Coronation Street: Dump him, love, and buy a new handbag

Reproduced with permission from the fab TV blog PauseLiveAction

Have you noticed Fiz Stape’s handbag on Coronation Street recently? It’s a kind of shapeless drawstring faux-leather sack in a colour that recalls dried dog poo. It’s a characterless handbag, a sad handbag, a handbag that says: “You know what? I’ve lost the will to accessorise.”

And this is the woman whose arm candy was previously legendary. She’s had bags in the shape of little dogs, little cars, watering cans. She’s had big fluffy bags, knitted purple tartan bags. And an eccentric-but-wonderful wardrobe to go with them. She’s been a flame-haired funky fashion icon.

And now she’s gone all dowdy.

Ok, I know she’s married now and has the responsibility of Chesney and whatnot, so she may have decided that her style needs to mature a little bit. But what her current dull outfits and that monstrosity of a bag are saying to me is that she’s losing her Fizness – overwhelmed by the stress and tedium of life with her lying, cheating, whingeing useless lump of a husband, Fiz’s sartorial rainbow has disappeared.

This cannot be allowed to happen. I propose sending in an emergency team of Jeremy Kyle (to help her get rid of Stape), Gok Wan (for style), Noel Fielding (for eccentricity) and me (for bag advice – half an hour in TK Maxx and I’d sort her out).