Latest news with #Dsquared²
The Spinoff
3 days ago
- Business
- The Spinoff
The cost of being: A retail assistant who's ‘broke with expensive taste'
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a retail assistant in their early-20s explains why they're all about spending over saving at the moment. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here. Gender: Woman. Age: 23. Ethnicity: NZ European. Role: Retail assistant. Salary/income/assets: $28 an hour on a part-time schedule. My living location is: Urban. Rent/mortgage per week: $0 (I live at home). Student loan or other debt payments per week: Not paying my student loan back yet, eek. $17 p/w for Afterpay. Typical weekly food costs Groceries: $30 per week. Eating out: $25 per week. Takeaways: UberEats once every couple of weeks, usually $30 worth of kai. Workday lunches: $20 per week on the odd sushi or wrap. Cafe coffees/snacks: $15, I don't drink coffee but will splurge on a matcha here or there. Savings: I'm not saving for anything. The world is so fucking bleak, I really don't think it's worth suffering in the meantime for an uncertain future. Given that the planet seems like it's a couple years away from plunging into a full grim dystopia, I'll be using every dollar I have to assert my vivacity and joie de vivre while I still can. Legendary diva Karl Marx said it best: 'The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being.' I worry about money: Never. Three words to describe my financial situation: Impulsive, irresponsible, generous. My biggest edible indulgence would be: I absolutely froth oysters – recently spent $80 on 12 at Gochu in Commercial Bay. They were totally gorgeous, so no regrets there! In a typical week my alcohol expenditure would be: $30, I usually pick up a bottle of wine for pre-drinks. Lots of my drinks are comped or bought by friends and beguiled strangers while out, which I really appreciate. In a typical week my transport expenditure would be: $15, I'm a full time bus diva. Will occasionally swing for an Uber home, but I live centrally so I usually walk. I estimate in the past year the ballpark amount I spent on my personal clothing (including sleepwear and underwear) was: $800. I'm a Depop fieeeeend. I'm happy to spend a little extra for beautiful pieces that are either handmade or pre-loved. I have some friends that spend triple that amount of new designer pieces, so I'm very proud of having a wardrobe full of locally sourced and incredible clothing. My most expensive clothing in the past year was: I bought an insane pair of vintage Dsquared² pumps for $400. I'm on such a shoe kick at the moment, and Dsquared² make the nasssstiest heels. I even managed to haggle the vendor down from $600, so I'm very proud of my acquisition (said like Kath Day-Knight). My last pair of shoes cost: A pair of super sweet spat boots for $30 from Trade Me. My grooming/beauty expenditure in a year is about: $400. I do my own hair and grooming, and don't bother with things like tanning, injectables or shaving. My skincare is decently expensive though, and I buy a pair of falsies pretty regularly since I'm always crying mine off. My exercise expenditure in a year is about: I don't exercise outside of trotting about all day. My last Friday night cost: $150. I bought a bottle of wine, went to a drag show and tipped, and paid some friends for a bump. I'm usually much more conservative with my spending, but a friend was visiting from Australia so splurged a little. Most regrettable purchase in the last 12 months was: A pair of jeans that didn't fit. I resold them, but losing that $20 for a couple weeks really stung. Most indulgent purchase (that I don't regret) in the last 12 months was: I bought my younger sibling their first ever handbag. We researched for months before they settled on a classic Moschino heart tote, and I was happy to cover the $800 cost. It's a piece they'll have in their collection forever, and it felt really important and meaningful to get them something so personal. I'm really excited to borrow it from them, ha! One area where I'm a bit of a tightwad is: Door charge. If I deign to spend anything, it's got to be below $10. Seriously? Door charge? In Auckland? Have we lost our fucking minds? I've told my friends that if I'm happy to pay $15 to stand in a sticky club and watch an unemployed white guy spin crap DnB they have to shoot me in the head immediately because that's an imposter. Five words to describe my financial personality would be: She's broke with expensive taste. I grew up in a house where money was: Of intense importance. I come from a single mother who lived in deep poverty up North, and we managed to make it to the middle class after a lot of struggle and strife. Mum tried to impart her skills at budgeting and saving on me, but I obviously find it a bit difficult. Still, I'd rather be surrounded by life and laughter and have nothing than grind for years for fleeting stability. The last time my Eftpos card was declined was: Yesterday. Two words: cigarettes, mama. Transferring yourself the $3 you're short as quickly as you can because there's a line behind you is a sacred ritual. In five years, in financial terms, I see myself: Really having to knuckle down and change my spending habits. I know being a ridiculously fabulous aesthete isn't going to last forever, so I'm making the most of it while I can. The job I work at has a really good pathway towards a more serious role (the mythical 'big girl job') so that's something I'm working towards. I would love to have more money for: Art and artists. I'd love to be able to decorate my space full of beautiful handmade pieces. There are so many incredible visual artists in Tamaki, if I had a million dollars I think I could drop it all on paintings and sculptures. Describe your financial low: Two years ago I was in Dunedin, on the brink of homelessness and too proud to let anyone know. I lived with an abusive partner who constantly controlled my finances, and regularly starved and struggled to make rent payments. The money I made from my shitty casual job was going directly to my partner's drug fund, and I had to resort to selling my Kmart furniture on Facebook for income. Luckily my friends swooped in and saved me from what was the darkest chapter in my life – it could've gone so horribly for me, and I'm deeply angry and embarrassed that money was such a large contributing factory. I give money away to: Lots of mutual aid requests. Recently, I've given to a handful of friends' transition and moving costs, as well as a pretty large donation towards World Central Kitchen. There's an old joke about queer people passing back and forth the same $20, and that's absolutely true – when I was at my worst, my community swooped in to hold me up. I don't really think of it as expenditure when it's going towards my people. Also, tip the dolls!
