Latest news with #CosmopolitanUK
Cosmopolitan
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
5 shorts outfits to keep you cool from linen to Bermuda, because it's too hot to wear anything else RN
Forget summer dresses or skirts, when it's this hot outside – as in 24-degree-plus, officially a heatwave weather – there's only one thing we're reaching for: shorts. Sometimes, a floaty dress or midi skirt just feels like too much fabric swamping your legs, while mini styles are practically asking for chafing. *Shudders.* Well, not only do shorts provide much less of a risk of chafing, but there are so many trending shorts styles to choose from this summer. So, if you've previously struggled to find a flattering pair, we can almost guarantee that will all change this szn. From Chloé's ruffled bloomers to Miu Miu's preppy chic Bermudas, the SS25 runway proved there was something for everyone and the high street has followed suit. Don't just take our word for it. Below, we've rounded up the biggest shorts trends to know about right now, plus the best ways to style your shorts outfits this summer. Nothing beats the easy breeziness of linen for surviving the heat, but when even your linen trousers feel too constricting, turn instead to a pair of linen shorts. Our favourite styles are easily linen boxers, styled with a coordinating oversized shirt for effortless polish. Sorry, micro shorts, summer 2025 is all about Bermuda shorts that fall *at least* to the knee. As there's more fabric on your bottom half, you can get away with your teeny tiniest crop top or a sheer lace cami without feeling too exposed. Bloomer shorts have emerged as a new trend this summer, right in time to see you through the boiling temps when all you really want to wear is, well, nothing. Bloomers are a close second, falling somewhere between knickers and shorts. We love the idea of contrasting against the ultra-feminine, coquette vibe with a sports jersey top. Sure, you might think denim would be counterintuitive for staying cool in hot weather. This season, however, denim shorts are cut in longer line silhouettes with wide legs, allowing for plenty of ventilation. While you can't go wrong with a t-shirt and flip flops to keep things casual, it's surprisingly easy to dress them up with a boho ruffle blouse and heeled sandals. For truly sweaty days, there's no other option than a pair of sports shorts. In the same way track pants were big news in autumn winter, athletic shorts have become a cool girl signifier in summer. Wear yours with an oversized tailored shirt, loafers and stacks of jewellery. Follow Alex on Instagram. Alexandria Dale is the Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK. Covering everything from the celebrity style moments worth knowing about to the latest fashion news, there's nothing she loves more than finding a high street dupe of a must-have designer item. As well as discovering new brands, she's passionate about sustainable fashion and establishing the trends that are actually worth investing in. Having worked in fashion journalism for six years, she has experience at both digital and print publications including Glamour and Ok!
Cosmopolitan
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
M&S launches viral strawberries and cream sandwich – we tried it, here's our verdict
We've had our fair share of viral food trends over the past few months – from Dubai chocolate to all matcha everything – but M&S may have really topped them all with its latest offering in the sandwich aisle. The limited edition strawberries and cream sandwich, based on the internet's beloved viral 'Japanese fruit sando', became M&S's best-selling sarnie just two days after its initial launch. Japanese-style fruit sandwiches have become increasingly popular thanks to TikTok, seeing intrepid foodies trying to hunt them down in Eastern-style bakeries. However, this strawberries and cream sandwich marks the first time this type of snack has been widely available in a British supermarket. With strawberries and cream the nation's go-to snack during the summer (particularly with Wimbledon now getting underway), could a sandwich really be the chic new way to enjoy this British institution? There are very few things that cannot be improved by putting them between two thick slices of white bread, so team Cosmopolitan UK decided to put these unique sandwiches to the test. From the moment you tear open the cardboard packet, you will be hit by a saccharine aroma that borders almost on sickly. This, after all, is not any bog standard white bread with some strawberries shoved in – these are two thick, hearty slices of brioche-style bread which have been generously smothered in a lightly sweetened crème fraiche AND full fat soft cheese which hug the densely cut strawberries tightly. I'm someone with a well-worn sweet tooth (with the fillings to prove it), and even this seemed a little *excessive*. It wasn't so much the taste that was bad when I sunk my teeth through the thick, hearty portion (features editor Jenni decided to wield a knife to cut the sandwich into a dainty finger, while I basically deep throated my triangle), but the texture that threw me off. The cream and strawberries filling aren't the problem – they're a tried-and-tested and relatively safe combination (although the filling could have been slightly colder, but I am writing this while London scorches at 34 degrees). The strawberries are firm and tart enough to cut through some of the more overwhelming sweetness, while the soft cheese provides a slight tang to proceedings. It's the bread that's a disappointment – not sweet or hardy enough like a proper brioche bun, and a little too limp to really hold such a chunky filling with any sort of gravitas. It's basically a sandwich that wants to be a scone so badly. For me, two bites was enough before I eagerly rid myself of it as I would have found it too sickly, but the rest of Team Cosmopolitan are more forgiving than me. Beauty director Keeks compared the sandwich to a Victoria sponge cake, while Jenni said she 'wasn't mad at it' and said the sandwich paired well with a cup of tea. Would I buy it again? While M&S have (rightly) gone viral for its numerous cookie offerings, this fruit sandwich doesn't quite hit the mark; I prefer to have my strawberries and cream in a bowl rather than on bread. But it was worth being adventurous enough to try something new. I've put worse things in my mouth, after all. Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper's Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.
