For the past week, I have been traveling up and down the beautiful region of Lecce. During this excursion, if I had to name one thing that never got me tired of looking at, it had to be… the olive trees!

No matter their size or their age, I was always in awe before their silver and green leafs, their beautifully twisted trunks and their uniqueness. One of the characteristic of the “Olivier”, especially the old ones, is that no tree is alike… (The ones in these pictures are over 70 years old!) And then there was the olives… Greedy as I am, I tried one but as it wasn’t the season I spat it out as fast as I bit it! I guess I will just have to content myself with the ones from the Sunday market…

Please know that although you see me smiling and relax on this tree, I spent half of the time jumping because of insects trying to get into my hair or climb on my legs and if I was not jumping I was certainly screaming at the sight of lizards..! But as usual there was more fear than harm 😉

Dress: Bang Bang – Shoes: Ash

Photos of me by Fikera

Hi Everyone…! Sorry for the long absence but being on holiday, I wanted to step away from my computer a little… I think I needed a little offline detox! This is why I spent most of my holidays without a watch, a phone or internet… I wouldn’t have done the same during fashion week or any other week of the year but I thought it was so nice to wake up everyday wondering which day it was and not really care about the time, the calls or the mails… The only electronic device I allowed myself to carry at all time was my beloved camera. What about you? Do you sometimes feel like you need to put yourself offline for a while?

Tomorrow I will be showing you some images of my trip but in the meantime, here is a very special street style… Probably one of my favorite as not everyone can pull of this kind of look!

Or should I say, Country style!

Hi Everyone! To avoid being completely absent from the blog, I thought I would share with you some of my  holiday pictures…Thanks to my phone and I could record some of the things I have seen as I didn’t really bring myself yet to carry my camera to the beach. This being said I haven’t been doing anything much apart from reading, swimming and eating… But then again, what else could I do..?

So, I have been playing with my feet in the sand while reading the marvelous biography of Helena Rubinstein… A must read for anyone passionate by tales of strong women. Going through the pages is like taking a trip in time from the late 19th century until the mid 20th… While meeting all the greatest artists of the time; Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Cocteau, all the designers; Poiret, Worth, Chanel, Balenciaga… It is also learning about the birth of today’s most influential cosmetic companies; her own but also Elizabeth Arden, Revlon, L’oréal, Maybeline. In fact, this book is so good that I will unfortunately finish it before the end of my holidays…

I have also been drinking Orangina’s, swimming confidently around the fishes (finally!), wearing ridiculous hairstyles, been on a sailboat for the very first time, walking around vineyards, looking at the sunset, eating a lot… (probably too much) but more importantly I have been practicing my Italian…!

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I will be taking more “serious” pictures over the next few day as I will be continuing my visit of the beautiful Puglia in south Italy so stay tuned…

In the mean time I wish you all great Holidays!

xx

After a few weeks under the Belgian rain I am now back in Milan where it is boiling hot. Aah! Finally some sun…

One of the things I love to do when the temperature rises is… to make lemonades! Yes! I always loved fruity things but I guess it was when living in London that I became addicted thanks to the delicious Waitrose‘s home made lemonade. So when I left London, I then tried to recreate my own adding sometimes mint, sometimes, ginger or even strawberries and it quickly became my favorite summer drink. And when I was organizing parties my friends could just add a drop of rum to turn it into an exotic cocktail…

So today I thought… Why not share one of my recipe with you guys?

[hr_caption]Spicy Lemonade[/hr_caption]

[hr_caption]Ingredients (for 1Liter)[/hr_caption]

[list style=”2″]

[li]2 1/2 lemons[/li]

[li]6 spoon of unrefined cane sugar[/li]

[li]1 ginger (if you are not a fan of ginger you can replace it with some mint leafs)[/li]

[li]water[/li]

[/list]

Note that if you are not sure about certain quantity, it is always better to put less and add the rest later according to your taste.

[hr_caption]Recipe[/hr_caption]

Squeeze the juice of the lemons and verse it into a glass bottle or container.

Cut a piece of ginger (I usually cut it the size of a cherry tomato), peel it and slice it roughly. Into a a mixer, put the ginger, cover it with a little bit of water and mix until liquid.

Using a stainer, pour the preparation into the glass bottle with the lemon juice.

Place the cane sugar in a cooking pot with some water and heat it slowly until you the sugar melted. Pour the sirup into your bottle. Fill up the rest of the bottle with water , shake and TA-DAA!

Serve it fresh and enjoy!

Let me know if you liked it and if you added your personal touch, I would be curious to know your version so don’t hesitate to share it below. But tell me, what is your favorite summer drink?