AMB goes on holiday!

I'm off to Cyprus tomorrow to enjoy some much needed sunshine with my boyfriend for a week. My suitcase in jammed full of delights from Jonathan Saunders, Christopher Kane and Alexander Wang so I fully expect to show these off on the blog when I return. Am still feeling slightly panicked about having no internet for a week and therefore no Twitter, seeing now show coverage from Milan or Paris Fashion Weeks (this one is causing me the most grief!) and not being able to check my emails for a whole week! But, I am in a strange way looking forward to a life without the shackles of social media if only for 7 days.

Have a lovely week everyone. I'll mostly be stuffing my face with houmous and olives...

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London Fashion Week: I can be your Ice Cream.

It's hard to ignore the plethora of ice cream and sorbet shades we've seen at London Fashion Week for Spring/Summer 2012.

As a girl who wears mainly neutrals (ok, let's face it - black), I'm excited to inject some softer shades into my wardrobe come Spring. And my favourites? Christopher Kane's Johnston knits teamed with feathery light metallic organzas and sophisticated embellishment, Mulberry's lemon cream shades, Richard Nicoll's ethereal printed pastel dresses and Jonathan Saunders' Miami-Beach prints teamed with graduated colour. I'll be wearing mine with Charlotte Olympia's seaside shoes.

Runway images © Style.com / Charlotte Olympia images © Grazia, 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

London Fashion Week: Jaeger, Jonathan Saunders and House of Holland

London Fashion Week is a great passion of mine; I worked backstage at some fantastic shows between 2008-2010 and it was incredible being able to witness first hand the vast amount of work that goes into putting a fashion show together (I loved it so much, I based my entire final major project at university around it!). Whilst it is incredibly sad not working on LFW currently, it is interesting to have a different view on it this time - from blogs to tweets, it is great to have the time to sit and sift through everyones comments on every show (and to be able to watch most of them online!) Here are my favourite shows so far...

Jaeger

Stuart Stockdale is no reiventing the wheel here, but is creating fabulous wearable and commercial clothes for a mass audience. Stand out pieces; the hot pink silk shirt, the beautiful outwear, the tomato red colour pops and the return of shearling! (and great casting again by my former employer Russell Marsh).

Jourdan Dunn / Maddie Kulicka

Suzie Bird / Marike Le Roux

Auguste Abeliunaite Tomasuite / Sara Blomqvist / Maddie Kulicka

Jonathan Saunders

One of the most genuine designers I have ever met, it was an absolute pleasure to work on Jonathan's shows for  2 seasons and work alongside his partner Adam, who is a very dedicated hard working associate casting director (and former model for Dries, Prada etc!)

This was Jonathan's best ever collection on my opinion; the use of colour in the tropical prints was transfixing and the shapes very wearable and;  Love the Louboutin shoes as well! 

Suzie Bird / Melissa Tammerjin

Kirsi Pyrhonen / Fabiana Mayer

Sara Blomqvist / Janice Alida

Marike Le Roux / Jourdan Dunn

House Of Holland

Somehow looking at this collection reminded me of Luella: for a cool young British girl who takes inspiration from her country's icons and puts a twist of things - tweed paired with striped socks and neon trims, a fantastic collection. Love love love the 'Hawt Couture' tee - a must have!

Tali Lennox / Jessica Clarke

Amanda Norgaard / Kelli Lumi / Auguste Abeliunaite Tomasuite

All photos © Style.com