab LJMU.

The store’s layout emulates the designer sections that you find in Selfridges or Harvey Nichols. It has its own seating areas and glass separations in order to differentiate between their brands which range from Chanel to Hermes.

This alone conveyed the high influx of amazing quality, second hand, handbags the store has. Each handbag has been previously owned, loved and fallen out of love with, and traded in for money, or (betrayal) for another handbag.

For the passionate handbag lover this is the perfect scenario, right?

And who knows… you could be re-possessing a much loved bag of Victoria Beckham’s or your local celebrity from The Real Housewives of Cheshire. So not only will you start a new relationship with your ‘ab-fab’ portable space, but also attaining a claim to fame.

Whilst browsing the varied yet consistent selection, I was given an exciting proposal by the companies budding marketing and sales executive, Charlotte. I won’t give too much away, but it involves more photo-shoot fun with best-friend, photographer, and stylist, Tabby Warnock.

Time to get our creative caps on, and for you to keep your eyes pealed!

Bet Uni of don't have this luxury

Yesterday I had the luxury of shooting with my best friend, photographer, and fashion stylist, Tabby Warnock. This was for her most recent project conveying the free spirited girl.

We took our business to Salford, a city home to innovation, and roamed freely around one of it’s very vast and green parks. To our great surprise the heavens blessed us with sunshine, it was a delight.

We managed to capture on six locations, each with different styles influenced by Gwen Stefani.

It was amazing to find so many locations in one place. It just proves that observation is key for the creative eye.

Tonight's show began a little slower than usual due to the Looprevil Radio election results!  In May, the station will formerly introduce the new station manager & deputy and the new head of music & deputy! BonSoir wish them the best of luck with their endeavors for the station.

We began tonight with our weekly feature 'song of the week' that saw the victory of Lucy's choice which was 'Hard as Hello' by Kimberley Anne. A mellow song with an uplifting beat. A lovely melody I would suggest! My song of the week was 'Can't Do Without You' by Caribou. I chose this after hearing it played on the Sunday Catwalk at London Fashion Weekend. I fell in love immediately. However I do believe they played a remixed version, as the version played on tonight's show was much more relaxed.

After airing a few more of our favourite anthems, we discussed the 'hot topic' for many during last week ...  The Brit Awards. What we wanted to know was, was Madonna's fall actually a fall? Or was she dragged down by the demon looking characters hovering at her feet? The verdict in the studio was of course the latter. The Queen of Pop would never make such a mistake, surely!! On the other hand however, we have Kanye West who, lets face it would probably purposely set himself up for a stunt like that. We concluded that Kanye's actions all appear to be in quest of publicly claiming how god-like he is, although Lucy gave an interesting perspective on Kanye's situation. She said that in the future, Mr West will have essentially subliminally indoctrinated our beliefs in some mysterious, clever way and he will turn out to be something reminiscent of a religious figurehead...

I am not too sure I am totally convinced.

Whilst in deep, philosophical thought about Kanye West's future, we decided to play some of his songs as a tribute. The upbeat vibes moved us excitedly on to Rosie Steedman's weekly Tipsy Talk script. She informed us of a lost bankcard, drunken phone calls, and the consummation of chewing gum... and a five pence piece. An X ray may be in order for our darling resident.

This Weeks Do's and Don'ts:

As always, Tipsy Talk leads us on to something spectacular, and this week it conveniently linked with our 'Do's and Don'ts'. Taking the advice from Rhian Hughes' article 'The Do's and Don'ts of a Successful Night Out' we concluded the following:

• Don't drunk text or phone call • Don't think it is wise to order a greasy kebab after one too many - it's not a      good look. • Don't hand your credit card over when it's your round for drinks. The receipt reminders of your drunken spending abilities will not help your hangover. • Do delete anyone's number that you may text / call when drunk. • Do take lots of photographs. • Do have a large glass of water before 'hitting the hay'.

You can find more advice from Hughes' article here:

http://nomadsworld.com/articles/global/dos-and-donts-for-successful-night-out

To finish our evening I informed my co-hosts of all the gossip from London Fashion Weekend. You can find information about this from my previous and most recent blog posts. In short, the event was held at Somerset House by the riverbank - a very beautiful area of London indeed - and contained pop up shops, a catwalk, and many talks held by the professionals.

We also discussed the re-opening of the Tate Art Gallery on the Albert Docks here in Liverpool which will be Friday 6th March. So if artwork is your thing, take a trip down. I know that we will be !