Cosmopolitan
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
How to remove a festival wristband properly without cutting it, using things you have already
Festival season is well and truly underway, with Glastonbury wrapping up its 53rd year of the festival this weekend, and many more events including Forwards Festival, Creamfields, and All Points East all set to take place this summer. But after the festival is over, and you're heading home in your (potentially) muddy wellyboots, you're likely looking to preserve the memories, beyond the cute Polaroids and TikToks. And one very easy way to keep those festival memories alive? Keeping your festival wristband. But how do you keep it one piece? We've got all the hacks to know. A festival wristband is an iconic part of the festival uniform, and though it may be covered in booze, mud and the odd ketchup stain, you still want to hold on to it, not only for the memories, but in the case of Glastonbury, to prove that you went there. Of course you can always just cut your wristband in half to take if off your arm, but then you don't get to preserve it in one piece, so how do you do it? Well this is our essential step by step guide. Still need festival tickets? Enter our Club Cosmo competition for free and be in with a chance of winning tickets to Creamfields or Forwards Festival. ENTER FOR FREE HERE Tips: this works best on looser wristbands, if it's on super tightly please don't pull and tug your wristband. The plastic tag on the wristband has teeth which stop it from becoming loose, so for this method it's about being able to pull the wristband through those teeth, here's how. And now keep the wristband for years to come and reflect on all those festival memories. Lydia Venn is Cosmopolitan UK's Senior Entertainment and Lifestyle Writer. She covers everything from TV and film, to the latest celebrity news. She also writes across our work/life section regularly creating quizzes, covering exciting new food releases and sharing the latest interior must-haves. In her role she's interviewed everyone from Margot Robbie to Niall Horan, and her work has appeared on an episode of The Kardashians. After completing a degree in English at the University of Exeter, Lydia moved into fashion journalism, writing for the Daily Express, before working as Features Editor at The Tab, where she spoke on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Talk Radio. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of Gilmore Girls and 00s teen movies, and in her free time can be found with a margarita in hand watching the Real Housewives on repeat. Find her on LinkedIn.
Cosmopolitan
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
The inventive rise of anti-algorithm dating
It was Wednesday when one of 27-year-old Siren Dahlsveen's friends texted their group chat to suggest a 'Tinder dinner' on the Saturday. The rule was: each of their single girlfriends had to invite a stranger from a dating app for a group first date. 'We had to move quickly,' Siren recalls. 'We only had a few days to pull it off.' The first task: find a date. 'I jumped straight on to Hinge — ironically, since we'd called it a Tinder dinner — and replied to an old message from a guy who'd asked what kind of adventure I would like to go on. I said his first adventure could be joining me and a group of strangers for dinner on Saturday. He thought the idea was hilarious.' Dates secured, the girls had to move on to the scariest part: cooking for 14 people. 'We weren't nervous [about meeting the guys],' declares Siren. 'Our main concern was whether we'd made enough food to feed seven hungry men!' Inviting seven hungry men into your home might feel like the act of a sadist, but, for Siren and her friends, it was a moonshot attempt to spice up their dating lives. The group's spur-of-the-moment singles dinner was born out of a longer-term dissatisfaction with the dating status quo: swipe, match, chat, first date, repeat. This humdrum routine — and the few rewards it reaps — has, according to Forbes, led to 79% of Gen Z feeling burned out by dating apps. In fact, between 2023 and 2024, 1.4 million people in the UK gave up on them completely, according to figures from Ofcom. With people leaving the apps in droves, a plethora of singles events have sprung up in their place — or, more accurately, alongside them (plenty of us are still valiantly swiping away). There's traditional mixers and speed dating, wackier concepts such as Pitch-A-Friend (pitching your single friend via PowerPoint presentation, duh!) and even app-branded run clubs. Other daters, though, are taking matters into their own hands. Like Siren and co, instead of dwelling on depressing stats about dating or relying on third parties to set them up, more and more people are becoming their own anti-algorithm matchmakers. From singles dinners and DIY lonely hearts ads to making friendship bracelets with phone numbers on, we're in a new era of pushing ourselves out of our dating comfort zones in an attempt to find love offline. But will it work? And is success even the point, or is rediscovering the fun in dating enough to make this kind of nerve-racking, potentially awkward risk-taking worth it? 'Full disclosure: I hate dating,' says 23-year-old Sage Kang. 'With dating moving online, going on dates has become so much more of a choice you have to go out of your way to make, rather than romance finding you in your day-to-day life.' So, Sage decided that if romance won't find her, she'd try to find it. 'We saw the idea of making phone number friendship bracelets on TikTok,' she tells Cosmopolitan UK. 'We thought it would be a fun idea, as a way to flirt when we're out. Guy looks cute? Hand him a bracelet, no explanation. Enjoying a chat but wanna bar hop? Bracelet! As an introverted extrovert with crippling social anxiety, handing out bracelets was just the right balance of risky and safe.' That's not to say Sage didn't find the whole thing, well, panic-inducing. '[Outdated as it is], it's the social norm for guys to make the first move, so handing someone your phone number — bluntly saying you're interested — was terrifying,' she says. 