lazy oaf – that lemon life

The London Style

Hola everyone.

And welcome to another week. And to December. It’s freaking December. When did that happen? I feel like I’m stuck in between two places right now, where I want both summer back and a load of snow at the same time. But one thing is definitely clear – time is flying by and 2020 is gonna be here in a snap and I still feel like I just moved to London, like, yesterday. Honestly, all of this is way too crazy. And as fast as it all has happened, I still have the slight feeling that London has already taken its toll on me. In a good way. But please let me explain.

I’ve always had quite an interesting relationship with fashion – and yes, this means this post will be about fashion. A true miracle is happening right now. Anyway. I recently talked to my housemate about this. How in my youth I used to buy and wear any stuff that was popular at the time. Simply because I wanted to be popular, because which teen doesn’t want that? So I dressed like everyone else. And, to be brutally honest, we all looked pretty dumb, I’m not going to lie. I still get the shivers when I think about the shirts we all got from the same stores with their stupid cartoons on them or the black tube tops preferably worn with leggings. One fashion faux pas after another.

But then the moment came when I truly realized, for the very first time, that we did, in fact, all look exactly the same and mostly very unfashionable on top. So I started to develop my own style, which was heavily inspired by all the holidays and vacations I went on with my family. I made it my hobby to only buy clothes in and from different countries. They became a type of souvenir. Something I would wear and always connect to a certain trip. And on top of that nearly everything I got was unique, as the chance of someone visiting the same store in the same foreign country and buying the exact same shirt or pair of trousers was incredibly low to non-existent. Suddenly I started looking like nobody else in my class, which was met by mixed reactions – some of my classmates liked it, some, I am sure, hated me for it. But that didn’t stop me from my travels to finding own style.

And then uni and moving to Vienna hit me in the face with the statement “you thought you were dressing in a special way? Ha. Cute.” like a truck. I felt like I had just got a glimpse of the box of Pandora. Of paradise. Suddenly everyone looked special and different and cool and I felt like the ultimate wallflower again. The girl from the countryside in the big, uber-fashionable city. Surrounded by all these new impressions and more importantly inspirations, I again went for a little hunt for my own, new, improved style. Of course, I still kept true to my roots – band t-shirts, black skinny jeans, destroyed Converse – but something had changed. I didn’t shop as much anymore but rather looked for pieces of clothing that had the potential of being in-style for all of eternity and therefore staying with me for my whole life. Obviously, I’m not one of the rich kids that can actually afford clothes that will never show any signs of wear or destruction, but I was still trying my best. I started buying stuff that complimented my style, that I could easily add to already existing outfits and clothes that we like to call basics, which is probably one of the most important rules I ever learned when it comes to fashion. Basics are your friends. Keep them close to you. They will serve you well, trust me.

So I went on my journey, developed my style, stumbled over pieces that I still adore with all my heart and that are still a part of my daily wardrobe, but I knew there was still something out there waiting for me. The big leap. I had to think outside of the box. And that’s when Brighton and more importantly London came in. It is a known fact that London is one of the best looking cities with some of the best-dressed people living in it. And I am in the middle of this huge pile of awesomeness, attractiveness and immenseness of style. And even before moving to this fashion dream of a place, I knew I had to leave my comfort zone once and for all. Or at least widen it. Because London is very out there. And I am not. Or was not. I feel like that has changed in the past week, at least in my own little style bubble.

Here are a few things London and the experience of living here have taught me about fashion so far:

fast-fashion is your enemy, avoid it as much as you can
sustainability for the win
comfort and style do really go together (miracles, I tell you)
you don’t have to follow every trend – they go away anyway
pride and confidence are the best two accessories
you can be and look like anyone/anything you want
be out there, it’s fun

I know, sounds quite cute and all, but it’s actually more difficult to tick all these boxes than you would think. Being out there is a real chore and takes a lot of confidence. And for an introvert like me – who’s slowly becoming an extrovert, funnily enough – fitting in is always a bit more comfortable than sticking out. But when you go to a music university in London, which basically translates to Hipster HQs, the rule is stand out or die (not literally, obviously). So I’ve been soaking up the city and all the other inspirations like a sponge and the result is the style that I am calling mine today. And I am damn proud of it.

