Blue Banana comes to HULL!

Clothing, Body jewellery, Accessories & Piercings

49-50 Whitefriargate

Hull

Lucy Clark, Hullvibe catches up with Hulls new Alternative merchandise and piercing palace...

 

*OPENS FRIDAY 15th SEPTEMBER 2007 9.30AM!*

 

Blue Banana, Who are you, where have you come from?

 

Blue Banana are national store which offers something , ‘A little bit different’ to your average high street shop. With stores already in our surrounding cities Lincoln and Doncaster it was about time one landed in Hull. There are 12 stores in total, with the Head Office being in Cornwall.

Carefully placed in Whitefriargate nextdoor to New Look, I asked, ‘Why isn’t this new store getting involved with the new swanky St Stephens?’, the reply was that every store in a shopping centre looks the same and they wanted to be in a fun shopping street rather than some boring Shopping centre...which was fair enough!

The creators of Blue Banana are Julie, Jon and Ian, along with 140 staff, who Ian calls, ‘His children’, ‘We’re all one big family at Blue Banana, and we try to make work more fun rather than work, we often have themed days where the staff dress up in the shop like Cowboys or ‘Slutty Saturday, which went down well once in Plymouth!’.

 

So why Hull?

 

Ian said, ‘It’s all part of my plan to take over the world! But seriously, I’ve always liked Hull, being a Leeds lad myself, i like the people and its nice to hear the accent again!’ (First time for everything eh?), ‘

'We’ve got stores already in Lincoln and Doncaster and we’ll be opening one in Sheffield in the New Year so Hull will fit into that little group quite nicely'

 

The Staff

 

The Staff at Blue Banana understand that your style is influenced by your music, so whether your into Goth, Punk or Emo, there’ll be a member of staff who’ll know exactley what your after and know what you want.

Blue Banana is famously known by music lovers. The owners themselves may now have a wardrobe of Armani Suits and drive nice cars but they once were old skool rockers with long hair rebelling at Woodstock so they know where people are coming from and understand that just because you may look different doesn’t mean your a bad person. Ian, Jon and Julie are all business people, but they’re still not afraid of doing some hard graft as Ian explains he was stood in the skip outside, sorting out rubbish all morning! They’re are an equal team where Staff and peers all work equally as hard and are respected for who they are, not their job title.

Ian says, ‘I don’t care whether you smoke, do drugs, have sex with men, women or dogs, just as long as your at work at 9.00 and ready to work by half past with a smile’. ‘I’ve got some great staff who i call ‘my children’, and i’ll be totally honest with all of them, if someone comes into work looking like sh*t from the night before i’ll tell ‘em, you look like sh*t!’

‘All staff are ready and raring to go and we’ll spend Thursday cleaning and Thursday night in store with a few pizzas and bottles of wine and do a bit of training. You remember your training more if you have a laugh’ –now thats my ideas of staff training!

 

The Piercing Studio

 

The Piercing studio at Blue Banana isn’t your stereotypical ‘Piercing Pad’. Where you’d expect to be grabbed and stabbed by a fat hairy bloke covered in metal and tatoos. Later to hide your piercing from your Mother for as long as possible.

This is where Blue Banana creators realised there was a gap in the market!

Body Piercing is done by highly trained happy smiley ladies, where if your a nipper you’d be pleased to bring your mother along to witness the damage as Blue Banana promises to provide a safe and friendly atmosphere, not a dark intimidating den in a back alley.

As special promotion offer ALL piercings will be £10! –Friday only

A wide selection of body jewellery is also avaliable in store.

 

 

Is it JUST for alternative clothing?

 

No, there’s something for everyone, whether you fancy yourself as a bit of a Barbie girl or more of a Gothic chick. Even X Factor star Leona Lewis was spotted shopping in a Blue Banana store down south. They give that little extra that you dont always find in Topshop and we dont just do clothing, theres also shoes, bags, wallets, corsets, smoking devices, belts...the list goes on!

 

 

Store opening times:

Mon-Sat 9.30 – 5.30

Sun 11.00 – 4.00

 

Check out the website: www.bluebanana.cc