'But it was also fun!' Ironically, lots of these IRL dating trends seem to originate and then spread via social media. Both Sage and Siren shared (now-viral) videos of their own efforts, which sit among creators documenting pub trips with friends where they each have to approach someone they think is hot, and others advertising themselves or their mates as available to date via Instagram Stories or even X, listing various qualities and interests. These methods could be seen as stepping stones of sorts — a bridge between totally online and totally offline dating. A new normal for a generation who grew up traversing these two worlds, but for whom dating without a screen as a mediator doesn't come as naturally. Case in point: although Siren and her friends still sourced their dates from dating apps, she says the prospect of a group setting made the whole thing feel exciting again. 'Traditional one-on-one dates can often feel forced, like you're meeting up to immediately assess romantic potential with a complete stranger,' she adds. 'In a group setting, it's more casual, and there's no pressure.' 'It's encouraging to see people seizing the initiative,' says Anna Machin, an evolutionary anthropologist at Oxford University, and the author of Why We Love: The New Science Behind Our Closest Relationships. 'Because in a way, we stopped using apps as a tool that was supposed to help us, and they started controlling us a bit.' Still, Machin believes there's balance to be found — and these offline dating trends could be tipping the scales in the right direction. 'Being social and putting yourself out there is scary,' she says. '[Especially for a generation who weren't necessarily] born into a world where approaching someone in a bar is something you do. It's going to take confidence and time to change the idea about [how dating works]. The evolution of the apps has to be driven by the consumer saying, 'Actually, this doesn't work for anyone; I want to meet people in the room'.' On dating apps, you want to be a winner. You want to match, date and, if it comes to it, be the person who does the rejecting. Dating IRL is less, shall we say, goal- orientated. It's more about the experience — the thrill of asking someone out; the rush of throwing a bracelet with your number at someone and then running away; the pleasures of conversing with a stranger, whether anything comes of it or not. With that in mind, though neither Sage nor Siren found love through their respective adventures, they had a bloody good time on the journey. 'I'd call it a big success,' says Siren, reflecting on the 'Tinder dinner'. 'The atmosphere was super relaxed, everyone was open and talkative, and the guys had a great sense of humour, which made the vibe very playful and lighthearted. Some were a little shy at first, but they opened up more in one-to-one conversations. There was no expectation to stick with the person you brought, so people naturally moved around and chatted with different people.' Only one couple from the dinner continued seeing each other in a romantic way, but many of the others have kept in touch as friends. 'When you meet in real life, chemistry can build over time without pressure,' adds Siren. 'A friendship can turn into attraction, or you can simply enjoy getting to know someone without the expectation that it has to lead somewhere. The dinner was just as much about expanding our social circle as it was about dating.' At a time when many of us are feeling nostalgic for a past that, whether accurately or not, felt more stable, slow-paced, and uncomplicated, it's easy to see the appeal of back-to-basics dating (with a 2025 twist, ofc). As Sage puts it: 'You're crafting your own romcom. And what better adventure than going out in the real world?'
Cosmopolitan
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
Controversial influencer Liver King has been arrested over a shocking charge
Divisive influencer Brian Johnson, best known online as the Liver King, has been arrested in Austin, Texas, and has been charged with making a terroristic threat, according to Austin Police Department records. Further details of the charge, which was booked at around 1am on the 25 June, are not publicly known. Johnson was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary, Untold: The Liver King, which detailed how he shot to fame thanks to his online presence and muscular physique – that Johnson credited to his 'ancestral' diet of raw organs. It later transpired that he had lied about using steroids, which put his supplements business in a somewhat shady light. Johnson later apologised for misleading the public and said he still stands by ancestral living, and would continue to promote a more 'natural' lifestyle to his followers. Johnson's most recent Instagram post saw him call out popular podcast host Joe Rogan, a man often credited with encouraging men to vote for Donald Trump in the last US and having a significant impact on the results. It is not known whether his social post relates to the arrest. "Joe Rogan, I'm calling you out, my name's Liver King. Man to man, I'm picking a fight with you," Johnson said to his 2.9 million followers. "I have no training in Jiu-jitsu, you're a black belt, you should dismantle me. But I'm picking a fight with you. Your rules, I'll come to you, whenever you're ready." Following this video, another post was shared to Liver King's account showing his wife, Barbara (known as the Liver Queen), speaking to someone off-camera who says, "Take this with a grain of salt, but they assured me he's going to be in and out [...] We're talking 24 hours." The unidentified person also said Liver King would appear before a judge, before footage shows a handcuffed Johnson standing outside a vehicle with armed officers. Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC's Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women's Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
