Lifestyle

Thoughts are with all those caught up in the Manchester tragedy. No more words. 💔

Hey guys!

So I have STILL not got through all the blu rays I bought a couple of months back, I had a bit of a break from the new ones and watched a couple of classics. Anyway I’ve got back to watching the films I haven’t seen, and this time round I watched Dirty Grandpa which stars Robert De Niro and Zac Efron.

It’s a comedy film which sees Jason (Zac Efron) asked to drive his grandpa Dick (Robert De Niro) to Florida after his grandmother passed away. Jason is an uptight kind of guy, working as a lawyer, and is about to get married to a miserable women. He promises her that he’ll be back for the rehearsal dinner, but Dick has other ideas. He wants to relive his youth just one more time, and plans on getting Jason to drive them to Spring Break in Daytona, unbeknown to him. Jason then finds out about Dick’s plan, and they run into a couple of girls and their friend, Jason used to go to college with one of the girls. He agrees to go to Spring Break and then the film goes from there.

I had looked forward to watching this for a while, I’d seen some clips and it looked good, and it was. There were plenty of really hilarious moments, lots of funny things and genuine laugh out loud parts. After I watched the film I had a read around and found out that lots of people hated the film, and it was nominated for the dreaded Raspberry Awards, which are awarded to the worst films. I thought it was far from that, in fact I enjoyed it. Maybe the Americans just didn’t like or understand the humour, it was directed by Dan Mazar who’s British and was a writer for a few Sacha Baron Cohen films, maybe that’s why.

Anyway, I can recommend the film, it was really good, the worst thing about it was the “Pam” character who was annoying more than funny, but other than that the rest of the characters were good.

Happy Friday!

If you haven’t been following the fashion world in the past few weeks you may be wondering why am I wearing an IKEA T-Shirt…Surely that can’t be trendy or fashionable right? Well if you do follow high end fashion or street wear then you may already know about this…Basically Balenciaga released a bag, an £1100 bag which is the same colour blue as the Frakta shopping bags you can get from IKEA, and a very similar looking style. Social media being what it is, everyone has had a good old laugh at this, and some brands and artists have been mocking up “IKEA inspired” street wear and versions of all their products.

I’ve seen some IKEA Yeezy trainers, hats, some watches and even a thong. Since I design I could not pass up this opportunity by, so for my outfit of the week I created this, the Michael 84 x IKEA Frakta T-shirt! 😀 It comes in blue (obviously) and has the repeat pattern as you’d find on the straps of the bags. It’s not as sturdy as an original Frakta bag, however it’s a slightly better fit. I think it’s going to be the biggest trend of the Summer! 😀

Even IKEA has gone in on the joke, posting this online…

This obviously pokes fun at the designer bag which looks like it, and the endless counterfeits which live in the exclusive bag marketplace. If you get an IKEA bag, make sure it’s genuine! 😀

It’s all been quite fun in an industry which can sometimes take itself a bit too seriously. What do you think of this trend?

I think I might have just found my drink for this Summer!

Several months ago I heard about CÎROC Summer Colada and I thought it sounded pretty good, but it was unavailable in the UK. Last week it got a UK release, and I picked up a bottle to see what it was all about. This past weekend I cracked it open and made some cocktails on Saturday night which were pretty good!

I’ve drank cocktails for years, but I’ve always stuck to the same old drinks, mostly vodka based. A few years ago I decided to try a Piña Colada to see if I liked it, and I did. So then I decided to see if I could make my own, and bought the ingredients to try out at home. It didn’t go very well. A Piña colada is not the most difficult cocktail to make. It consists of white rum, pineapple juice and coconut cream. But every time I was trying to make it, it just didn’t seem to taste right, not like what I would get from a cocktail bar. I think I may have used coconut milk, so I did not get that thick creamy texture and possibly used too much white rum which over-powered the taste. Anyway, there’s a new solution for this Summer, CÎROC Summer Colada!

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Hey guys!

I hope you are well and have had a good weekend. So it was Eurovision last night and Portugal won. It’s become something of a tradition for the past 6 or 7 years that I watch the show, it’s one of those marmite kind of things, people either really love it or hate it. I think you’ve got to take it for what it is. I thought that this year’s show there was no stand out winner, There wasn’t that one powerful song that stood out which there seems to have been for the past few years.

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Can you dress up a sweatshirt? If you asked me this several years ago I would have said of course not, but a plain and simple sweatshirt can work with a jacket, so I wanted to try it out in my style post for the outfit of the week.

For the past several months I’ve been going out at the weekend in either a shirt or knit, since it’s chilly in the evening it’s usually what I’d choose to wear on a night out in the Winter or start of Spring. Now the better weather is coming, I wanted to try out my pink sweatshirt, and styled it with a smart jacket and pair of black jeans, as well as some shoes.

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For film night over the weekend I watched Call Girl, a film which I’ve wanted to watch for a while and actually bought ages ago, but it’s on for over 2 hours and so needed to make the time to watch it properly. It’s another one of those films which I caught on TV, I only seen it for about 20 minutes but it seemed really intriguing so I decided to buy the DVD so I could see it from start to finish.

It’s quite a complicated film to describe. First of all it’s an independent dramatic film which was released in 2012 and is Swedish, set in Sweden in the 1970’s around the time there was an election. It is based on a true story, and the political scandals in Sweden in the 70s, a time where women’s liberation and sexual revolution takes place. The film’s main characters are Iris (Sofia Karemyr) and Sonja (Josefin Asplund), who are teenagers who are sent to live in a juvenile home and become friends. They run off to the city on a night for adventures, and get introduced to Dagmar Glans (Pernilla August), who’s a madam and well known to authorities. She provides prostitutes to rich and powerful clients, including political Swedish figures which becomes subject to a police investigation ran by a young Vice detective, John Sandberg (Simon J. Berger).

