Inspiration: Daydream, I fell asleep and met the flowers.

When I was in Oxfordshire visiting my sister around a month ago, I took these photos of the blossom trees in her little village; everything I love about Spring. Also, the weekend I visited saw the annual Ducklington Fritillary show taking place. I love village events like this...tea and cakes in the village hall, Church members selling souvenir tea towels...just brilliant. Properly English.

© Alice Mary Barnes, 2011.

Fashion: British Designers' Collective at Bicester Village

This weekend I was down in Oxfordshire to visit my sister, and the designer outlet, Bicester Village, just so happens to be half an hour away, so of course I had to pay a visit. More importantly, I wanted to see the British Designers Collective pop-up shop which is running for six weeks, featuring a whole host of great new British design talent including Richard Nicoll, Felicity Brown and Lara Bohinc.

First impressions of the pop-up shop were fantastic. Loved the very on-trend neon colours used in the store design, including the amazing neon-pink telephone box outside.

I wasn't allowed to take any pictures of the clothes, but the sales assistants were extremely friendly and let me take photos of the store inside (how fantastic are the big jars of gamma orange and pink jellybeans!) 

So did I buy? Well, even for an outlet some of the clothes were a bit out of my price range (I wish I could've afforded a Felicity Brown dress!). I did purchase two Jonathan Saunders t-shirt dresses though - am a massive fan of his printwork so in was great to add these to my collection!

I also made another few purchases at Bicester but that's for another blogpost...

All images © Alice Mary Barnes, 2011