The hair and beauty highlight of the year attracted an audience of 500 and 1,500 fans on Instagram bringing young talent and businesses together to show how they “Love Bedford”.

The show staged by Bedford College Brook’s Hair and Beauty salon at the Bedford Corn Exchange was packed with families and friends of the fashionistas who took to the stage to demonstrate the latest techniques in style.

“Every year the show goes up a gear in some way and this year more employers and businesses than ever were involved,” said Kerry Attfield Head of Hair and Beauty at Bedford College.

Held on May 4th with a Star Wars “May the 4th be with you” theme, the show was promoted via Instagram @lovebedford1 to link up with a new young audience on-line.

The show was sponsored by the Bedford Business Improvement District (BID) which promotes the interests of over 500 town centre businesses under the brand of Love Bedford.

“Supporting the Hair & Beauty show makes complete sense as the students of the college’s Brooks High Street training salon go on to work for businesses across the area. In turn, they and their families are customers of the many hair, beauty and fashion outlets we have in the town centre,” said BID Director Christina Rowe.

BedfordBID has sponsored the show for several years and Chair of the BID Samantha Laycock presented Love Bedford gift vouchers to some of the most successful students. Samantha is General Manager of the Harpur Centre which helped to promote the show with posters in advance.

For the first time this year, High Street giant Debenhams backed the show by giving away goodie bags to add to the glamour of the red carpet occasion.

Center Parcs of Bedfordshire, sponsored special awards for Level 3 Hair and Beauty. The  beauty winner was Chloe Field and hair winner was Kimberly Cox - both are apprentices showing the links between college and employers.

“We added some glitz to the show this year to show young people just how creative a career in hair and beauty can be,” explained Kerry Attfield,

“An on-going link with Debenhams and its team has given our students an insight into how the beauty business is billion pound global opportunity with all sorts of careers within that sphere.

“We would also to like to Pegalicious ballons in The Arcade for their fabulous decorative skills.”

In addition to sponsorship of the show, BedfordBID had engaged young social media star Ross Testa to promote the event on Instagram. Ross is best know for his work with the now national brand Jagged Edge, which has a High Street outlet. Jagged Edge has close training links with Bedford College and their star barbers were included at the event. 

A Love Bedford voucher of £50 was given to the best photo shared with @lovebedford1 from the event.”