08.11

Cider-with-Rosie-SS16-press-season-24

Oh my, these last couple of weeks have been such busy ones! I’ve been up and down from London so frequently recently that I should probably have just camped out in a hotel room somewhere, my emails seem to have been pinging non-stop, and I’m certain I’ve missed at least two or three of the Very Important Jobs on my to do list.

Part of the reason for all this business has been that it’s press preview season! It rolls around twice a year, though this one, in the midst of the pre-Christmas rush, always seems to be just that bit more hectic.

I thought it might be fun to share a sneak peek of what’s coming up in the Spring/Summer ’16 collections from a few of my favourite stores, though be warned! You might be about to fall back in love with all things pastel-hued and floaty, and wish we weren’t teetering on the brink of winter…

~ ~ ~

L A U R A   A S H L E Y  > >

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01. Soft velvet upholstery, muted green tones, & a line up of birds! That print is available on a few pieces, but I love that little cushion best.

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02. A simple grey and white colour scheme, and a beautifully modern chair. I loved this little collection from Laura Ashley especially. It’s a departure from their classic designs, and I’m keen to see more when the full collection is released!

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03. Pale blue patterns (abstract prints, & floral embroidery), and a collection of lamps with bases that can be filled at home with anything you might like to display! Clever, right?

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04. A dreamy set of floral gardening mugs and a matching Thermos. I just loved this set- so much prettier than my regular set of cream and green enamel mugs!

C A T H   K I D S T O N   > >

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01. Delicate pale blue knitwear, with the prettiest garden-themed embroidery! {Plus a teeny tiny baby swimsuit just behind, that I couldn’t help but coo over. Gorgeous, isn’t it?}

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02. Cath Kidston’s signature floral print pieces, combined with feminine broderie collar detailing and a 1950s silhouette. Oh, and hydrangeas everywhere, in celebration of the new hydrangea print that’s being released this spring!

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03. Scalloped collars with contrast stitching, and bold graphic floral patterns.

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04. A pretty collection of toiletries in the signature pink rose stripe pattern.

R A D L E Y  > >

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01. A bold bright yellow mini-collection of bags, offset with grey on the larger pieces. I loved the tiny cross body bags from this range- so perfect to throw on when only a few essentials are needed!

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02. Clean lines and sporty shapes, for a summer sports-themed collection…

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03. Bright coral and palest pink, in Radley’s signature smooth leather. I love that colour, don’t you?

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04. That grey bag to the right of the photo above was my favourite from the whole collection. It reminded me of a ballet bag I used to carry when I was really little, and that elephant grey is just so chic. The shape is such an unusual one too!

 B O D E N  > >

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01. A classic trench coat, given a spring update in pale baby pink. Already hankering after this one!

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02. A colour palette that just screams summer holidays: rich, egg-yolk yellow, blush pink, indigo and pale chambray blues, and the whitest white.

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03. A couple of khaki pieces caught my eye- this spotty lightweight collar shirt, and an effortlessly chic sleeveless jumpsuit.

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04. Mixed prints with an abstract floral theme. I loved that blue dress right at the back of the rail especially!

~ ~ ~

As far as I know, most of these collections will be available from January onwards! And is anyone else panicking to think that that’s less than two months away?!

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19.01

Cider-with-Rosie-Netflix-press

You know those articles that go round and round the internet, ’10 ways’ this, ’25 times’ that? The type of articles that we read on Buzzfeed, and then three weeks later pop up in our Facebook feeds via a ‘share’ from our parents? ;) Well, in my imaginary article, entitled ’15 ways in which you know your addiction to Netflix might be getting out of hand’, let me add the following as number 1 on the list- when you mention said streaming service so many times on your blog without even realising you’re doing it, Netflix themselves clock that you’re kind of a huge fan! ;) Because that, my friends, is precisely how I found myself in London on the ‘Netflix Catchup Tour’ early last week!

Netflix invited me and a few other bloggers and journalists up to London last week for a couple night’s stay at the sublime Brown’s hotel, to celebrate the release of Season Two of Mr Selfridge! The trip was a total whirlwind and full of so many exciting moments it’s hard to know where to start explaining it all!

I always find that getting the chance to learn more about companies I admire is my always very favourite thing about these wonderful press trip experiences. As a consumer, I suppose I tend not to think very often about the amount of man power and planning and technology that goes into making a service like Netflix available. I take it for granted, and forget that there was a time before we had quite *so* much content available to us at all times- seemingly endless choice, whole series at our fingertips, and intuitive suggestions of what we might like to watch or listen to or catch up on next. The freedom and control we have over our entertainment is pretty incredible, when you come to think about it! Remember when we used to have to consult the TV Times pages in the newspaper for scheduling? And when there only used to be four channels, and then, *GASP!* Channel Five arrived! I vividly remember watching my Mum tune in Channel Five on our telly when it first became available- the excitement was real, I tell you! ;)

