Celebrity photoshopping

There's nothing wrong with a little Photoshopping (officially it would be "photo manipulation", everybody knows that it exists. It's like all the recent doping scandals in professional cycling, it's advanced so much the moneymakers just can't live without it.

Beauty ads use their own doping drugs and it's called Photoshopping.
Let's take a look at how Lancôme transformed 45-year old Julia Roberts into a 30-something woman.

One could definitely say that she took her role as evil queen in search for eternal youth a bit to seriously (in the Snow white adaptation Mirror mirror).

Another recent example is from the radiant Eva Longoria, edited by L'Oréal. The mascara's name is million lashes but it's questionable whether your eyes will grow a million lashes or start to shine like two polestars.

A while ago there was this contra-movement from BBC for the charity project BearFaced. It involved some celebrities such as Heidi Klum, who posed on front of the lens without (or with very little let's say) make-up.

The initiative was received both warmly as hostile, like all main events are. Comments were given that it was not a big sacrifice and that it takes more to support charity than posing without make-up. But in a world filled with pictures like Lancômes' and L'oréals', I believe it can be quite refreshing to see a naked face.

Trampoline wall

And another trend in the extreme sports division. It's called trampoline wall.
This doesn't need much explanation. Just look at these videos.

Legends on board

I think almost everybody agrees that those Youtube commercials are pretty annoying when you start watching a video.
But yesterday a nice one appeared on screen. It was even so nice that I searched for this commercial on Youtube to share it with you guys :-)

Slacklining

This popular concept couldn't be easier. All you need is a long piece of rope and two items that are strong enough to hold your weight.

Slacklining

It's not the same as tightrope walking, where the rope is bound tightly between two objects.

Tightrope walking

Last April the North American Dean Potter set the World Record of the highest slackline walk. He did this in China, crossing the Enshi Grand Canyon (Hubei province), at a height of 1800 metres!
He walked over a 2cm thick rope during two minutes, walking a 40m distance in total.

All I want for Christmas is you (x2)

Every year at the return of Christmas we see the return of Mariah Carey as well, performing her all time popular song "All I want for Christmas is you".

Right now there are two popular versions circulating on Youtube.

Which one do you prefer?

The livingroom concert with Jimmy Fallon & the Roots?

A solo performance at the Rockefeller centre in NY ?

Bond in the mix

And in continuation of the previous video, I give you the remix of some Bond songs - by A. Skillz & Krafty Kuts

Coca cola ad II

Unlock the 007 in you. You have 70 seconds!

In the Station of Antwerp crazy stuff can happen.....

Lennon and Maisy

Don't you just love Youtube... Thanks to this invention the whole world can enjoy listening to some beautiful singers.

Just take a look at these lovely sisters.

Give it up for Lennon and Maisy Stella.

WTF Japan Seriously

Japanese are known for inventing some crazy stuff and apparently they produce some excellent commercials too! The website "WTF Japan Seriously" has some excellent examples of beautiful Japanese publicity and other videos. Check it out!

Wanna see more? There's a whole Youtube channel dedicated to this madness!

Urban knitting

The image of knitting has had an update since the uprising of urban knitting. Forget this:

And imagine this:

Yarn bombing or urban knitting is a kind of street art where anyone can start knitting on trees, statues or anything else there can be in the streets. In Dutch it's known as "wildbreien".
This trend first showed op in 2004 in the Netherlands and started to spread out to the USA and otherwhere in the world.

Harmoniepark Antwerpen

This art is also seen as a form of graffiti but in comparison with the traditional form, this art is easy to remove once authorities consider this as vandalism.

Zuid, Antwerpen

London

Do not remove please!

Favorite song // D'banj - Oliver Twist

Not necessarily for the lyrics, but it's got a good beat and it's very nice for dancing

Gotta love the red traffic lights

Don't you just hate it when the traffic light turns red?

Well, not in some streets in Antwerp!

Show some more love...

NOOSA chunks - a new kind of charm

My aunt told me about this Dutch trend which consists in creating your own bracelet or belt with all kinds of "chunks". Think of these chunks as the charms that we saw appear a few years ago like the ones from Thomas Sabo. They are called Noosa chunks.

Each chunk has a significance. They consist of mostly ancient symbols, which have a strong symbolic sense. The modern touch however would be to combine an ancient Peruvian symbol with a Chinese dragon and an aboriginal "special place"-mark.
Here follow a few of my favorites.

You can compose your own special collection of chunks or give it as a special gift to someone.
Anyway, it will be unique no matter how you create it!

Here are some examples of using the chunks.

Nail color blocking

I know that this trend has been around forever but I've gathered a few pictures of some beautiful polished nails from friends & family.

