There’s nothing like a quick bit of sun to recharge the batteries, especially as the cold weather begins to set in. So you can imagine my joy at being asked to accompany my friend and fellow blogger, The Chic Geek on a trip to Lisbon with Malibu and their #BestSummerEver campaign. It’s time for TSOA on Tour!
We were to be in Lisbon for three days, so it was time to start packing – “WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO WEAR?” – the most pressing question on my agenda.
I’ve always suffered when it came to summer, a mixture of body confidence issues and wanting to stay covered up and also being a super-mega-obsessive fan of the wonder hue that is black. God, I love black. If there were a darker colour, I’d wear it.
So this post takes a new step for the blog and I - a style post about my own style. I talk about styles I love and what I am wearing or have bought all the time, but I very rarely show you myself in them, and you guys have noticed. I’ve been asked before about putting up my own style shots and many of my wonderful blogger friends have encouraged me to do so, so here we go.
Hopefully I have something to offer, and hopefully, if your anything like me with a big ass and broad shoulders (I call it ‘rugby-build’ :P), you’ll find something to take away with you.
Even though I new the flight was quick, I wanted to be in maximum comfort on the journey over, so it was an easy choice of my favourite Nudie Thin Finn Jeans, some Filling Pieces trainers and a T-Shirt form Good For Nothing.
We landed in Lisbon and headed to the hotel. I hadn’t been to Portugal since I was a kid, so I was over excited about being back and seeing it in a whole new light as an adult.
We were staying in the Sheraton hotel, with an uber-cool glass bathroom in the corner of the hotel suite, we quickly settled in and started to plan our trip. We were massively under prepared, but luckily we had the guidance of a friend and the trusty Trip Advisor app to give us some ideas.
But up first was the spa! We were booked in for massages that afternoon and promptly went to chill out in the spa before our treatments. The massage was great –though we had been booked into a ‘couples room’ for massages at the same time, queue awkward giggles as we put on our disposable underwear.
After a relaxing afternoon we got changed and headed out for dinner and evening adventures – adventures we were to find out start very, very late in Lisbon! We had dinner around 8 and then headed to bars to find them almost empty. We were told by a DJ at one bar that people don’t come out until near midnight and start clubbing at around 3am. 3AM??!?! I’d be back asleep by then!
But we decided to push on and carried on drinking until the rest of Lisbon caught up. The night life in Lisbon is a lot of fun, the streets are packed and the people are friendly, even overly so - I’ve never been offered drugs so often in my life, and it’s done so casually, even in front of police! By the third day I started to take offence, what was it about me that screamed druggy? Actually, scratch that, I don’t want to know.
The rest of the trip was brilliant, we spend hours walking around the beautiful city, took trips along to beaches and found more places to check out. Some of the higher views of the red roofs against the blue sky were amazing, Lisbon is such a pretty place to be lost in.
Glasses - Ampton by Cubitts
T-shirt, THFKDLF
Shorts, Topman
The Trip Advisor app turned out to be a god send, we use it to plan some amazing walks through high end shopping destinations, the best tourist sites as well as where to get the best food.
As for my looks for the trip, I tried to challenge myself, mainly charging myself with the challenge of not wearing black for the whole trip (travelling there and back didn’t count!). I also wanted to push myself to try some looks outside of my comfort zone. I like jeans, I like street/sport looks and like a contemporary-cut, but classically styled look day to day, so you can see from my looks below I really changed it up a bit! What do you guys think? Which is your favourite?
Preppy
Top, Paul & Joe
Trousers, Topman
Shoes, ASOS
BackBencher
Top, Nicce London
Jeans, Topman
Trainer, Nike
Watch, Hypergrand
Summer Stroller
Top, OPEN
Shorts, ASOS
Shoes, Clarks
Watch, Hypergrand
Welcome!