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The main focus of the trip was the fabulous Mr Selfridge series, and how Selfridge brought about radical changes in the way we shop that are still in play today. The weekend before the trip I thought it might be fun to sit down and watch a couple of episodes, so that I was up to date on the series. But one episode turned into two, and then three, and then by the time I got to London on Monday evening and settled into an armchair in Brown’s Kipling Room for our ‘silent screening’, I was on episode nine of ten! In fact, when the screening was finished and we were invited through to dinner, I’d just got started on the final episode of Season 1 and was, for probably the first time in my life, reluctant to go and eat! ;)

^^ Multi-tasking at the silent screening! Netflixing, and pre-Instagram editing. You know how it goes ;) ^^

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On Tuesday morning, after a night’s sleep in the world’s most heavenly bed and then breakfast in the hotel, we were met outside Brown’s at 9am sharp by a row of vintage cars. They were some of the most beautiful cars I’ve ever seen (the old Rolls Royce ones especially!) and totally made me rethink my ‘I really don’t want a vintage car as wedding transport’ stance! Milly and I hopped into the back of the Rolls Royce (after snapping a few photos, of course), and were whisked away over to Covent Garden to begin our tour of ‘Mr Selfridge’s London’! 

What I wore :: Hat || Blouse || Watch

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^^ The contrast between centuries old architecture and brand new buildings and shops and innovations is one of my favourite things about London, and so looking up at the huge billboards in Piccadilly Circus from the back of a vintage car was kind of a dream! ^^

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The tour took us to some of the filming locations used in the Mr Selfridge series, and Lisa, our tour guide and an expert on Regency London, was on hand to tie in the fictionalised Mr Selfridge with his real life counterpart! We visited Lady Loxley’s household, the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane (where Mr Selfridge began his affair with gaity girl Ellen Love- the scandal!), and fans of the series will recognise the building above as the Selfridge home. Sadly it was an exterior filming location only- in a dreamworld, we would’ve been able to go wandering inside and perhaps get chance to snoop round Mrs Rose Selfridge’s wardrobe! 

The tour rounded off at the famous Selfridges store itself, where we were whisked inside out of the chill for a few happy hours spent enjoying afternoon tea and a little shopping too. So you see, it was sort of the best! More photos to come tomorrow, because you didn’t think I’d mention an afternoon tea and *not* share photos, did you?

Selfridges-Cider-with-Rosie-London  

Fans of Mr Selfridge- are you as excited as I am for the release of Series 3? I’m kind of tempted to wait for it to be released on Netflix, so that I can set aside a weekend for watching the whole series in back-to-back episodes!

** Photos of me taken by Doug Peters.

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Posted in DAY TRIPS, LONDON, PRESS LAUNCH, PRESS TRIP, WINTER

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24.11

ciderwithrosielondon

I was scrolling through Buzzfeed just before dropping off to sleep sometime around the beginning of last week, and came across this article that supposedly rounds up the best places in the world to grab a hot chocolate. According to the piece, Konditor & Cook’s hot chocolate is up there amongst the best, and I immediately was obsessed with the idea of trying it out. My darling Freya and I had made plans to meet each other for an hour or so sometime near Waterloo on Tuesday lunchtime, and since when I mentioned it (on our billion-messages long WhatsApp thread) Freya was all ‘Oh my GOD I love that place!’, our date was set. Chocolate-lunchtime-winter-park-picnic a-go! {The title needs refining, sure, but that’ll do the job for now…}

I’d spent the morning in London over New Bond Street-way, at French Sole’s Spring Summer 15 press preview. The collection, by the way, is completely amazing- I could easily have snapped up at least twenty different pairs of shoes there and then! A few of my favourites are on my Instagram just here. Once I was finished oohing and aahing at the press preview, I headed back in the direction of Waterloo and met up with Miss Freya on the corner of one road that look like Coronation Street, and another that looked like real old school Victoria London. Just with a few orange traffic cones and temporary barriers added for good measure.

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^^ Obsessed with the purple shop-front! Doesn’t it look like something out of Harry Potter? ^^

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We met up right inside the bakery, loaded up with sweet stuff (a brownie topped with fudge, salted caramel, and stuffed with chocolate chunks, a slice of Victoria sponge, and a hot chocolate a-piece), and then headed out to a nearby park to eat our chocolate-y picnic. The hot chocolates were good (dark and rich, just sweet enough, and not at all bitter), but maybe not good enough to be rated amongst some of the best in the world if you ask me. The brownie though? That was *totally* amazing.

The sea salt caramel on top is what makes it, of course. Of course! In what instance has salted caramel ever been added to *anything* and not made it more amazing than it was before? It was so insanely rich though that I had to save half and bring it home with me for a home-from-London treat. I know. I’ve become a ‘save the other half for later’ kind of person. Disgusted with myself. 

