Bicester Village, Tamara Beckwith, designer bags and a wonderful charity.

On my visit to Bicester Village Tamara Beckwith was there to launch a new range of bags to support Great Ormond Street Hospital. Cath Kidston, Alice Temperly and Paul Smith have lent their creative talents with a design each and the end products are all rather fabulous in their own way. Of course, with my floral obsession, I had to pick the gorgeous Kidston one. They're on sale at the tourist information centre within Bicester Village, costing £10, £6 of which goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital. The charity does wonderful work with children with rare and complex health conditions; you can find out more about it on their website.
As Tamara said; "This is the perfect way to indulge in a little bit of guilt free shopping and help make a difference to thousands of very ill children and their families." The bags are made of the most lovely fabrics and are a practical shape which I know I can get good use out of, and I love that there's money going to such a worthwhile cause!

Sparkles at Bicester

The ever so lovely people at Bicester Village invited me to a 'VIP Christmas Shopping Day' which I was most happy to attend yesterday having not visited since August when I made quick visit when passing by on my trip to Waddesdon Manor. Though, of course, it would have been silly not to get some nice things for myself too having made the journey down!
There's lots to show you, but today I thought I'd concentrate on the Christmas spirit which has spread around the Village with beautiful lights and window displays.
The most adorable deer caught my eye in the Matthew Williamson window:

The lights around the Village are so pretty- creating a delightful 'sparkle' effect which only grew as it got dark; perfect for cheering up a very cold day.

Mulberry: aka the store where my main purchase of the day came from! Not a planned purchase, but the item in question makes me very happy. I'm so looking forward to photographing it to show you!

Lovely goodies in Cath Kidston!

A brightly coloured, traditional tree in menswear store Pal Zileri:

The Christmas Gifts Hunt

As well as indulging in a little Luella spree I managed to find some very lovely gifts at Bicester Village which I can't wait to give!
They have over 120 stores, and to help you find the perfect present they've made an online gift guide which I love because of the fabulous illustrations for the 24 personalities (I'm guessing I'm whichever one a certain brand beginning in 'L' is under). Under each type there are some gift ideas and a list of ideal shops, they even mark these shops on a map for you to print off. And even better you can hand in your map at the visitor centre to win £500 and £250 gift cards, or lunch for 4 people on your next trip: think of all the Luella you could buy with that... *ahem* (Must not get distracted with Luella- NO I'm not obsessed and desperate to go back already!!). My top shops for gifts are Cath Kidston for lovely little girly presents and pretty house hold items, Accessorise for fun Christmas decorations and accessories, The Cosmetics Company store for gorgeous gifts from the likes of MAC, Dior has beautiful jewellery for very special presents and the new Phaidon book store (whose arrival my dad is very impressed with). And speaking of men; browsing round a few menswear stores there are some lovely ties and such- my favourites were in D&G, as I know someone who rather loves a bit of tweed.

Whoops- oh yes, you can find the gift guide here: http://giftguide.bicestervillage.com/ :D

Early

To get to Bicester last Friday I had to get up rather too early for my liking, but it was still definitely worth it (was I going to miss a chance of some Luella, I think not). The sky was rather pretty too- well it was really beautiful actually, and very hard for my little digital camera to capture the loveliness! I loved the colours.

*That* Luella bag

 Despite this being a hard time for the Luella brand the Bicester outlet store is still thriving, though possibly for sad reasons. There was stock from aw08 and ss09 (my favourite collection ever, I love it so very much so it's always nice to see) and so many gorgeous bags! It's sad to think of those beautiful dresses being sold off, but it is a golden opportunity to buy those wonderful pieces if you missed them first time round.
On a slightly more random note, I love this cushion from the changing room! There were a few cushions in the store actually with recognisable Luella prints of various seasons.

So what did I buy?

This big, squishy bag. I love quilted bags and this one will be really practical.

I kinda want to hug it. :)

This pretty hairclip from ss08. I almost bought this from the Mayfair store once but decided to go for one of the bow headbands so I'm very happy to see it again.

This cute little card holder; intended for Oyster cards but bought for business ones.

And this ever so lovely blouse. Just look at all those knife pleats and the adorable bow. :)

I love Luella so much- please somebody, save this amazing British brand adored by so many.

Bicester gets festive

The very nice people at Bicester Village kindly invited me to a blogger day, and after such a nice shopping trip (and many bags of bargains) last time I was very happy to attend indeed. It was lovely to meet some fellow bloggers and have a chat.
The swanky VIP lounge that was provided for us (as well as breakfast, lunch and wi-fi, weren't we lucky!)
Change is afoot since my last visit- the village has gone all Christmassy. :D And there are some new stores including Gucci and Armani.

And there were lots of lovely shops to go gift shopping at, but it would be telling to be specific and I already have enough trouble keeping presents secret. I just love giving and when I've got something I think someone will really like I just want to give it to them! But I seem to be improving of late. Lovely window displays to be seen at Cath Kidston (above) and Paul Smith (below).

