THERAPY

. WESTFIELDS  .

. Topshop Snake PU Sweater £48 . Reiss Aline Leather Mini £175 . Zara White Leather Heel £79.99 . 

. Reiss Navarre Shorts £125 . H&M Leather Sandals £49.99 . Topshop Leather Tshirt £42 

. Aspinal Marlebone Mini Handbag £595 . Topshop Fedora £22 .

London is renown for it’s shopping, Oxford Street, Covent Garden, Bond Street, Mayfair & The Kings Road are all hot spots for clothes lovers ready to splash a few dime on the latest must haves or spend a few hours gazing adoringly into beautiful window displays & catwalk esque clothing boutiques. London is destination shop. Having been to a lot of countries around the world, and quite natually on every trip dabbled in a spot of shopping, I still have to give credit to our very own London, which truly does offer anything and everything you could want. Vintage. Boutique. High Street. Designer. Couture. Grunge … what else? We’ve got it.

But as a londoner, embracing these manic streets when I’m in need of some serious retail therapy is a huge task in itself, strolling the streets of London for a spot of shopping is much like being a mouse lost in a stampede of jungle cats. It can be a minefield and a nightmare. If like me, you indulge in a spot of retail therapy to unwind, then these hot spots will not be your destination of choice for said R&R time. Thankfully London decided to go one step (well actually two steps) better in the form of Westfield London (and Westfield Stratford) … gone are the days of fighting tourists to make your way along the high street, battling with gaggles of teens for the shop entrance, and trying to find your way around a busy store which feels as frighteningly manic as a children’s party. Oh, and hasten I add … carry all those shopping bags home on a sweaty and inhumanely claustrophobic tube (I do love London really). No, those days are gone my friend. These days I pop in my little beetle, drive a few short miles down the road, park up in a lovely car park and indulge in hours of madness free retail therapy.

Westfield has every shop under the sun (and the moon) right on your door steps, no legging it round the city to dash from Mulberry on Bond Street, to Topshop on Oxford Street to French Connection in Covent Garden. Westfield has it all under one roof. Amen.

Anyway … as a result of my incomprehensibly (and extremely unhealthy) stressful work and general life situation right now (so stressful in fact that I suffered from a 24 hour migraine this week which resulted in serious sickness – seriously shocking & worrying I know), I decided it was about time I dedicated a couple of hours to ‘me’. Blackberry & life OFF … retail therapy being the only agenda for the dedicated hours. I headed to the sanctuary that is Westfields and dedicated 3 hours to pure retail … it was heavenly. Slightly expensive (but so are therapists right?) but totally rewarding too (I got some serious gems). And if that’s not good enough, I also bumped into Mark Wright whilst purchasing the skirt featured above in Reiss. A sanctuary indeed.

The items featured in the collage above are all my favourite bits from my therapy … I even treated myself to the Reiss skirt & Topshop reptile jumper with a voucher I received. And suddenly the world feels right again!