Every single year I look forward to the Coachella music festival held in California. When I mean I look forward to it, I mean I check the line-up the moment it is announced, check out those bands included that I don't know of, watch the sucky videos of the performances posted on YouTube, check out all the photos of the best dressed people there.

This year, they had a wonderful lineup (although some of my favorite bands that I expected to be there weren't, it's all good). When I found out there would be a live streaming of the whole festival on YouTube, I was psyched- no I was ecstatic! As much as I wanted to clear my schedule and stay home to watch the show, I had to do a bunch of errands and go to school. I still got to see a bunch of the acts that were posted on YouTube. The only act that I really wanted to watch, but am still unable to is The Strokes. The quality of the vids uploaded are so horrible I can't hear the sounds properly. If anyone finds a decent version, please let me know!

One of my favorite parts of Coachella- or any event at all- is seeing what everyone decided to wear. I was excited to see which celebrities attended. There are those people whose styles are always Coachella-ready. People like Isabel Lucas, Whitney Port and, Coachella veteran, Kate Bosworth are one of said people. Then there are those people who go all out during the festival, like this girl in a bikini. Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it!



Coachella shouldn't just be about the huge flock of celebrities that attend it (Really, do these people even listen to these bands?) or the things the people choose to wear (although they can be quite the spectacle). It's about the music! I was really thrilled to see Mumford and Sons, Crystal Castles, Robyn, Warpaint, The Strokes, Kings of Leon, Two Door Cinema Club, Foals, Kanye West and Ellie Goulding.

My favorite act was definitely Kanye. Even if he isn't my favorite artist out of all the ones there, he gave the best performance. The set was amazing, the dancers were wild and he was a beast when he performed! Never expect anything less from Kanyesus.


Warpaint was adorable! I love these girls, I have a thing for all girl bands. If you haven't heard of these ladies, you should definitely check them out. They are brilliant.


Foals & Mumford and Sons were so good that I decided to download their videos to my phone. Marcus is amazing and I kind of fell in love watching him sing on stage. And then there's Jack Bevan, the drummer of Foals. Ah, ginger musicians are my weakness (see Alex Trimble). Every Mumford and Sons song was great, but my favorite was Little Lion Man. I love it when a band starts a song and they start the first riff (is that what it's called?) and the crowd recognizes the songs and they all scream in unison. That's probably be the most exhilarating part of a song IMO.



There are fabulous ladies that I was glad to have caught on the live stream. Robyn and Ellie Goulding were fantastic! Ellie has the most amazing voice! She's a goddess. She looks amazing in what looks like what I wear to go to sleep. How do you do it, Ellie?



If I could just watch one show out of all those in the lineup, I'd probably pick Crystal Castles. Alice Glass is amazing. Look at this bitch stage diving with a broken foot. I wasn't able to catch the live stream so I had to watch the shitty YouTube uploads and there were very few of them. From the few videos that I had seen, I can tell it was one hell of a show! There was this part where the whole place looked like a rave! Fucking Crystal Castles, yo!




UGH COACHELLA, SOMEDAY!!!!!!!!!

Let me leave you with this video that will leave you with eternal LOLs.

MANILA KID

A few weeks ago, I chanced upon an album on Facebook of what looked like an online clothing store. It wasn't until a few days later when a different friend of mine who knows one of the Executive Directors of the project told me what it really was that I became interested in it.

What is Manila Kid?

"Manila Kid is a movement that promotes Manila's youthful and vibrant image through merchandise, community of bloggers and a social charity. It dreams of rebranding Metro Manila from a city of poverty and degradation into something that the future generations would be proud of."

I have a love/hate relationship with Manila. I dislike it for the heavy traffic and polluted streets, but I love it for its bustling streets that are always alive and the diverse bunch of people. It's rare that people associate Manila with its good side. I think we need something that will bring light to the great things Manila has to offer and Manila Kid is just the project to do so.

How they plan on doing this, you ask?

"Merchandise: we will have a collection of merchandise where familiar and homegrown icons will be reinterpreted into post-modern graphic designs. It will also partner with starting brands which uphold the core values of Manila Kid.

Community of Bloggers: A circle of regular contributors will write about the latest trends and happenings in the metro. Featured personalities will also be interviewed.

Social Advocacy: It will partner with a charity dealing with children, so every time a customer buys a merchandise, a portion of the payment will go to the kids of Tuklasan Center"

What I love most about Manila Kid is it actually helps people in need. No, this isn't just some frivolous project. Not only does it aim to change the negative views people have of our dear hometown, but it helps the people living there.



Manila Kid will be launched this May. I hope you guys will buy the merchandise and spread the word to your friends! I'll make sure to update you with news of this project! :)

A few weeks ago I visited my friends at De La Saale University. DLSU is the university a huge percent of people from my high school go to. People sometimes jokingly refer to it as CSA 2.0. Whenever I visit, I always see a bunch of my old classmates. It's really fun visiting every once in a while.

When I did so with Therese, we had such a great time. All of my friends who study in another school went to DLSU too so we got to be complete once and for all!