And speaking of Mr Smith, he has designed some rather fabulous wrapping paper for Bicester, so you can have your presents wrapped or buy it on the roll. Personally my wrapping skills do not impress others but I still like doing it and maki gifts pretty.

They are also supporting the charity Make A Wish which helps make seriously ill children happy by making their wishes come true. http://www.make-a-wish.org.uk/

So did I manage to come out without a little something from Luella? Nope, all in a hilariously big bag, I love it. Pictures coming soon. :)

A Bicester Day

I had a very lovely time at Bicester Village yesterday. I'd heard so many good things about the place and finally got round to going! The main temptation for going was to coo over the past season Luella. I may be odd, but I actually don't see something being 'last season' as a bad thing, in fact I see it as a positive. I also see outlet shopping as more environmentally friendly than normal shopping as however much you buy, the items aren't going to be replenished with more of the same so no new products are made.


Unsurprisingly I headed straight for Luella. The stock is currently pretty much made up of the aw08 collection. Which is fantastic for a Luella lover like me who has actually either not been overly aware of a brand that long or just couldn't shop there for some practical reason. The first time I went to Luella Brook St ss09 was already in stock.
Next stop: Mulberry. So many gorgeous handbags and bargainous prices! If you know you want an investment handbag but don't want to spend more money than necessary, this is the place to go! There were some clothes and scarves too, but what caught my eye were the shoes, the ones from ss09 which I've been coveting in magazines for months, so I made a mental note of them and continued.
From here I went to Cath Kidston. This shop is a haven for gift shopping, such lovely kitsch items were for sale, from bags to tea cups, and also very lovely clothes, and an extremely lovely changing room! (see left) There were several items I really loved, but I went for a lovely floral skirt. I'm soon in Calvin Klein underwear, and come out with a very fun pair of bright knickers! Bicester is a very good place to shop for good underwear with labels such as Agent Provocateur and Myla.

Up the street I go and find myself in Vivienne Westwood. So many nice handbags here and also some fabulous jewellery. A really fun brightly coloured (there's a trend emerging here) bag catches my eye. But I remind myself that I would hate to spend an awful lot of my budget in the first few minutes and regret when I see something later! So I head to Dior, where I am relieved to not see any pieces I already own at a much cheaper price. Phew. Lots of beautiful jewellery, at a very good price. The clothes here are beautiful. If you need something for a special occasion and can't normally afford the price tag this is a very good place to get a beautiful outfit. There was the most divine full length floral gown, priced a little over a thousand from over seven thousand.
Not an everyday purchase, but if you know you want something like that, get it here!

I find myself back in Vivienne Westwood and heading for the till with a certain bag.

Time for some ice cream I think! It's from Amarino, and I had a medium tub, (cones also available), I could have had up to four flavours, but being the allergic person I am stuck to vanilla. It was divine indeed! My dad had the same and seemed to enjoy it equally, maybe this is why he doesn't mind coming shopping with me..
There is both a D&G store at Bicester and a Dolce & Gabbana one, they happen to be an opposite ends of the village. Two of my favourite stores of the day. I love D&G dresses and the pink, floaty floral one pictured below was so incredibly pretty!

Another shop for special occasion wear is the one below, stocking Amanda Wakely, Matthew Williamson and Temperly. There were the most gorgeous evening wear dresses, and also lots of fabulous dresses. Some of the clothes were just mind-boggling beautiful, this may be an outlet shop but the clothes and top quality.

The Monsoon and Accessorize store provided some absolute bargain evening wear! It's like at the end of the sale and everything's 70% off- but with loads more stock! There were even £5 racks! I got some very long lace gloves, very ladylike and only £3.60 from something like £18.

A good part of the afternoon was surprising spent looking in menswear shops! My dad is not normally one for spending money on himself (bless), but he actually got rather enthusiastic about going into lots of menswear shops! We started at Paul Smith and ended up at Racing Green where he got not one but two jackets for £114. It made a lovely change and I was very proud of him. We also went in Brooks Brothers where I got a tennis whites style skirt. The clothes reminded me of Charlotte York (of S&TC, I love Charlotte!) in her Trey days at the Hamptons house.

At the Cosmetics Company store I was very surprised to see Hello Kitty for Mac items, as they sold out super quick at the MAC counters I went too. There were items from other collaborative ranges too. I came out with a very nice eyeshadow from MAC.

And so back I went to Mulberry. Those shoes *drool*. As you can probably tell from the photo below, I bought them. =D

Heading back to Luella, I didn't buy clothing but stickers!! And I still got a carrier bag. The staff were lovely.
For one last purchase I went to Dolce & Gabbana where I had seen some gorgeous scarves earlier, I was choosing between the ones I had already seen when I noticed one with the prettiest, most delicate floral on it. A short queue later I was out of the store with yet another carrier bag.
As you can probably tell, I really enjoyed my day! I'm really hoping to go back when Luella ss09 is in stock! *makes happy noises* There'll also be some new shops such as Armani and Gucci open by then. It was a really nice environment to shop in, and I love what I bought. The ice cream was yummy too. =] I know this is a terribly long post so more photos of purchases coming tomorrow, I just couldn't resist putting the shoes up today!