You know, for someone like me, who’s from a different country and who recently moved to London, it sometimes is a bit tough to not feel like you’re just a long-term tourist. Suddenly you start asking yourself whether people look at you and think you’re from the city or just someone stopping by. And a few weeks ago I would’ve said the second option, but I’ve had a slight change of mind. Let me tell you why – I went for a little shopping hunt, inspired by all the people and things I’m surrounded by in this incredible city on a daily basis and by all the fantastic outfits I see online, and I found two outfits that have turned my whole world on its head. And this isn’t simply about a shirt and a fitting jacket in the same color. No no. I’m talking about actual two-piece sets, consisting of the most amazing pants and the coolest jackets ever to go with them.

To be honest, I’ve been on the lookout for a nice monochrome set for quite some time. I see it in the city all the time and I felt like it was time for me to be part of the movement. And after a long and exhausting journey that included lots of late-night scrolling through clothing websites and weekend trips to Carnaby Street, I finally found the perfect set on Asos by the brand Daisy Street (click here to check it out). Corduroy. Orange. Oversize. And comfy as hell. It had to be mine. And after a few days of waiting, it finally was. And still is. The moment I put it on, I knew I had stumbled across something very special. Something that would change my style completely. And it did. Because it opened my eyes to a whole other world of fashion that had been hiding in my closet. But it didn’t just end there.

I would definitely say I reached peak coolness when I bought what I would describe as the ultimate two-piece a few days ago. The ultimate suit. The one and only. It all happened during a Lazy Oaf sample sale that I went to with my friend Lauren last Saturday. Some of you might already know this incredible London-based brand that creates anything but boring fashion. In a nutshell, it’s my favourite brand, but usually way too expensive for me. Hence the trip to the sample sale. And there I saw it. The perfect set that I immediately had to get (click here to check it out). In total, we spent over two hours in that industrial building, digging through endless piles of clothes, completely focused on our mission of finding the perfect piece. I’m not gonna say how much I paid for the whole thing (pants + jacket), but I can promise you one thing – if you ever want to find a bargain and feel a deep love for Lazy Oaf, then the sample sale is the way to go. The prices are out of this world. I mean, they don’t throw the clothes after you just to get rid of them, their quality is still way too high and good for that, but compared to the original prices, the whole event is one big bargain.

The set I got is basically awesomeness in the form of clothing. Oversize. The most beautiful colours with the most fantastic check pattern. Wide leg trousers. The perfect fit. Extremely comfy. And literally the best quality. The moment I tried it on in that big hall, I knew it had to be mine. But besides the nice fit and the awesome look, there was something I felt while I was walking around with it still on, contemplating of whether I should get the whole set or not – it made me feel like I was part of London. Something that the first set had already achieved as well a few days beforehand. And that certain feeling is essentially the reason for me writing this post. Because both things make me feel like I belong in and to London. Like I am part of this city, part of its style, part of its people. It makes me feel like I am a Londoner. Like someone who people look at and might think that they live in this city and are part of it. And that is something so incredibly important for me, something that fills me with so much pride and confidence that I can’t possibly put into words how happy it makes me. I’ve always wanted to live in London and be part of this dream. But being here and feeling like you actually belong here are two different things. At least they were for me, but not anymore. And it might sound a bit strange to say that simple pieces of clothing make me feel that way, but I think they did more than just that. They make me a better, cooler, more confident me. And for that, I am incredibly thankful. Also, the Lazy Oaf set definitely makes me feel like the ultimate boss and that’s just the coolest thing ever. But just look for yourself.

So, in short: I’ve been in this incredible city for nearly three months now and I am finally starting to feel like I really, fully, truly belong here, which is simply the most incredible feeling ever. And it might be weird to have clothes be the reason for that, but for me, they are just so much more than that. I’m carrying myself differently and that’s all thanks to this fantastic adventure I’m on right now and to this city. London has changed me. And I’m happy about that.

