Winter has well-and-truly hit in London – brrrr! – and now that Halloween is out of the way, the long run into Christmas is underway! I’m going to be posting plenty of ideas to help you stay on the seasonal ‘straight-and-narrow’, but in the meantime, it’s just about cold enough to get me thinking back to the summer.
In these pictures, I’m wearing another great tennis affair from my friends at Monreal London; I love the simplicity of the block white dress with the subtle blue detailing, and the elasticated rouching at the waist – comfortable, flexible and great for tennis. They were shot on the beach at Pamplonne, and Club 55 St. Tropez; to get there I stepped aboard a gorgeous specimen of a Riva ‘Super Aquarama’, and was motoring towards the restaurant at 55 knots! Once there, fresh grilled sea-bass and some fresh greens.
On this chilly London day, I REALLY miss the toasty sun of holiday, but luckily it’s only c.250 sleeps until the next dose of summercomes along 🙂
This post is about an alternative, healthy ‘burger’ recipe which takes inspiration from a recent blog trip to New York. ‘When in Rome’ do as the New Yorkers… with that in mind it seemed right that on my monumental ‘cheat day’ I should go overboard and indulge in a proper American burger, milkshake & fries! If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know this is a VERY rare occasion indeed! I headed to the grand opening of Shake Shack in Grand Central Station, which I’d heard so much about (great PR!). To celebrate it I wore my favourite gold burger ring by GoldieRox – gorgeous jewellery celebrating junk food, best of all with 0 calories!!! (On that matter, in America most menus now include ‘calories’ which is really helpful!)
I was fully aware that this meal would rack up some seriously naughty numbers but I was blown away; I consumed 1870 calories in just one meal, which is pretty much what I would typically eat in a day!!! Going to Shake Shack was certainly a bit of a fun outing, and I believe you do have to enjoy and live life a little now and then, but this serves as a reminder of just how easily you could be consuming a VAST amount of the wrong kind of calories without even realising it. In the event, I could only manage a half of my portion (still 935 calories), and since my body isn’t used to it, I struggled for the rest of the day. I’m much more at home with a healthy alternative; my previous healthy burger recipe included a tuna steak; this alternative is my nutritious, low-fat, low-sugar and lower-calorie ‘Skirt Steak Wrap’ (pictured below), which weighs in at a nutritious 485 calories, bursting with vitamins minerals and quality protein. See MORE pictures, ingredients and ‘how to make it’ below…
Just a quick fitness fashion post; you might remember that I promised in my earlier post Unreal Monreal to showcase some more of Monreal London‘s fabulous tennis-wear… Voila! Here are some pictures from a shoot at the Byblos Hotel in St. Tropez wearing their signature short tennis dress (which, according to WWD magazine, Victoria Beckham was the first to pick up!). This is my favourite dress of their collection! It’s all part of the continuing revolution which I think ends with sport and high fashion crossing over & it’s all for the better when it comes to our workouts!
Click MORE below to see the rest of the photos. Faya x
Living in Britain, Wimbledon is of course a bit of an annual ‘religious event’ for me. But successive summers have been spent puzzled, watching Roger Federer strut onto centre court in what I call ‘haute sportswear’ – hyper-tailored lines, luxurious fabrics, exquisite detailing – whilst his female counterparts have sported nothing genuinely worthy to challenge for the Style Grand-slam. Filter that down from superstardom to the drab reality of the high streets, and there is no hint of an elegant sport trend to be found on Oxford Street!
But dressing sporty, and dressing chic are no longer mutually exclusive; I realise now that you can dress for exercise *glamorously*, in the same way you might feel dressing for a night out. The revolution has started with tennis, which has been injected with a vital shot of sport-chic by Monreal London, a high-end apparel brand that you might remember I stumbled across at the Queens Club boutique during the Aegon Championships earlier this year (you can see that post here).
I did some further digging and checked out their collection. Above all else, Monreal seems to worship the beauty of the female form, with materials and shapes that flatter and gently exaggerate our ‘good curves’. And they don’t just fake a token gesture towards fashion – they’ve clearly dedicated every feature to the cause. Before realising they’re a relatively young brand (not a bad thing; read ‘nimble, adaptive, on-trend’), you presume luxury from the outset. The look and feel is expensive, tailored, feminine and conservative whilst still being a bit adventurous and expressive. As you can see from these pictures we shot around Monaco, tennis whites are the base, but I really love the sparing and geometric use of colours and textures to break up the monotone whites (more of Monreal’s dresses to follow in future posts…)
In a world where I want to be able to feel a bit elegant when my sweaty body doesn’t look it, I think Monreal sends the message that ‘it IS possible!’ And given that it’s so aspirational and glamorous, I think it might help motivate people to work that little bit harder, so they fit that little bit better into their stylish sportswear, rather than just lazily shopping the next size shorts from Asda for £5. It all helps to buy into the lifestyle choice that this blog is ALL about. Click More below to see all the pics from the shoot…
Winter has well-and-truly hit in London – brrrr! – and now that Halloween is out of the way, the long run into Christmas is underway! I’m going to be posting plenty of ideas to help you stay on the seasonal ‘straight-and-narrow’, but in the meantime, it’s just about cold enough to get me thinking back to the summer.
