Wearing my sky blue Lacoste and your knee socks.

Leather jacket: The Kooples. Denim smock dress: £36, ASOS. Customised leather half-pint bag: c/o Brit-Stitch. Contrast knee socks: £5.40, ASOS. Anna boots: £76.50, Topshop. Necklace: won in Dina's giveaway, Toujours Toi. Lipstick: Topshop Really Ruby.

Never one to pass up an Arctic Monkeys reference, the knee socks have been back with a vengeance over the past couple of weeks. Paired with my trusty leather jacket, I felt rather toasty as I headed along the Jubilee line on my way to Wimbledon to meet Camilla and Jazmine for dinner at Aubaine. However much I love Wimbledon, it's not an area I very often explore, and the last time I visited was for Jazmine's birthday. This time she knew I was coming, however, and when Camilla arrived she showed us around the village, and led us straight to the charity shops! Is there really a better combination than good company, food, and some of your favourite ladies?

Smock dresses are a relatively new thing for me as I tend to belt everything, or at least have something that's vaguely flattering, but sometimes it's nice to wear something which you can just throw on and not worry about how much you've eaten for tea (or the McFlurries I picked up on the way to my friend's later that evening). I've been living in this little asos number recently namely because my wardrobe is currently behind a box that requires a lot of effort to move, but also as I've seen both Lisette and Lizzie pull it off admirably. Despite having made it my bag of choice recently (read: there's too much stuff in it to transfer the contents daily) my brit-stich half-pint bag has only just made it into some outfit photos. When asked if I wanted to trial their new 'Make-Your-Own' feature, I toyed with the idea of pastels for about two minutes before reverting to my failsafe navy and white combination - just imagine it with a striped tee! I've also noticed that Brit-Stitch are running a competition on their facebook page to win your own customised bag, so good luck if you enter!

Read more

I've seen those English dramas too.

Polkadot blouse: mum's, vintage Sarsaparilla. Leather skirt: £4, charity shop (similar here, and probably won't fall apart the first time you wear it). Two-tone flats: 50p, Russell and Bromley via ebay. Shopper bag: c/o Laura Ashley. Lipstick: Topshop Really Ruby.

Apart from the obligatory burger snaps, you may have noticed a few bloggers' instagrams had a slightly different backdrop than usual yesterday. Lucy, Kristabel, Carrie and I headed West to visit our pal Dina in her university city of Oxford. One of the most beautiful cities in the country, with undoubtedly some of the most awe-inspiring architecture around (yep, I'm the girl who walks round staring up at the buildings rather than looking where she's going), I couldn't wait to head back after my two years away. 

If you don't know much about the system at Oxford, applicants apply to a college rather than to the university as a whole, and each college has its own mini campus. Dina's at Lincoln, so we headed there first to have a wander around the quad and check out the Harry Potter-style dining hall (they actually filmed it down the road at Christ Church), which put my own university's carnatic halls to shame. We meandered around many of the city's colleges, including Magdalen (where my outfit photos were taken!), which has its own deer park, and New, home to some of the most colourful flower gardens I've ever come across. The location for our mandatory group shot (taken by the ever-patient Sonia) was underneath the bridge of sighs, which should probably be renamed the bridge of lols after the amount of failed jumping shots we attempted to take - you can't have everything, after all.

We probably needed the exercise after our lunch at Atomic Burger on Cowley Road. In true fashion, we piled in at peak time, and squeezed around a table with Dina's university friends. I sampled the Jake n Elwood (blue cheese, bacon, and onions), although I noticed a Messy Jessie and Bandit around our table. It's definitely worth popping into if you're in the area, even if only for the Barbie-themed toilets. We rolled (nearly literally...) into Pierre Victoire for dinner for something a little more refined, if that's how you classify eating with a knife and fork. Sadly we then went our separate ways into the night, after our day of being tourists. Looks like I'll be heading back soon though - we didn't even have time to go punting!

Read more

And when he does his little rounds round the boutiques of London town.

Although my mother and I have our differences (namely about the definition of "late"), there are some things we have in common. Okay, the photos are very clearly of a handbag (from this post) and a bread bin, which don't often bear similarities, but they're both designed under the name of Biba. Today you can buy Biba from House of Fraser, but in my mum's day it was Kensington Church Street which housed the clothing brand.

When Biba was first around it was a bit different to today. To buy clothes that your mum wouldn't be seen dead in (soz ma, my skirt is that short), you had to get the train to High Street Kensington. You could walk down to Kensington market to get your Marc Bolan tees, but if you continued a bit further and turned right onto Church Street you'd find Bus Stop and Biba. Bus Stop, I am reliably informed, was filled with amazing tea dresses and floral blouses, but was ruled over by fearsome shop assistants who stood on chairs by the till to catch out shoplifters in the packed space. Further down the road, Biba was a kind of haven. It was a different world, where every item of clothing you could possibly want to own was to be found hung up in the corner, and you could go out on Saturday and never see anyone else in the same thing. From a boutique the size of a kitchen, it expanded into the empty Derry and Toms department store, and sold everything from ball gowns to, um, loo roll. I used to sneak into Waterstones and read the Biba book for the photos of the amazing art deco restaurant, because it sadly no longer exists as it expanded way too quickly for it to survive. My mum's favourite piece was a red satin jacket which she has since, unfortunately for me, donated to a charity shop, but you can always see original bits pop up on ebay all the time.

Although I could talk about Biba for hours on end (trust me, this is a very condensed version of the draft in my head), I'll just let you know about A Party With Biba being hosted at House of Fraser stores this Thursday 12th. There'll be a champagne reception in their Oxford Street store to showcase the new collection and there'll be a tote bag thrown in for purchases over £75. I've got my eye on this perfect Chung coat, but it's hardly like I need any more excuses to look like I've walked out of the 'sixties.

This post was written in collaboration with House of Fraser, but I do love Biba, that is an original, and I'm still crying over the loss of that jacket.

Read more