Fashion for your home

We all love fashion and dressing the seasons must haves! But what about your homes? Should they be left out from the fashion scene and stay the same alllllll of the time?
NOOOO – there is a lot of things going on in trends fore your home – and one firm that actually takes the street styles into your home is (ta ta taaa) H and M…

There aren’t many shops selling the goods yet but if you go to their homepage there are lot of inspiration to be found and lots of cheap cool stuff for our home!

Check out the images attached and go and visit your local H and M site to shop!

PS. The sale is still on there…

Shopping in Brighton

I love to shop when I travel, or is it travel to shop... Either way, Brighton (UK) is one of my favourite cities do so. Not only does it has a beach, a good climate (for England) and a really open-minded a laid back atmosphere, you also find great shops there.

I also like to go shopping in England to observe new trends, which normally start in England and then move on to the rest of Europe. Yes, I know you can do this on the internet too, but I do enjoys tumbling around in shops and of course do some people watching while I am there.

Brighton has two main different "shopping scenes": Firstly The lanes and North lain, where you will find small, different, funky, retro, fashionable, 2nd and antique shops (as well as restaurants and bars). I guess you can compare with some areas of London, such as Camden or Portobello, but I personally prefer going to Brighton.
Secondly, the other main shopping area is around Churchill square, where you will find a shopping centre and around it many high street shops. All though I really enjoy walking around in the small lanes and finding small gadgets, I normally end up doing my shopping around Churchill square.

Now a list of the shops I visit the most when I go to Brighton:

- T.K.Maxx: outlet of designer labels. A great place to go if you have time and a bit of patience. They sell everything from clothes, accessories, beauty products to things for your house. The shop itself is a bit messy, but have a look at their web page, where you also can find great bargains. E.g. this CK handbag - was 100 pounds, now 50 pounds.

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Personally I love the shop for its accessories; I have taken home several handbags and designer sunglasses from there, not paying more than 20 pounds per pair.


- Office: My favourite English shoe shop. It's not cheap, but the shoes are fabulous!

- Topshop: I rarely end up buying in there, but it's great for inspiration.

- Miss Selfridge: Tophop's little sister - same style and more or less same prices as Topshop.

- New look: English fashion and high street. Cheaper that Topshop, but more expensive than it was some years ago. Here you can find shoes and boots for no more than 20 pounds.

- Primark: Love the store in Brighton - 3 floors huge floors of accessible fashion. I always end up coming out with a bag full of things. This time I controlled myself and only bought the things you see below for a mere 16 pounds.




General spotted trends: new collections look quite similar to previous ones. Main trends which I saw in almost all the shops are the sailor one (everything is in blue - red - white, white stripes and anchor pictures) and clothes in light/pastel salmon colours.

Different accessory…

Here is something new – a cell phone made of 18 carets gold!

Ok – the design is a little old and isént outstanding but a phone made of GOLD!

The phone can be use as an accessory along with your jewellery and pep up any outfit…and the best thing is, that it isn’t as expensive as one might think – it is “only” about 110 Euros!

Cant wait to flash my golden phone when walking down the street talking to my girlfriends in the best "Posh spice" style I can manage.....

Gadget: Ipod nano 5th generation

Ok, normally I put on my clothing shopping on this blog, but I just wanted to share my newest gadget with you; my new ipod nano 5th generation in red.

Main advantages/improvements compared to the Ipod 4th generation:
- you can grab videos with it
- it has radio
- you can see the cover of your albums
- more space (I got the 8 GB also available in 16 GB for 30€ more)

I bought in on the Spanish Apple Store where it is not cheaper that in stores (nor more expensive, because you don't have to pay for the dispatch of the product). But it does have a few advantages;
- you can buy colours in the website, which you don't find in the shops (e.g. red)
- you can have two lines inscribed on the back on the ipod for free! (see example below)

Price all included: 139€

Shoe shopping in Vente Privée

Vente privée has previously been mentioned on this blog; the website where you can find online sale of fashionable brands.