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When Freya and I first sat down to our picnic, a crowd of hopeful pigeons came a-begging. We didn’t want to share, so shooed them away. But since Freya’s cake wasn’t as fresh and tasty as she’d hoped, it turned out that the pigeons were in luck and got to share with us after all! What started out as a bit of regular feeding, turned into Freya getting pretty up close and personal with her pigeon friends. I’ll let the photos do the talking….
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^^ This little guy ventured over, but wasn’t a big fan of Victoria Sponge. Or the pigeons, for that matter… ^^

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^^ Love the old vs. new street signs. ^^

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We spent the remainder of our hour together playing photography (Freya had a new lens with her, which has done nothing to help my craving for a new piece of camera kit!), and also talking about everything from weddings, coats, and hair dye, to whether or not you can catch bird flu from pigeons and how stealthily strong the cocktails were that we’d drunk the previous Saturday. And then, just like that, our hour was up and we parted ways. Freya headed back to her office, I meandered back to Waterloo to catch the next train home, and snacked on little broken-off chunks of brownie the whole way back.

If you’re ever in the Waterloo area, promise me you’ll swing by Konditor & Cook for a brownie and a hot chocolate, okay? And hey, K&C- if you ever fancy opening a Surrey branch…I’ll be first in line on opening day!

What I wore :: Tweed jacket {past season Toast, similar here} || Scarf || Shirt || Trousers {past season Zara, similar here} || Ballet flats || Satchel bag

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Posted in DAY TRIPS, FOOD, FRIENDS, LONDON, PHOTOGRAPHY, PRESS LAUNCH, RESTAURANT, WINTER

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17.11

Rosie-blogger

Breakfast isn’t something I’d normally associate with Selfridges. Normally, when I think Selfridges, I think of handbags, Christmas hampers (more on these later!), and tree decorations. Of that wonderful food court, and the even more wonderful chocolate department. Of being able to find every label under the sun, from Topshop to Celine, yet never quite managing to find my way out of the same door through which I entered the shop. Never really breakfast though, at least, not until the visit I made to Le Chalet the week before last…

Last Friday, I was at the train station before the sun had even risen fully. It was bitterly cold, and the sweet lady in the cafe at the station gave me a cup of tea on the house after I’d told her all about what a mad rush I’d had trying to find a place to park my car and not miss my train. I met up with a few other bloggers at Selfridges a little after 9, and we were taken up to Le Chalet, Selfridges’ beautiful (and oh so very festive!) rooftop restaurant. It’s open all along one side, and the views over the city were a sight to be seen. Not to mention, all those windows made taking photos a total dream ;)

Le Chalet is, as you’d imagine, a total winter/Christmas haven. Each chair has a thick woollen checked blanket folded over it, the walls are decorated with branches festooned with lights, and the bar looks like something you’d kind in a ski lodge (all dark wood and rows of warming spirits). The food was pretty great too! I highly recommend the avocado toast, and the flat white was rich and punchy. Next time though, I’m definitely having one of those ‘choctails’ 

Smoked-salmon-and-eggs-on-toast Flat-White-Cider-with-Rosie Selfridges-hampers-Rosie Cider-with-Rosie-Selfridges Le-Chalet-bar-Cider-with-Rosie Breakfast-at-Selfridges

So once breakfast was done and dusted, we had chance to sample Selfridge’s range of Christmas hampers. They range in price from £50 to a whopping £5000(!)- you’d have to be *really* good all year round to deserve one of those, wouldn’t you? (p.s. Just look at what’s inside it! It’d make for one hell of a Christmas day!) The hampers I think look the loveliest  (and aren’t quite so bank-breaking) are the No Fun Like Work hatbox (containing tea, shortbread, a giant chocolate coin, and a mug), the Festive Selection hamper (a traditional box containing everything from coffee and cinder toffee to chutney and wine), and the happily indulgent Chocolate Break hatbox.

It’s hard to pick a stand-out item of all the things we sampled (crackers, cheese, sea salt caramel biscuits, olives), but I will say that Jason didn’t get to eat one single olive from the jar I brought home with me, because I demolished them so fast. A testament to their tastiness… 

Selfridges-Christmas-hampers Selfridges-chocolate-bombes

^^ Those bombes are amazing. Though my favourite one, the peanut butter and chocolate, seems to have been discontinued since I sampled it back at Selfridges’ Christmas in July event! A tragedy if ever I knew one! ^^

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^^ Nothing better than panettone at Christmas time, don’t you think? Our family tradition is to pick one up at the same time as buying our tree, and then we snack on slices of toasted and buttered panettone whilst we decorate! It’s one of my favourite traditions we keep! :) ^^

Once the tasting was over, we had a little wander back through Selfridges Christmas department to admire the decorations and lights and displays, and I stopped in to say hi to the handbags too, before heading back out on to a very busy Oxford Street. If you’re in the region of Oxford Street over the coming weeks, Selfridges’ windows alone are worth a visit. Decked out in fir and lights and with amazing, whimsical displays behind the windows themselves- they’re quite the sight!

And now, I’m ready for Christmas to be here!

Christmas-lights-at-LeChalet Rosie-Selfridges

What I wore :: Cardigan || Top || Skirt || Boots || Handbag

p.s. Thanks to Rose for playing photographer for me. Girl’s got skills!

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Posted in CHRISTMAS, LONDON, PRESS LAUNCH, RESTAURANT, WINTER

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