Don't go for the traditional red or pink, but try some green to match your eyes, brown to match your hair or yellow to match with nothing!

- me wearing H&M nailpolish, switching in between pink and orange

beginning on top, rotating clockwise

- my mum wearing pink Shellac

- my sister wearing clear blue polish by Essence

- my best friend wearing a brownish American Apparel 

- me wearing a 1 euro nail polish from the market

- my sisters in law wearing everything!

Mostly H&M - Essence - L'oréal

- my best friend wearing her favorite again, by American Apparel

! want to know what happened to American Apparels nail polish collection in 2011??

check out this explosive article!

Coca Cola ad

My sister showed me this original video today. It's another way of looking at the world through surveillance cameras.

Check this out on my blog or directly on youtube!

Bad luck Brian

Recently I've seen "Brians" picture all over facebook so it's definitely the time to post about him...

It's not my ambition to inform you about the interesting facts concering this Internet phenomenon, for that you can read knowyourmeme.

If you want to have a good laugh, check quickmeme! 

Longchamp & Jeremy Scott

Longchamp comes out with a new summer gadget. This travel bag is designed by Jeremy Scott and is available online on colette.fr for € 210. From July 2nd the bag will be available in Longchamp stores.

It's great to take with you for a sleepover, a quick getaway to the countryside, to the city... Or it's nice just to have it :-)

Nike Air Yeezy sneakers

What to do to get your own pair of Nike Air Yeezy sneakers, 2nd edition, designed by Kanye West.

The video says it all...

Favorite song // Sarah Ferri - On My Own

This Belgian girl comes from Gent and came out with an amazing song!

Original rhythm, a voice which is both soft and strong, a dreamy melody and a sophisticatedly chaos-like created videoclip.

The Graham Norton show

Ever since we have digital television, my sister and I discovered "The Graham Norton show" on BBC.
You would think that it is just another talk show, but this guy is actually really funny. Especially when you're interested in getting a glimpse of how "normal" some celebrities are outside their working hours.
This British concept creates a relaxing atmosphere and artists who sit there actually behave a little different than usually.

Graham Norton invites most of the time an international movie star, whom would be promoting a new film, and then two other, mostly British guests. They discuss their actual projects and also their history as an artist.

You can watch everything online, on BBC and on channel "Acht" in Belgium.

Here are some previews.


Will Smith raps his most famous theme song from the Fresh Prince.

Graham Norton discusses look-a-likes from the Harry Potter movies.

Discussing Nicki Minaj her "Nictionary"[watch from 07:30]

Barbecue season

This year began very bad in Belgium. Only in May the first rays of sun broke their way through the clouds. And that's when in Belgium the Barbecue season begins. We can classify this food season just as there are the mussels season, the asparagus season, the strawberry season etcetera. [click on the food for some delicious recipes!]

This weekend we set off one of my favorite seasons at the quays in Antwerp. It's a tradition here to buy a small, throw-away barbecue and meet with friends at the banks of the Scheldt.

(the one and only correct) recipe = good weather, some friends, music, a blanket, drinks and food!

Sleeping like a bird

I saw this bed a while ago in a magazine and just loved it. It's a simple idea with a simple form and still it's very original, thanks to designers Gaston Zahr and Merav Eitan.

It really invites you to plunge in this bird's nest and stay there all day or all night!
Want to have it? Visit www.oge-group.com

"The experiment"

Every morning I get up around 6h30 and drive to my job. That's a 30 to 50 minutes drive so in the meanwhile I listen to the radio. I switch in between Studio Brussel and Q-music but nowadays I tend to listen more to the talkative hosts from Q-music.

Today they started with "The experiment"
Concept: 2 male dj's and 1 female dj are locked up in a small studio for an undefined period and receive news facts from which they don't know whether they are true or not. So each morning and each evening they get 4 questions and by answering them correctly, they can get out of the experiment. Since they are journalists, they're kind of addicted to newspapers, internet etc. so living without any form of communication will be really hard for them! >> funny :-)

If you want to take a look at them, do it here (-this show is in Dutch-)

The purpose of this?

Entertainment of course!

Tattoo a Banana

When you have a free moment.
When you don't know what to do.
When you're in a creative mood.
...

Tattoo a banana!

Want to know how?

Check out this video!

Product placement - videoclips

J.Lo, Wisin & Yandel - Follow the leader!

There's no question about it, J.Lo is smoking hot at her 43. She's back after her divorce from Marc Anthony almost a year ago and she still looks, sings and moves amazing.

In this particular video, released on the 3rd of May, we can spot a lot of trends.