It’s such an interesting film, quite dark and gritty, and I won’t spoil the rest of how it goes or the ending if you’ve not seen it (if you really wanna know you can read it on IMDB).

You should definitely give this a try if Scandi indie films or those films set in the 70’s are something which interests you. If you’ve already seen it let me know what you thought of it.

In the past 10 years or so I’ve really got into denim, As I wrote about in my five ways to wear denim post a while back, I never used to wear jeans, I found them uncomfortable as a kid, I was never really aware of the soft washes back then, and did not appreciate raw denim. Anyway, since 10 years have passed I’ve bought a lot of denim from a lot of brands, but I’ve never bought Levi’s, until now.

Levi’s have been around forever, I think if you ask anyone to name a jean brand, the vast majority of people would say Levi’s, and if they didn’t there’s no doubt at all that they’ve heard of them. Not only that, but they have a style which is the most well known, the 501. These were popularised from the 50’s up until the 80s and even 90s, and everyone and anyone wanted a pair of 501’s, they were quite the status piece of clothing to own; Each youth subculture universally liked the 501’s, I’ve heard plenty of stories of people shrinking their jeans, from wearing them in the bath and drying them to get the best personalised fit for them. However they’ve never seemed like a cool brand, they’ve always felt like “dad jeans”, probably because everyone of my age had parents who loved their 501’s. However times have changed, Levi’s are becoming on trend again, and they’ve got a few more modern and updated styles and items of clothing and jeans.

I’ve been looking to get a couple of Levi’s things for a few weeks, I wanted to try on some things rather than buying them online but I’ve been too busy to go to the Levi’s shop in the town, but earlier this week I finally went and got a few things as you’ll have already saw on the blog.

First of all I wanted two T-Shirts. The classic logo tee in white, and the new logo shirt in grey, and that’s exactly what I got. The classic logo, or Housemark as Levi’s call it is a must have and I wanted it in white as it’s the most universal colour which I can wear with a lot of other clothing. This is the tee I’m wearing for the Outfit of the week, and no doubt I’ll be wearing the other one in another outfit post soon.

Denim lovers will know all about Selvedge, and people who read the blog will know how much I love it. If you don’t know what it is, I wrote a helpful what is selvedge denim guide a while back, but it’s a type of denim which is much loved by many. I noticed that Levis do Selvedge, but I wasn’t sure on their fits, I prefer a slim or skinny fit in jeans now. They happened to do Selvedge in their 511 style which is a slim fit, but since I’ve never bought Levi’s jeans before I wanted to try these on. I loved them and bought them, and can see getting a lot of wear from these. They’re a dark wash which I prefer, so I can wear them for smart casual occasions and on a night out they’ll look great too.

I paired these up with another timeless and classic item; A pair of red Converse.

Let me know what you think of this look and Levi’s in general, and Happy Friday! 🙂

Hey guys!

So for the past several weeks I’ve been meaning to go out and buy something I’ve been looking at for ages…Some things from Levi’s! More specifically a couple of tees, the Levi’s traditional logo T-shirt, and the newer logo shirt which was launched earlier. I been really busy so I’ve not been able to go to the town to have a look, but I finally I did and picked up some things!

I am going to write more about these pieces in detail when I post my outfit of the week later, but I wanted to show exactly what I got right now, so here it is!

As mentioned the classic logo top. It comes in a variety of colours, but I decided to get it in the classic white with red logo. It’s nothing new, but sometimes the classics are the best. Speaking of new, I got a tee which sports a new logo design, which ironically is a take on luxe sportswear from the 80’s, specifically the 1984 Olympic Games. I got this one in grey, I’ve really began to love this classic colour, it’s really versatile. The tees were £25 each.

Lastly I saw some Selvedge denim jeans which I had to try. Levi’s are known for their 501’s, but I’m not a fan of their classic fit, although they do have some newer fits in this style, however they didn’t seem to do this style in Selvedge denim. One of their styles I like is the 511, which is a more modern slim fit, and they had some really nice Selvedge in this style, so I had to get some. After trying them on the fit is really nice, and they’re really good quality denim. They’re dark denim, which you’ll know from reading my five pairs of jeans you need post is a colour you absolutely need in your wardrobe. They were a great price for the quality and the fact they’re Selvedge, and came in at £115.

Later in the week I’ll be putting these into my outfit of the week, so you’ll be able to see them properly soon.

A while back I watched David Brent Life On The Road, and it was pretty good!

I was never a big fan of The Office, in fact I only just watched it at the back end of last year for the first time, I wanted to see what it was like. I never thought the series was brilliant, but it did have it’s moments, and the storyline was pretty decent, but it was not as funny as something like Phoenix Nights or Max & Paddy’s Road To Nowhere which I thought was a lot funnier. Anyway, the film was supposed to be good, so I decided to give it a try.

It of course centres around David Brent, who is still working the day job with aspirations of being a music star, and is filmed in the familiar mockumentary style which I do like. He decides to take his band on tour, and takes a month off from work with unpaid leave, and finances a tour with his band Foregone Conclusion, the sound engineer and Dom, who is his friend who is a rapper (played by Ben Bailey Smith aka Doc Brown).

It’s the same old tale of Brent thinking he’s cool and not really realising he isn’t, with the band not socialising with him and not being on his own tour bus and having to drive behind it in his car.

The film is a good watch, I enjoyed it more than The Office, and the rest of the cast are good, especially Doc Brown who I like. The song Equality Street makes it in the film, which was released a few years ago for Comic Relief which always makes me laugh. If you liked The Office you’ll probably like this, and even if you didn’t it’s still a good film and you don’t need to have seen The Office before to understand the plot or film.