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This morning I was invited to attend the launch of the new British Designer Collective pop up at Bicester Village, hosted by Alexa Chung. I’m never one to pass up the opportunity to snap up some serious designer pieces at bargain prices after all (last time I went a little Erdem-crazy). The train ride up there felt like a strange but extremely fashionable school trip, as just about every fashion blogger in London was sitting in the same carriage. The sun was shining, the gossip flowing – so far, so good.
Then we get to the beautiful pop up shop, I get my camera out to start snapping away, and well… I’d left the camera battery in the charger at home. Epic fail. So, please excuse my really horrendous phone pictures once again (this has been a bad week for it!).
Anyway. This is the third edition of the British Designer Collective, a collaboration between the British Fashion Council and Bicester Village to showcase the incredible young British talent we have, as well as being able to make them more accessible at incredibly discounted prices. This year, the BDC boasts names like Emma Cook, Erickson Beamon, Holly Fulton, Jonathan Saunders, Jean-Pierre Braganza, Peter Pilotto, Osman, Nicholas Kirkwood and Markus Lupfer to name a few.
The British Designer Collective pop up shop will be open at Bicester Village from March 22nd until May 9th. After that, the shop will be transformed into a menswear boutique – from May 16 until the end of June.
As if you needed any other excuse to go – this week also marked the launch of the Charlotte Olympia pop up shop, another great young talent! Open until May 31!
Now, as I’m sure you’ll understand, it would have been rude to go all that way and not actually shop, right? I bought a beautiful Lily and Lionel leopard scarf at the pop up and discovered that Prada actually sell a small selection of Miu Miu in their store, so I bought myself this gorgeous navy flare skirt.
Mr Anastasia & Duck bought a scarf… and got the world’s biggest Prada box:
Despite the massive fail with my camera, all in all a pretty good day!
xoxo
I love Chambord. Whenever I see the beautiful bottle anywhere, I get such fond memories of my first few seasons at London Fashion Week, where we’d always get a glass of champagne with Chambord before each show (oh, how times have changed!). So when they approached me to do a little video with them for their Facebook page, I of course jumped at the opportunity. Talking about fashion whilst sipping one of my favourite drinks? Yes, please! I even *almost* forgot about my terrible fear of cameras and managed to get through it without too many retakes (ahem…), and you can see the result below. (I haven’t actually watched it myself, because I can’t stand seeing and hearing myself on camera!)
After the interview, the lovely folks from Chambord gave me a jumbo-sized bottle of the raspberry liqueur, so I decided to create some lush cocktails with it. There’s lots of great cocktail recipes on the Chambord Facebook page, but we decided to invent our own. All for your benefit, of course! You’re very welcome… Anywhoooo, below you’ll find the video and 3 of the recipes which got a unanimous yes from my guests.
Make sure you check out the Chambord Facebook page to see some of the previous blogger videos (which include Fashion Foie Gras and Mademoiselle Robot).
Chambord & Champagne
The best way to enjoy Chambord fully is in champagne, no doubt about it. This is a little update on the classic drink!
2/3 Champagne (or Cava!)
1/6 Chambord
1/6 Elderflower Cordial
Mint leaf and raspberry for garnishing
Chambord, Vodka and Ginger Beer
A really fresh, summery cocktail. Definitely hit the spot for me!
1/4 Chambord
1/4 Vodka (I used Russian Standard Gold – never get a hangover with this one!)
1/2 Ginger Beer
A dash of cranberry juice
A dash of lemon juice
Black and Red raspberries for garnishing
Chambord Island Ice Tea
We named it that way, because there’s a lot of different spirits in this one! There’s so much fruit in this one, I’m pretty sure one of these actually counts as one of your five-a-day!
1/5 Chambord
1/5 Rum (we used Bacardi)
1/5 Gin (Tanqueray – the one and only)
1/5 Tonic water
1/5 Fresh Strawberry, Raspberry and Mint puree (popped them all in my beloved Magimix, and boom! – a lovely fresh and fruity juice!)
A dash of lemon juice
Corrie Nielsen, an Alex Loves favourite, is getting her own ice cream flavour for London Fashion Week at luxury gelateria Scoop.
To coincide with London Fashion Week and the opening of Scoop’s new South Kensington shop, they invited Fashion Fringe winner Corrie Nielsen to create her ultimate flavour (dream come true, or what?!). The Corrie Nielsen will be an extra dark chocolate with a hint of orange blossom from Paris.
Of the – slightly odd – collaboration, Corrie said: “I can’t believe I’m getting an ice cream named after me and that I got to help design the flavour. I’m beyond honoured and I hope people love it! This is definitely going to be one of the most memorable collaborations of my design career. Scoop has been wonderful, and they truly are the most luxurious of gelatos, hands down.”
What’s even better, all first and second row guests at her catwalk show on Feb 17th will get a voucher for a free scoop of Corrie in one of the 3 shops (available from Feb 17-22).
Hurrah! I’m so there!
