From the department of better late than never, comes these pictures from last month…

During the Olympics last month, the Milan based designers DSquared made an appearance at Holt Renfrew to launch their special edition Olympics hoodie.

The designer twins, Dean & Dan Caten originally from Canada also designed the outfits for the Canadian talent at the Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies.

The Holt Renfrew event as I remember (it’s been over a month after all) was pleasant and relaxed.

Lots of fashionable people showed up, which was great because I spent time chatting with some very stylish people.

I met a couple who drove all the way up from Everett just for the event.

The guy had on an awesome DSquared belt buckle, I think I might have stared at his crotch a little longer than appropriate.

The event served as a good opportunity for fashionistas to get to meet one (two?) of Canada’s finest designers and also especially great for aspiring designers to meet and talk to real-life successful designers

More pictures below… enjoy!

Next in the ‘Better Late Than Never’ Series; Tinariwen

Westfield London, the largest urban shopping centre in Europe is celebrating its first anniversary this weekend with a series of events and activities.

I bet opening a retail centre developed at £1.6bn amidst a recession last year wasn’t lost on the finance-types or the owners.

It seems like it’s had a good year so far, managing to establish itself as London’s most exciting shopping destination.

My BFF J. mentioned several times how stunning the place and wonderful the shopping experience was.

She was very excited and couldn’t wait for me to see it.

To be honest, I didn’t really share J.’s excitement.

I cringe a little whenever I hear another supermall has opened somewhere in the UK, because I feel it diverts� from quaint High Streets, which I prefer and feel is more British.

Also, I couldn’t imagine how excitingly different a shopping mall could be, I use to spend a ridiculously insane amount of time at Westfield Montgomery, (when it used to be Montgomery Mall) a lifetime ago.

As for upscale, I imagined Tyson’s Galleria – which National Geographic called “the Rodeo Drive of the East Coast”, an out of the way suburban shopping centre with very exclusive shops.

Thankfully Westfield London turned out to be a little different… in a good way.

It has a� distinctive set up.

It combines shops, restaurants, bars, exclusive services and public services in an architecturally beautiful complex located in an urban location.

Its central location makes it easy to get to; it was a short ride to Shepherd’s Bush tube station for us.

There are about a dozen or so restaurants outside lining the terrace on one side, and an informal sitting/meeting area.

The Village is an exclusive section of the mall with high-end retailers like De Beers and Prada.

At the centre of the Village is an elegant champagne bar by Searcys.

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Our final days in London were a bit of a whirlwind. There still seemed so much to do and yet time was closing in on us.

Feeling inspired after the Paris trip, we decided to fit in a little shopping.

It was long overdue, I’d been running around for days with a list of things I absolutely had to have and yet I hadn’t actually managed to buy a single thing.

Things I’d convinced myself I needed so badly and couldn’t find anywhere in North America.

We took the tube to Bond Street Station, walked a few feet west and found ourselves in every shopaholic’s dream.

Bond Street has the most luxurious, elegant and unique shops in London, it’s worth just the browse.

We set off from New Bond Street, I was determined to try on everything! especially stuff I couldn’t afford.

I tried on shoes, jewelery, clothes, perfumes and everything else in between.

Look who we found! ‘Allies’ Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, The sculpture is by Lawrence Holofcener.

I was almost talked into trying on an £18,000 wedding gown – but I had to draw the line somewhere.

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You don’t necessarily think of outlet malls when you think of London, do you?

Outlet shopping is more of a North American thing, so I wasn’t surprised when my (London living) friends and family had no idea what or where the heck Bicester Village was.

The Bicester Village is an outlet centre in Oxfordshire, between London and Birmingham where high-end luxury brands sell their wares at discount prices. Brands include, Vivienne Westwood, Valentino, Jimmy Choo, Agent Provocateur, Pringle of Scotland and a whole slew of others.

I heard about it two years ago from my internet friend J., she calls herself a ‘fashionphile’, takes exotic shopping vacations and writes about it.

She made me promise go to Bicester while I’m in London, “and bring me back a scarf from Folli Follie to remind me of Greece” she said.

Thankfully, I do love outlet shopping – every Canadian living close to the US border probably does (and that’s about three-quarters of the population!). But long before I discovered cross-border shopping I used to do the outlet malls in and around Maryland. My favourites were the ones in Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

I read a lot about this outlet centre before going, we got our train tickets two days earlier. I was looking forward to taking the Chiltern Railways because I used to take that train (and route) years ago when I attended school in Buckinghamshire.

Bicester Village is a nice 50 minute train ride from London Marylebone Station, with great views of the country side.

We even stopped at nice charming stations. We got off at Bicester North and took the village taxi bus (a plush Mercedes van) to the outlet centre.

The outlet centre is built to look like a quaint town square, it’s outdoors and spacious with over 100 stores, cafes and restaurants.

Since it was our first time there and we had all day, we decided to browse every one of the stores, besides it was raining like crazy back in London.

We ended up having a fun day; we stopped for lunch at Villandry and felt very European about it.

I didn’t buy much, some of the prices were still a little bit high for me – I walked through Valentino thinking “wow, that’s sad; I still can’t afford Valentino at discount prices”. There were a few bargains to be had. I got a very cute Anya Hindmarch blouse for £45.00 and a few other accessories� from Luella and Radley.

There were so many things I wanted to get but alas I didn’t want to spend all my money in one place and I hadn’t really budgeted for a big outlet shopping spree.

The complex was crowded with very fashionable looking people, a lot of them tourists.

There were a few ‘locals’, families and young mommies pushing fancy strollers.

It was overall a very nice experience, I’d do this every once in a while if I lived in London.

I can’t wait to go back, I’ve started saving so next time I’ll have a budget!

I went dairy-free about a year and the half ago, except I haven’t been completely diary-free. I’ve given up everything except milk chocolate bars. I don’t eat them often but every once in a while I’ll have a bar. I’ve tried a few dark (dairy-free) chocolate bars and I’m slowly weaning myself off those milky delicious bars.

This was an impulse check-out item purchase; I was in line at Bosa Foods waiting to be checked out when the bright red packaging beckoned. I was a little hungry and for $1.99 I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it.

Kras is a Croatian chocolate manufacturer that’s been in business since 1911 and Dorina is the brand name. Kras has a popular Choco Bar (or Bonbonnière, as it’s also fancily called) that every chocolate lover who happens to be in Zagreb, (Croatia’s capital) should visit.

The bar I got was the 3.5oz milk hazelnut bar, it turned out I wasn’t as hungry and didn’t eat it until days later.

My mom took one look at it and asked “what is that?”

“Chocolate” I responded

“Why can’t I read what’s on here?” she asked turning it over

“It’s Croatian chocolate” I said

She says in a dumbfounded tone “Why would you buy Croatian chocolate?”

I have nothing, and she walks away shaking her head mumbling “Croatian Chocolate…”

It’s pretty basic rectangular bar with sectioned squares, comes wrapped in the standard foil and has bright red packaging on the outside.

The taste is rich, creamy and sweet, reminiscent of a Ritter bar. What surprised me was that the hazelnuts weren’t whole or in chunks. Instead there were tiny pieces of hazelnut speckled heavily throughout. I didn’t enjoy that aspect of the bar, maybe it’s because I’m used to huge chunks of nuts in chocolate bars. I felt there was something lacking with the tiny pieces and it had an annoying way of getting stuck in my teeth.

For $1.99 I probably would have bought it again if I weren’t giving up milk chocolate bars for good. It’s slightly better stuff than your average bar of chocolate and the taste isn’t bad.