Pictured:L-R Top- Jara, Ana, Yua Bottom- Karlos, Raph, Tina, Me, Therese, Nicole, Czar


It was so lovely to be with them after such a long time. Jara, who I never ever see unless I visit her in school, was finally there and I was finally able to reconnect with her. We all bonded at Cerealicious and Papa John's. We decided to head out just before it got dark. We didn't know where to go yet, but thankfully, Therese offered up her house for a drinking session.


Therese & I

So we went to Central to takeout alcohol. The car ride was so fun! We kept laughing all the way to Therese's house. We stayed at her patio as usual and ordered in McDo! It was a great night too! I had to leave early though because the next morning I had an important thing to go to.

The next day was my (not so) little brother's grade school graduation. The ceremony was in the school's newly renovated gymnasium.


Walking to the gym with my mother


Outfit of the day:
Top - Divi
Pants- Divi
Shoes - F21
Bag - Hong Kong Ladies' Market



The graduates

It was so hilarious watching them because I am all too familiar with how you're instructed to be robotic and spot on with everything you do during the ceremony. They tell you at what word to clap, the exact moment you will sit, which hand to shake the rector's hand with, etc. I lol'd when one kid sat in the wrong aisle whcih resulted in a domino effect that lead to the last few students lacking seats. I could see the teachers getting angry.


My brother who stands out due to his abnormal height


Getting his diploma

After the ceremony we took photos and decided to have lunch in Burgos Cirlce in The Fort. We ate in Unle Cheffy. The food was decent, but I didn't like what I ordered so much.



After that I went to Tina's house to film for her debut. It turns out the filming won't be in her house in Ayala but in Marikina. We all took a car there and as usual the car ride was so noisy with out voices trying to compete the party songs playing. The shoot was so funny because we all had to re-do it after seeing that we all looked haggard in the video.

After the shoot, we ate in Gravy Fix Katipunan. What was hilarious was a friend rang me and was freaking out. She kept asking if I was alright because news was going around that I had been in a car accident. I just laughed it off. Apparently my brother was playing a very unfunny April Fools trick! He got in trouble for it after because my parent did not think it was funny. Heehee

It was a really fun couple of days! I had fun spending the days with my girls.

Coachella

So as I promised I would update this blog more with more personal things. It is my birthday today! I am an adult! 18 years! Wow! I remember years ago, I had this list of things to do before I turn 18. It had things like: get a boyfriend, go skinny dipping, drink until I pass out and loads of other things I still have yet to do! I know 18 is pretty young, but I feel sort of like I don't have enough to show for it. Ah, well, I am just waiting for my big break. Hello, Ms. Wintour?

Anyway, last Friday my friends and I went to a Coachella themed bazaar in Rockwell. Rockwell bazaars are usually frequented by fashion bloggers and personalities. It's also where you can buy from online stores so we all really wanted to go. Also, the theme was Coachella. There was good music promised so we got really excited.

Before going to Rockwell, we checked out the new Forever 21 branch in Makati. It was packed at merely 10am! I didn't get to explore it much, but I can say that I like the Megamall branch more.

We finally went to Rockwell and checked out the items. There were tons of really pretty things like quirky rings with the faces of Frida Kahlo, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn (duh, of course!). There was a stall that had a long rack of cropped tops. There was one that had a cartoon print of Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange) that I told myself I would buy, but I totally forgot to! :( Even worse is that I forgot what the name of the store was. I did manage to buy POSH shoes which saved my aching feet by the end of the night.

Aside from that shirt, there wasn't anything that I wanted to buy. I don't know, everything looked like everything else. Anyway, the bazaar was pretty disappointing. There wasn't anything different about this bazaar. It wasn't unlike any other bazaar they have in Rockwell. I mean, it was a great tactic to theme it Coachella because of all these damn *hipsters in Manila.

We just took a lot of photos. These are a bunch of me with Karlos posing against the photo wall.





Our shopping trip turned into a food trip. We ended up eating at Gram's and vandalizing the wall. There happened to be a raging Klaine shipper who wrote before us. That wall was filled with Kurt ♥ Blaine and Klaine 4ever!


After eating at Gram's, we walked around a bit and ended up in this closed off bridge. No one was passing (I don't even think people were allowed to because there were post blocking the way that we had to jump over) so we took advantage and took photos!





We had to go home after that. I bought home a load of red velvet cake which was delicious!

Outfit:
Top: Mango
Shorts: Divi
Shoes: Hong Kong
Necklace: Divi
Bag: Hong Kong

Note: I thought I could try the color blocking trend little by little. The entirety of my closet is black so this trend would take a lot of adjusting to. My bag is a bright color and so were my nails. It looks stupid because no one can even tell what color my nails are so it just looks like my bag is so out of place. Ugh, next shopping trip: the brighter the better!


*does it count when they actually like being labeled hipsters?

Photodump segment where I upload inspirations from my favorite streetstyle blogs! :)

Credits to: jakandjill garancedore streetpeeper






Bonus cuteness of Anna Dello Russo with Marc, Alber and John