Turning Cisse

The life and style of Djibril Cisse is well-documented, as is his dedication to changing from one ridiculous hairstyle to another, not to mention his incredible ability to break his own legs. He's not bad for scoring goals either, if you don't mind them appearing as infrequently as Radiohead in the USA.

What you may not know about him is that he is rather fond of fashion, and owns a clothing shop, and being the brave, exclusive-sniffing journalists that they are, the Daily Mail sent a flack down to his shop to get a Cisse makeover.

As you'd expect, the results are absolutely ridiculous.

The Mail isn't exactly the newspaper of the hip-hop loving, youthful demographic, but they managed to cover the exuberance of "the young people's clothes" without being too snarky or frightened in their special "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY!!!!" kind of way. That's what they do, being the wonderful social conservatives that they are.

Peep the before and after

Of course, Cisse still does it in his own special way: the Sunderland striker's store is in Newcastle, and while he leaves day-to-day operations to his staff, he does pop in several times a week to catch up.

Said the striker:

"It is to show the way I see clothes and fashion to the people. It is a different style but it is what I like and my advice to people would be to just come and look, see if they see something. If they don't... (shoulder shrug)...

The boutique is something I've had planned for a while. I come in after training for a few hours if I can, have a mooch around, help out a bit and go back home. We have items here you will not find anywhere else. The idea is exclusivity and something different. If there was one word for it, it is different."

Aye Djibril, it certainly is different, mate.

You wonder whether the store will go out of business once those Geordies that can read figure out that the The Pr9ject on Forth Street is his.