For those of you who’re currently looking for a bit of a changeup in your wardrobe, I can highly recommend going for a two-piece suit. It doesn’t just look absolutely stunning, but also has the perk of making you feel like a boss. And if you go for a simple one, you can easily add the separate pieces to other outfits and wear them with different clothes. That’s what I call highly functional. And yeah, besides that I can only hope that you enjoyed this post and that it maybe serves as a bit of inspiration for you. As always, I’d totally love to hear your thoughts and opinions, so please don’t hesitate to leave them down below. And, of course, I hope you’re all doing good, wish you a great week and thanks for reading. x

London haul

Hola everyone.

I know, I don’t have anything to explain, you already read the title. Welcome to another haul (yeeeeey). Actually, I’m pretty excited – probably even more than you guys – because I can talk some more about some of my favorite topics. Shopping, books and fashion. And London. I mean, it was pretty obvious that I would be going shopping in London. I tried to stop myself from walking into every single store before this trip, to stop myself from buying stuff, as I needed my money for this holiday and my planned shopping there. That’s what I call dedication.

Clothing

Okay, so clothing-wise I didn’t really plan on buying something, I just knew the shops I wanted to visit ASAP. And one of those was Lazy Oaf. Some of you might know this super crazy clothing label, but if you don’t know, you need to check it out now. Like, seriously, right now. Here’s the link to their website: lazyoaf.com

I personally have a special relationship with this label. I got to know it through two of my favorite YouTubers – Marzia and Arden. They both love the label and wear it pretty often in their videos and pictures and one day I was looking at them and thinking “oh my god, I need to know what they are wearing”. And since then I’ve been checking out the Lazy Oaf website every once in a while, mostly once a week, looking for their newest pieces. I just love their clothing with all of my heart. It’s fun and colorful and literally so out of my comfort zone, it just draws me to it. And it’s based in London, my favorite city ever. So yeah, the label has a lot of pros, but the only con are their prices. I’m usually not the person to spend too much money on clothes, so I mostly just admire Lazy Oaf from afar.

But guys, the wait is now over. I officially own a piece of Lazy Oaf clothing and I’m loving it. I have to say, their store in London is freaking amazing. It’s situated in a small house in Soho and just screams cool. It’s colorful and freaky and weird. I loved it. I don’t know how long we actually stayed in there, but in like the last few minutes me and my mum found this supercool jumper and what can I say, it was love at first sight. And now it’s the moment I have to thank my mum, because as soon as I tried it on, I didn’t want to leave without it and I think she saw that in my eyes and decided to buy it for me. How nice is that? You’re the best, mum. So yeah, I now have this supercool, weird and unique jumper and I can’t wait to wear it. I would have never guessed that I would once own a Lazy Oaf piece, but now I do and I seriously couldn’t be happier.

The second piece of clothing I brought home from London is this amazing vintage blouse. I mean, look at it. I don’t even know what to say. I’ve been wearing it the past days and I just fall for it even more and more, day by day, minute by minute. I found it at this amazing vintage market we came across in Shoreditch. If any of you are into vintage clothing, I can guarantee that you would have loved this market. It was so cool. There were so many different blouses to choose from, I seriously could have bought every single one. But I’m really deeply in love with this one, I think it looks super unique and special. My first vintage piece.

Books

You guys know how much I love books and reading. So books were that part that I had planned to buy in London, as I only read books in English and were do I find more English books than in the UK (duh)? So I dragged my parents into Waterstones at Piccadilly Circus and I don’t know how long we stayed there, but I can tell you, it was pretty long. When I had finally worked my way through the young adult fiction section, I had twelve books resting in my arms. Did you ever have to choose your favorites from a huge collection of already favorites? It’s freaking hard. Not to be dramatic, but it’s nearly impossible. I was standing there, completely alone in the YA section, starring at a stack of books, debating which ones I wanted to keep and which ones I was willing to leave behind. That makes it official – I’m literally the biggest bookworm. But in the end I managed to pick my favorite favorites and here they are:

My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend – by Eleanor Wood
Sunflowers in February – by Phyllida Shrimpton
Truly Madly Awkward – by Beth Garrod
The Book of Loud – by Marshall
Finding Audrey – by Sophie Kinsella
Words in Deep Blue – by Cath Crowley

I’m seriously more than excited to read every single one of these books. If any of you have read any of them, please let me know what you think about them and whether you like them or not. I’ll of course add them to the book club and keep you up-to-date.

