Stylist Live Manchester at Intu Trafford Centre 2018

This Autumn, Manchester welcomed its very first Stylist Live Manchester at Intu Trafford Centre 2018. To celebrate the Trafford Centre turning 20 years old, it welcomed Stylist Live – an annual shopping and inspiration festival usually held in London – to our very special city for the first time ever and for the first time outside of London. Specialising in women’s fashion and beauty, I was invited down to be part of the Official Intu press pack for the weekend of the 8th and 9th September 2018 to check it out and see what Stylist had to offer. Spoiler alert: I was not disappointed.

The highlight of the weekend for me were the catwalk shows. Taking place in the main dome outside Selfridges and right in the centre of the Trafford Centre, the Stylist Live fashion shows utilised the striking triple escalators as an unusual take on the usual runway. When I first saw this, I wasn’t sure how well it would work, but it was totally captivating and truly drew in crowds of people. Using all high street fashion labels sold in the Trafford Centre, the fashion shows were inclusive of all price ranges and a diverse array of models in terms of ethnicity and sizing. I honestly think this is the best fashion show I have seen in a long while and truly loved it!

As well as live fashion shows throughout the weekend, Saturday and Sunday saw the Stylist Stage present a range of live talks and discussions with key figure heads in the fashion and lifestyle world. My highlight of these was the intimate interview with Michele Keegan, Manchester legend and former Coronation Street actress. I think loving Michele Keegan is part of being Mancunian, and she is undoubtedly stunning, but her interview with Lisa Smosarski, Editor-in-Chief at Stylist Magazine, made me fall totally in love with her. In her pre-Corrie days, Michele was actually a sales assistant in one of the shops at the Trafford Centre as a teenager, which tells an amazing story of her success.

Aside from pop up shops and limited edition exhibitions, most of the stores at the Intu Trafford Centre also joined in on the Stylist Live festivities by putting on in-store events and special offers. Special shoutout to Thomas Sabo for this, who invited me along to check out their contribution to Stylist Live, including free engraving, an in store DJ and even free psychic readings for their customers to tie in with their new Kingdom of Dreams collection which is based on magic and mystery. It is a stunning new collection and I can’t wait to share with you my own beautiful piece from it!

There were also plenty of shopping experiences to be had outside of the main stores, with the ground floor lined full of market stall and exhibition hall style pop up shops. There were tons of brands to visit but I made sure to drop by my favourites over at Pixi to have a makeup touch up and swatch their range of products to help aid my ‘glow up’!

Other highlights for me included having the opportunity to meet Anastasia Beverley Hills founder, Anastasia herself, at the Trafford Centre and of course, taking a break at The Orient foodhall. We stopped by Bill’s who had a brunch area set up for press to drop in and have a coffee and snack whilst we shared our social media and can I tell you, it was very much needed!

Thank you to Stylist Live and Intu Trafford Centre for having me as an official part of your press pack. I hope that this wasn’t just a one off event for the 20th anniversary of the Trafford Centre because it was so wonderful to see so many amazing brands and events taking place in one space in Manchester.