This week in Spain they had a sale on Cortefiel (Spanish, a bit on the high end, not very cheap Spanish brand). Normally I don't buy much stuff in the shop (which you can find in Barcelona on the main shopping street Portal del Angel) but on the online sales, I did found two pair of shoes which I impulsively bought (there was only 3 pairs left of each pair of shoes!).

Black gangster style ballerinas - was 50€, now reduced to 22€.

















Beige skin shoes with a small heal.
Was 70€ - now 22€

In Vente privée you receive 8 € when someone you have invited to Vente Privée make their first purchase. I had two coupons, which meant that I got a 16€ reduction. So with the 6€ you have to pay to get it sent, all in all I paid 34€

Results of the Sales Shopping

As promised in my previous post; here some of the results from the January Sales.


One of my first purchases was this blazer with matching trouser from Zara, which I bought for the office (even though the blazer can easily be used as casual wear as well).
When is comes to outfits, it is always a good idea to buy them one of the first days of the sales, otherwise you risk not finding one of the parts in your size. Therefore, I would not call this the buy of the year all though it was reduced some.
Blazer was before 40€, was now reduced to 30€. The trousers were 30€ before, now was reduced to 20€ - all in all 50€ for the whole suit.

Also still during the first week of shopping, we went to Primark, which I have previously mentioned, had surprisingly good sales.
I found this purple winter coat. Was before 35€ and now reduced to under half price: 15€.











Last week I went to Mango, where I found this dress, also really good for the work wardrobe. Before it was 75€ and now reduced to 20€.
This year in they have had amazing sales in Mango!

Sales - Rebajas - Soldes

Here in Barcelona, there are two big events of the year, which I look forward to like a child before Christmas; the sales! The first one of the year starts after the Spanish Christmas "Reyes" (holy kings) is over, the 7th of January and the second one of the year starts the 1st of July (summer sales). The sales will normally last during 2 months, but it is wise to come during the first couple of weeks, if not everything good as well as sizes will be gone.

Since the financial crisis, the sales have just gotten better and better. Now the clothing shops have to get rid off all the stock they have not been able to sell during the year and they want to do this as quick as possible! The only things you will find is not on sale is the newest collection in the shop.

I remember that a few years ago when the shops would start their sales with careful 20% - 30% reductions. Now, however, the first day of sales the most common sign is 50% off, but it can go as far as 70%, again from the very first day!
Then already from the second or third week (or sooner) you will see Segundas Rebajas (second sales), which means that the reductions get even more interesting.

My friend and co-writer of this blog went during the first week (this article will be followed up by one with photos of the bargains) and found some pretty interesting things:

In Mango we found that they directly reduced all their clothes to 50% and we found some pretty nice and cheap stuff.

In Zara we found that they have been more reluctant to reduce everything from the beginning. Clothes were generally reduced around 25%-30%. If you don't have your eyes on something you just must have, my advise is to wait until it gets cheaper.

In Riverisland (English high-street shop, recently opened in Barcelona) we got a pleasant surprice; on the fourth day of the sales they didn't only had most of the shop at 50% off, but they had also added another 50% of the already reduced clothes!

In Primark, where I normally don't find clothes reduced when I go to the UK during sales, they did actually have some offers. Not as many as in other shops in Barcelona, but we did manage to find some excellent bargains.

H&M had quite a lot of sales, but not anything of the interesting stuff. Was honestly a bit disappointed over this years sales here, because normally it is quite good. I guess this depends on the season.

Also worth mentioning is that it is not only the main street shops that have sales; also designer shops such as D&G, Burbury and Chanel have excellent sales - up to 50% from the first day.
Actually one of the only shops I have visited that did not have ANY sales was American Apparel - which I found quite disappointing since it is not even a designer shop.

This was just few of many shops worth visiting in the month of January or July should you be in Spain. But I warn you, you will not get much sight seeing done with these nice offers.