Go East West

You might know that one of my favourite go-to bags is my Ledbury - especially since I managed to add a long strap that allows me to carry her cross-body. She does have rather short straps though, so if you like carrying your bag on your shoulder you might struggle.
  
Enter the Mulberry East West Bayswater: with the same height and just a tad wider, her handles are a fair bit longer, yet she is much more little-Ledbury than  big-Bayswater sized.

So before I come to the full review just a quick comparison:


Bayswater
Height 28cm
Width 37cm
Depth 17cm
Handle Drop 14cm
Weight 1400g

East West Bayswater
Height 20cm
Width 33cm
Depth 17cm
Handle Drop 18cm
Weight 900g

Ledbury
Height 20cm
Width 27cm
Depth 14cm
Handle Drop 11cm
Weight 750g 

All based on items in picture. I know that they can vary, especially weight (depending on leather) and handle drop. 

Chicken or Egg?

So if you've seen my post on the Ledbury conversion, you know that I essentially took an older model bag (Ledbury) and customised it so I was able to wear it with a strap, effectively creating a Small Bayswater Satchel - hence a newer model.

You could say it's ironic (though it's really just the logic precursor) that whereas I took the SBS as an inspiration to customise the Ledbury, Mulberry took the Ledbury as the inspiration for the SBS.

So what's better? Ledbury or SBS? There's only one way to find out...

Pidgeon Post

I remember somebody telling me about "unboxing" on Youtube. I had never heard about it before and, in all honesty, thought it was a bit daft when he told me. Whereas I could see the value in watching online reviews, do I need to watch others open their parcel and see what they ordered?!

When I thought about it though I thought that this could be quite useful: you get to see how a specific seller/retailer wraps and packs their goods. You get to share the excitement of a parcel received. You get a quick view on said ordered item.

So when I received a parcels from Naughtipidgins Nest, a name you may know or recognise from my "trusted sellers" list, I thought that would be a prime candidate. So without much further ado, here my first ever "public" unboxing.

Oh, and a bit of a spoiler, but this is in the box:

Step It Up

Mummy & baby bags - all Mulberry

From the top

Bayswater NVT Printed Oak

Ledbury Printed Oak

Regular del Rey Deer Brown

Small del Rey Slate Blue

Regular Alexa Soft Buffalo Black

Mini Alexa Cabbage Green

Roxanne Darwin Chocolate

Blenheim Chocolate Darwin

Ledbury Re-Born

I know I will sound like a broken record but: 
I like wearing bags cross body. 
I hate having to carry then in my hand. 
I don't get the wearing them in the crook of my arm type thing. 
I can just about manage with carrying them on my shoulder.

Therefore certain models of bags have been off my list, even though I might love the look of them. The Mulberry Ledbury is one of them. Styled like a classic Bayswater but baby-/mini-sized, it would be the perfect alernative to my Alexa. It would also be a nice change in that it's a more structured and therefore smart-looking bag. 

Mulberry recently released the Small Bayswater Satchel (SBS), which is pretty much a Ledbury with a long strap and I do love it (especially the oxblood version) but I 
a) had my heart set on something in printed oak and 
b) thought the price tag of almost £800 was a bit ott, considering you can get a nice preloved Ledbury for around £300.

Imagine my delight, when a lovely and very knowledgeable lady introduced me to something that would allow me to convert a Ledbury into a SBS! So without much further ado - i.e. I'm gonna stop typing now - the transformation!

If you'd like to have a go yourself, you can find these clamps on Cox the Saddler's website.

Just a couple of detail shots, which hopefully show quite clearly how these clamps were attached.

 

Give it a go and let me know how it goes?