South China Morning Post
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Michele Morrone, the hunky leading man of 365 Days and Another Simple Favor fame, on his friendship with Blake Lively, staying grounded in Hollywood, and the importance of being a good dad
Everything is romantic in the eyes of Michele Morrone, the hunky Italian leading man who's out to prove he can give Colin Farrell and Leonardo DiCaprio a run for their money. 'I'm obsessed with my life and obsessed with my passions,' the 34-year-old breakout star from erotic thriller 365 Days tells me over the phone one morning, dialling in from Milan to discuss his life as an actor, a father and everything in between. Self-assured and confident, as you would surely expect from one of Hollywood's most handsome faces, Morrone's name is also one of the most recognisable right now. Fresh off starring alongside Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in Another Simple Favor, the sequel to Paul Feig's 2018 smash hit A Simple Favor, the actor is set to take on another blockbuster role in Feig's upcoming film The Housemaid, which casts him alongside A-listers Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney Michele Morrone photographed for Style by Mike Ruiz. Dsquared²: suit, shirt, tie, shoes; Intimissimi Uomo: socks Advertisement 'From my point of view, it's a waste to use only one life to do only one thing that you love,' Morrone says of his somewhat unconventional career path so far, from navigating humble beginnings in Puglia to finding fame through films like Subservience with Megan Fox and appearances on the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars. That's not to mention his side hustles dabbling in music and fashion. 'It's not that I'm going to wait until this life to finish my acting career and then in the next life be a singer, and then again in the next be a painter. I want to do it all together because I'm drunk on life – my passions are like a drug for me.' Riding that high, so to speak, not only transformed Morrone into an international heartthrob nearly overnight with 365 Days, but also took his career to new heights by bringing him face-to-face with pre-eminent filmmaking figures like Feig, whom the actor calls 'one of the most incredible gentlemen I've ever met'. If you ask Morrone whether he could even conceive of all this success back then, as a young hopeful from southern Italy, he would again speak with a sense of romanticism and whimsy – kismet, he calls it, borne out of uncompromising dedication and commitment to a path he feels was laid out for him all this time. 'For me it was more like a trip, like I'm going somewhere,' the actor muses. 'Like, I'm going to Hollywood. And there was something in my mind telling me that it was never a question mark for me. I don't know how much time I am going to take but I'm going there.' Emporio Armani: overcoat. The ring is Michele Morrone's own And go there he has in the span of just a few short years. Since 365 Days was released back in 2020, Morrone filmed two sequels before being tapped by Feig for Another Simple Favor, something the actor describes as a great honour and one which has become one of his most high-profile projects to date. Though legal drama surrounding Lively and her former It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni , has since engulfed his famous castmate and distracted from much of Another Simple Favor's promotion, Morrone refrains from commenting on the controversy and instead gushes about Lively, whom he now calls a best friend. 'We talk almost every day on the phone. We exchange advice. She's like a sister to me – one of the most beautiful women, people, I ever met in my life. I became such good friends with Ryan [Reynolds] as well.' 'You always have the hope that you're going to get along with the person you're working with, especially when you have to play her man,' Morrone continues, when asked about acting alongside Lively and playing her romantic lead. 'You're always hoping to find someone who understands, and me and Blake we had such a great bond straight away. We became good friends from day one so it was very easy for me.'
