Basic with a twist: Bicester Village

Yesterday we went to Bicester Village with work, to

get to know the place and understand what it has to offer our clients.

It's just about 1,5 hour outside London, near Oxford.

I have never been there before, which is very strange ;), so
it was agreat opportunity not to be missed when we were invited.

We were picked up by a mini-bus outside the office and we were lucky
with no traffic on the motorway, so we were there within 1h10.

We got to experience the VIP-Lounge, which is a lounge that is
only availably to pre-book and for groups from approx. 10/15 people
up to max. 35/40 people. The room is beautiful and has it's own balcony

over-looking part of the village. It's a great room to relax in,
in-between shopping and you can leave your bags/stuff ,have some
refreshments etc..We were welcomed with a glass of bubbly by our
lovely contact and some afternoon tea sweets. The room was so cute
and stylish, so many perfect details and pictures and
coffee-table "fashion" books, I honestly wish it was my living room :)

After a small chat and glass of bubbly, it was time to hit the shops.

Most of the shops have up to 60% discounted rate compared to retail
rate, but keep in mind the clothes are from last season or later.

We were also given a VIP-card which entitles us to an extra 10%

discount on the discount, but not all the shops accepted the VIP-card
(example. PRADA) and also in some shops the item had to cost £100
or more for us to be able to use the extra 10% discount, which was
quite disappointing I must admit. There were a lot of shops, but we tried
to narrow it down and only visit the ones that we were interested in, as we
were quite tight on time. Me and my bff visited: MK, DKNY, DVF,
JIMMY CHOO, BURBERRY, RAG&BONE, AGENT PROVOCATEUR,
DIOR, ALEXANDER MQUEEN, CELINE, YSL, D&G, MISSONI,
SERGIO ROSSI, VALENTINO, WOLFORD, to name a few..

there are many more shops, but we didn't have time to visit each one.

The good thing is that they are all located more or less in one area,

so your close to everything.

After 1 hour we met up with the rest of our

colleagues to have a complimentary "late" lunch at Busaba Ethai,

heard so much about this place, so I was happy to finally try it,

I always loved Thai food, and this was amazing!

It was great to catch up with our colleagues over lunch and hear their

thoughts about the shops and if they bought anything.

We were all in decision mode at lunch time, whether or not

to buy the things we had tried on. (Tip: always ask if they have your size

or a new item then the ones on the shop floor - as they keep

a lot in the stock room etc..)

After lunch we only had 1 more hour to browse/shop before the
bus was going to pick us up and take us back to London.
We were rushing through the shops and unfortunately the weather
was not too nice, it was very windy and raining a lot.
(Note! this is not a inside complex, this is outside and the shops are lying next to eachother
like independent shops, some shops even had queues, like: Prada, UGG, Gucci..)

For international shoppers, they also do instant tax-refund on-sight now,

so that is great!

I bought 2 items, something for me and something as a gift,

which were both good priced compared to retail price.

Overall, I think some prices were still quite high, I had other

expectations, that prices would be much better, as after all

these are stuff from past collections. But apparently during January sales,

is the best time to get extra discounts. I mean I do like my

certain brands, but honestly some people just go bananas and buy for

the sake of it being a "branded item" and "discounted" and that to me is

quite ridiculous. You should always be wise when it comes to spending

money and always think "do I really need this" in that way