S H O P P I N G | Westfield Stratford City

A few weeks ago I was stressing a little about adding the finishing touches to my Lovebox festival outfit. Superdry had already supplied me with the most eye-catching, luminous coral dress, but due to it's neon tendencies it was a bit of a challenge to accessorise with what I had in my wardrobe already.

Luckily for me Westfield Stratford City came to the rescue and were kind enough to offer me a voucher to use across any of their 335 stores! Not only is Westfield a high street haven, but it's also an entertainment complex with uncountable restaurants, a cinema, a casino, a gym and a tons more! In fact, it's one of the largest urban shopping centres in Europe. I was bound to find something amongst the multitude of high street names to compliment my neon dress of dreams, especially as the timing coincided perfectly with the Zara sale. How convenient!

Westfield Stratford City happens to be my closest shopping centre at home in London, so I'm quite familiar with it's layout. I always make a point of visiting when I visit home as it's pretty much got every high street store you could ever dream of under one roof!

Clare and myself popped by the shopping centre on a Friday night with only 2 hours before Westfield actually closed. We managed to pop by Forever 21, Topshop, River Island and Zara before our time was up. Unfortunately I'm more of a 'marathon shopper' meaning I could shop for hours on end without tiring. As a tacky t-shirt slogan once said: "Shopping is my cardio."

I was really indecisive about what to buy and although a lot of things caught my eye in Topshop and Forever 21, they just didn't seem to be what I was looking for.

Thankfully I didn't come away empty-handed that night. Nope. In fact, I came away with not one, but THREE beautiful Zara dresses. However, this didn't help my Lovebox outfit dilemma as I already had a dress to wear, I still needed everything else to go with it!

Annoyingly I left behind the denim dress above and now I'm suffering from the worst non-buyer's remorse (yes, it definitely exists!) in the world! It was only £20 too - what WAS I thinking?!

I popped back to Westfield the next day determined to find something to wear with my dress. Somehow I ended up back in Zara (who'd have thought it?), but this time I spotted the most wonderful tan, fringed suede jacket. I honestly RAN across the store when I spotted it. It was the last one left and was reduced from £90 to £70 in the sale (if you can call that a sale reduction - jeez, Zara, you stingey bastards!). I found a sizeable, woven, leather-fringed bag perfect for Lovebox too that was *surprise-surprise* from Zara too! That store should just have open access to my bank account.

It's also worth mentioning that throughout the summer, next door to Westfield Stratford City, BeachEast has opened in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. I dropped by on it's opening day and witnessed the wonderful man-made beach beside the stadium that brings a tropical feel to Stratford's industrial surroundings. It's free entry and has a variety of fair ground rides, food stalls and even a bar for the adults - wahey!

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