OUTLET SHOPPING OUTSIDE PARIS

I'm currently spending time in Paris and I thought I'd post about this place where I went yesterday, La Vallée Village. Few friends of mine managed to convince me to go there with them. I have to say, I love the idea of outlets but I've never really found anything from them. I don't have the patience to queue up, I don't like to try things on several times and I never seem to find anything in my size.  

However, this little village can be a cute place to visit if you are planning a trip to Paris and you are into shopping (and you have more patience than I do). It reminds me of Bicester Village, another outlet where I once went outside London.

You'll find young and cool French high street brands there: Maje, Sandro, Zadig & Voltaire, Vanessa Bruno etc. amongst others such as Céline, Valentino, Givenchy, Loro Piana, Marni, Jimmy Choo, Ralph Lauren, Monclair and so on.

I bought few T-shirts, so not worth the trip going there for me, but I think it's a matter of luck what you'll find in outlets. You never know!


Heidi x

I LOVE

I have a serious boot crush. I absolutely love these Sam Edelman booties in both black and cream. They would go with absolutely everything and the thick heel looks comfortable too. Definitely one of the items on my autumn / winter wish list.

Minna x

AT THE FINNISH AMBASSADOR'S HUMBLE HOUSE

Last night I spent a fun evening at the Ambassador of Finland's beautiful residence, which to be honest, wasn't really that humble... The event was the launch of Nokian by Julia Lundsten collection. 

There were boots everywhere. Different colors, shapes and styles. I had no idea that the collection was so vast.

That is Julia herself on the left next to the Ambassador's lovely wife, Liisa. They are both wearing boots from the collection. If only you could see them better in the picture...

I absolutely love the photography in the campaign. 

(Talking about photography I have to apologise for the picture quality... I don't like posting grainy, yellow pictures but I wasn't prepared to carry my flash around with me. Hence I decided that some of the pictures were better off as black & white.)

We were served some excellent Finnish goodies such as these tiny round pieces of rye bread with herring and quail's egg.

The dress code was "lounge suit"... Not a dress code I was familiar with so I had to do some googling just to make sure I wasn't going to show up in a casual outfit when everyone else was wearing a ball gown! I found a lot of different descriptions, all of them pretty vague. Like this one:

"Lounge suits are normal business suits, worn for semi-formal occasions with a shirt and tie. The equivalent for women is a skirt or trouser suit, cocktail dress or evening gown depending on the time of day and the occasion."

Hmmm... That doesn't rule out much for us women so I decided to take my chances and show up smart casual.

The Ambassador's house was beautiful inside and out. I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit it. 

And here goes my clean eating! I blame Nokian by Julia Lundsten and their goodie bag! I obviously started demolishing the bar already in a taxi on my way home, carried on whilst making my way up to our flat and without as much as taking my shoes off sat myself down in the kitchen to finish off the rest of it. In one go. I think it took me about 20 minutes in total. Oops. But I have to say it was worth every calorie, there's nothing better than Finnish chocolate. Happy Thursday everyone!


Minna x

FINSK

Sometimes being a blogger can lead you to experience fun things and meet interesting new people. This happened to me recently when I had the pleasure of meeting my fellow Finn Julia Lundsten, a shoe designer behind the brand Finsk. We met in their office, located on a pretty central London square. It had boxes and boxes of shoes stacked up high on each wall. Their LFW preparations seemed to be in full speed and they are also busy with their Nokia collaboration. And yes, even though most of the world knows Nokia for their mobile phones they’re actually also a wellington boot manufacturer. If in England every country house has at least one pair of Hunters in their foyer in Finland the same goes for Nokia wellies! The boots that Julia has designed for Nokia are wellies that don’t look like wellies. They’re the sort of footwear you’d choose to wear on a stylish country weekend, when taking your kids to the park on a wet day or, quite often, just on an ordinary day in London!!

I’m a fan of these pretty and feminine wellies, which are incredibly comfortable to wear.

These are also wellies. The color doesn’t show in the picture very well but it’s a beautiful, deep purple. They come with the orange laces, which looks cool indeed but to tone things down a notch you could just wear them with black ones. Julia was wearing these in black with black laces and I would have never guessed they were wellies!

Finsk’s trademark style is quite different from these every day type of boots. They are best known for their quirky (extremely quirky I may add...) shoes and boots that to me look like pieces of art or something that you could enter a design competition with! :-)

One a little bit tamer pair in that collection did catch my eye though. These boots are just gorgeous! Very me.

Their collection Skin by Finsk however is less quirky and very much wearable. They had a lot of cute booties. This collection is also easier on the wallet.

These pony hair boots were my favourites!

The girls in the office were hard at work.

Right, then onto trying some of Finsk's shoes on! (By the way this was after our "quick" coffee, which ended up lasting for two hours... oops.) First these beauties. Yes, still love them!
 

These wellies were sooo comfy and also very light in comparison to traditional wellies.

And here we go... Do you think these look good on me? I had a good laugh imagining going home wearing them: "honey look what I bought today"! Incredibly though despite my expectations they were just as comfortable as the above wellies. I could have walked in them all day long.

It was lovely to meet Julia and her team and even better our 3-year olds are now playdate friends!

You can find Finsk's website in here and check out their Nokia collaboration collection in here.


Minna x