1) J.Lo. This divorced mom of 2 kids still looks stunning in her forties, is very fashionable and has a 18-year younger boyfriend Casper with whom she pretends to be very much in love (read how she defends their age difference here and watch them dance way too sexy together here).

 &  = ??

But, uhm, new stepdad? I bet Max and Emme won't like hime so much...

2) Combining English and Spanish is a guaranteed success! Take an international superstar as Jennifer Lopez, add two of Latin America's most popular "reggaetoneros" and you get a hit-song. 

3) Our way of watching TV has changed in the last few years. TV as we know it today is "digital". This means: tape it all, don't miss a thing and skip the ads. Of course this is great for the viewer, you can now watch your favorite program without being disturbed by some annoying detergent ad. 

But this is of course not so good for the detergent's business so billion dollar companies need to be creative in other ways. Product placement is now with a new focus is on films and videoclips. If you watch this video closely you will spot the next brands:

00:15  Blackberry

00:26  Blackberry

00:36  Rémy Martin Champagne

00:47  Blackberry

01:38  Rexona

01:42  Rexona

01:44  Rexona

01:53  Nike

02:14  Pepsi

02:29  Pepsi

04:03  Rexona

04:07  Rexona

04:15  Rexona

04:51  Rexona

I think it's clear who did the most sponsoring in this video...

Sean Paul is also very good at choosing the sponsors in his video, especially in the (female unfriendly) video of She doesn't mind where he gets very clear shots of his favorite drink and synthetic oil (wtf).

Sean Paul - She doesn't mind

01:13  Rémy Martin 

01:22  Royal Purple

01:26  Royal Purple

02:49  Royal Purple

02:53  Royal Purple

03:43  Rémy Martin

03:44  Rémy Martin

But hey, try to look through this and "enjoy" the videos!

Perfectly timed photos

perfectlytimedphotos.com

The title of this website says it all.

Check it out!

Unnatural tans

Yesterday H&M apologized itself for these ads:

I must admit that the collection is beautiful and so is the model. But there's one remarkable feature: the tan. 

In general, Western people want to get tanned. People with a darker skin are considered to be more attractive.Of course this can lead to skin cancer and has even created a disease called tanorexia. The word itself says it all: people get addicted to the sun and their skin gets a cardboard texture. 

Not so beautiful.

One of the best (or worst) examples is Donatella Versace:

But this isn't everybody's ideal of beauty.

In Asia people prefer a bright skin. 

I bet they have less skin problems!

My point is, you can not change beauty ideals in a day, but you must not exaggerate in applying them! 

Trend of today: use a decent sunscreen!

A dramatic surprise on a quiet square

This video came out last month (not so trendy anymore - apologies for that)
This video has 32 million views on Youtube.
This video is the second most viewed video on Youtube.
This video is hilarious.

This video is Belgian!

Plug your ears!

It's sad to say but over the years even ear plugs became a trend.
Loud music can cause tinnitus (not cool).


Even superstars are not spared from this disease.

This week Chris Martin from Coldplay admitted he suffers from hearing problems (read the article here).



So please people, protect your ears and you protect yourself.


You can buy them at your local supermarket, drug store or, if you want a fancier version, check out the next websites:

• Omerica Organic      custom made ear plugs and a choice out of more than 50 types
• Earplugs China         do you want a big choice, big quantities and little money, it's China baby!          
• Earplugs all brands   select your language and select earplugs. This is for people who know exactly what kind of earplugs they need. There's so much choice!

Make it cool and comfortable to wear ear plugs!

And if you dislike it, please don't stand too close to speakers!

World map vs. City map

So here's the world.
This map is actually in my room. I bought it one time in Paris in a bookstore (not a romantic one like you imagine now when you say "a bookstore in Paris") next to the university where I've studied for a semester.

Anyways, I thought it would be a nice idea to mark all the places/countries I've visited in my life.
Green is for "places I've lived" and pink is "places I've visited".
It is a nice way of decorating a room and being remembered daily of your previous trips.

Next to it is a map of Antwerp.

I consider Antwerp as my city, though I'm from a smaller town. This is the perfect way to visualize all the narrow streets in this old beautiful city.

You may find beautiful maps in bookstores, online, travel shops.. But the easiest way is of course Google maps


Have a nice trip!

Favorite Song // Azealia Banks - 212

If you want to listen to some great music, if you like a solid beat, sound and voice, then listen to Azealia Banks - 212.

This electrifying song can get you in an excellent partymood or just sing (read: scream!) it out loud while listening to it in your car.

Want to hear more? Go to Azealia's myspace or just type her name in on youtube.

Make your own blog

Hi.

The trend with which I'll start is this one: make your own blog.

For a while now I've had this idea in my head and now it's becoming a fact.

Welcome to the Trend of Today.