This and that

Okay, and here comes the last part – everything that doesn’t fit into clothing or books. And that brings me to one of my favorite moments of the trip – the moment we visited platform 9 3/4. My potter-heart is already going crazy thinking about it. Some of you may know that I’m overly in love with the whole Harry Potter / Hogwarts universe, ever since I grew up with the whole story. So visiting the platform at Kings Cross was a must for me.

But holy moly, I wasn’t the only one. I can’t remember if I’ve ever been into such a packed store, it was literally stuffed with customers. We even had to wait in a line outside. But at least for me it was totally worth it. I got to see all the different wands up close and there was the typical Hogwarts music playing in the background. I don’t know, apart from the people, it just felt like home. And I’m so happy with the stuff I got from there – a Hogwarts pin badge and a ticket for the Hogwarts Express. I know, some of you might say “isn’t she a bit too old for this?”, but all I can say is “silencio”. But all jokes aside, I really love this whole universe. I grew up with it, I pretty much know all the movies by heart and I read all the books. It’s a part of me. And I’m not afraid to show my love for it, no matter how old I am.

Besides that, the other stuff I got were just basic things like newspapers and magazines, but hey, they are from London, so I just had to take them home with me. Oh and I got this supercute “I love London” sign, which was the last sign missing in my collection on my wall and I’m so happy that I finally got to fill the empty spot.

And there you go guys, that’s my London haul. I can just say that I freaking love this city and everything I got and brought home with me. All the pieces mean a lot to me and I’m so proud to own them. But guys, I’m really excited to hear what you think about all the pieces, so please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts down below. Oh, and I hope you’re all doing good and I wish you an amazing week. And, as always, thanks for reading. x

Ps: If some of you may have noticed, yes I indeed did color and cut my hair. It’s now shoulder-length and a rusty-reddish-brown color and I freaking love it. I used Henna again to color it and I’ve always wanted to cut my hair and I finally did it and I couldn’t be happier.

London

Hola everyone.

I’m baaaack. And oh my god, I have so much to tell you guys. First of all I hope you’re all doing good and that you had amazing holidays (if you did have them). Because I certainly did. God, guys, London is such a beautiful city. It’s like the city-version of the love of my life. I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll just get right back to the beginning.

Do you know that feeling when you visit another place that’s not your home but you just feel like you’re home, because it just feels so right? That’s what I feel like when I’m in London. Yes, of course, it can never really feel like home, because home is where my family is, the place where I grew up. But I know that people can have more than one home and I just feel like London is one of those for me. I just soak all of it up. I don’t even know how that’s even possible but I love every single thing about it. I mean, that could be because I always visit the beautiful places of London, but I even love the subway. And since when do people really love the underground? It might sound crazy, but I really love it, no joke. And that’s saying something.

But what I loved the most about the trip – besides the Fall Out Boy concert, which was freaking mind-blowing, by the way – was that my parents and I visited places in London I had never seen before. Our hotel was situated in Whitechapel, we explored Soho even more than the last time and went to a photography gallery, we went for an amazing breakfast in Bethnal Green (I had a vegan version of the typical fry up – the restaurant was called the Gallery Cafe and I highly recommend it to you, it was so awesome) and on the last day we came across a vintage market in Shoreditch and visited Notthing Hill. So many new experiences and places, I loved it.

But before I ramble on and on, I’ll just let the pictures I took do the talking. I hope you enjoy them. Oh and guys, please stay tuned for more postings about London, about the concert and the shopping I did. And yeah, as I already said, I hope you’re all doing good and wish you an amazing weekend. And also please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts and comments down below. Oh and, as always, thanks for reading. x

Fashion Week – Day 3

Hola everyone.

Soooo, the day has finally come to tell you what happened on the third day I attended the Fashion Week in Berlin. Actually, the day didn’t quite go how I expected. I mean, it was fantastic after all, of course, but started with quite a huge heart attack.

The morning went as usual, I got up, dressed and ready for another cool day full of Fashion and awesomeness. First I drove to a trade show called FashionTech, which was all about how technology can be combined with fashion. And there were some speakers at the conference there and one of them said something that still keeps running around in my head: “Today, every single day, technology does another step forward. We work on it. But why won’t we combine this technology with our clothes?”. And it’s true. Why don’t we do that? I mean, personally I don’t need to have a t-shirt that changes its color according to my mood changes. But just the idea is getting me so excited. And then the shock came.

I was listening to the speakers at the conference when I saw that I had gotten an email from my boss. And I thought it would be something about writing a second article about Fashion Week – because I told him that I could do that – but oh hell no, it wasn’t about that. The mail said that I should get back right now and write the article as quick as possible. And I got so damn stressed. Really. I thought “oh my god, how am I going to write an article if I still haven’t had all my interviews and if I haven’t even been to every trade show?”. So I called him. And then I called the online department. And I told them everything, just explained the situation. And to my big surprise they weren’t stressed at all. They were like “hey, chill, take your time and send us the article whenever you’re finished”. And I was soooo happy. I mean, I am a person that always sees the good things in everyone, I’m just happy and always hoping that everybody else is too. And when they reacted so smoothly and nicely, it just supported me even more in my opinion that this job, this field, is the right thing for me. And the way they treated me, not like just like I’m a little intern, but like a real journalist… That made me really happy.

Anyway, from that moment on the day was freaking amazing. After looking around at FashionTech and seeing clothes that can save data or send signals to other devices, which is pretty freaky, I went to the biggest trade show called Premium. I’m not quite sure how many brands it featured but there were eight huge halls, so I guess A LOT. It was really interesting to see all the different labels and styles and upcoming trends. The only thing that was bugging me was the amount of people who were there. There were just too many. And after pushing through masses of human bodies I just gave up and took the shuttle to the trade show I was looking forward to the most called Seek.

Seek was all about streetstyles and urban clothing lines, young labels and fashion for young people. Not to mention that Lazy Oaf had a stand there too and hey, we all know how trendy Lazy Oaf is right now thanks to all the YouTubers who are praising the label like crazy. But before I get to that, here comes the funniest thing. On my way to Seek, on the bus, I was sitting next to a guy, probably at the age of my dad, and we started chatting a little bit. About how I got there, about what he was doing and so on. Actually he flew to Berlin from France just to attend Fashion Week which was so interesting for me at that moment. And here comes the funny bit. We separated after getting out of the bus but ran into each other at the trade show about five times. Even another time after we had officially said goodbye. He looked at me and said “wow, that’s strange” and I just had to laugh. But so strange, seriously.

So that’s the story of how I learned how networking is done. Now let’s get to the most interesting part, the fashion part. Oh my god, the clothes there were amazing. I officially know now how the future pieces of Lazy Oaf will look like and I can only say – get ready. Seriously. Usually I’m not the type for bright clothes that crave for attention but it looks like I might buy one or two pieces of the upcoming collections. And besides that I just loved the athmosphere there. Everyone looked so cool (like every day), a DJ was playing music for the whole arena and the location was just straight up amazing. I felt cool. That’s how it was.

And then it got late again and I made my way home. With like 4 new bags full of stuff. That’s one of the cool parts of being a journalist. You get free stuff (hehe). The bad aspect of that is just that I went home with a close-to-falling-off shoulder and a hurting back like I’m a old grandma. But hey, when you had such a wonderful day nothing can spoil the mood.

So yeah, there you go. That was my third day at the Fashion Week in Berlin. Another magnificent day and another hundreds of hundreds wonderful moments I’ll never forget. If any of you have any questions or just want to talk, I’m here. And until then I hope you enjoyed this post and the pics right down below and, as always, thanks for reading. x