The Headdress and The Harlequin

On Thursday night I went to a Stone Soup party, à la the Grimm's Brothers fairy tale.

This kind of party is a fantastic idea, by the way, if you and your friends ever experience end-of-pay-week doldrums. You know, when you look in your fridge only to be greeted by an onion and a very unhappy looking sweet potato. And you don't get paid until the next day. Just call a few people, get them all to bring a vegetable, and knock up a soup in your biggest pot - magic!

On Thursday, however, I was feeling tired and a bit overwhelmed by my coursework, and just wanted to stay in bed with my new t-shirt and a trashy movie. I eventually decided to go out and be social - so long as I didn't have to change out of my comfy bed wear.

So here's what I wore:



• Headdress t-shirt from an Evil Polyester-Loud-Music-and-Neon-Lights Store. I never go in those sorts of stores, but I loved this shirt so much, I caved.
• 1930's black rayon teddy.
• Black OTK socks, sockdreams.com
• Vintage 1970's red boots.
• Vintage Kenzo silk harlequin-print scarf. My favourite scarf, definitely.
• Sports bandage on my wrist.
• 'Diesel' glasses.


Detail of my rings:



Top to bottom: 1970's citrine ring that was a gift to my mother from her then-husband. Pearl ring that was my grandmothers. Engraved silver bulbous ring that my grandmother bought in Malaysia in the ... 70's? Maybe? Rhinestone cluster ring, a present from my mother.

Most of my rings are somehow tied to the women in my family. I don't wear rings that often, but when I do, I like to wear so many that they look like bejewelled knuckledusters, as I told the lovely joulesstar.

Current Things

Chris Johanson @Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, originally uploaded by fotoflow / Oscar Arriola.

This guy, Chris Johanson, makes awesome paintings, as evidenced here and here. (His wife, Jo Jackson, also makes incredible work.) And he looks fantastic, too! This picture makes me wish I had a beard and some hornrim glasses as well.

Seriously. But I'd be satisfied with a mere moustache.

Things have been busy, lately, and will continue to be crazy! I've said I'm sorry before, and I am. It just means that this blog will be mostly outfit pictures during the semester. I have an outfit photo from last night's Stone Soup party (yes, that's right, we all brought a vegetable like in the fairytale) and tomorrow night I'm going to dress up like Darryl Hannah from Blade Runner for a Science-themed party, so I'll try and capture that too.

I've bought quite a bit in the way of clothes lately - most recently, a super soft t-shirt with an Indian headdress on it (I'm still halfway through making my own headdress after encountering huge logistical problems!), a 1930's ivory silk faille suit, a velvet Victorian mourning cape and a 1970's rayon zip-up playsuit that I have to stop breathing to fit into.

Otherwise, my brain is wholly consumed with painting, paper, perspex ... and alliteration, clearly.

So, what have you been up to lately, lovelies? And what are your most recently-purchased pieces of clothing?

Pinks Picks

So these are my picks of the last week or twos blog crops,

• This sexy ass shiny american apparel Batwing Hoodie, preferably in the Champagne Lustre Colorway, doubly matched with this Lame Headband, silver again of course.
• These Nike Killshot re-releases, they remind me sort of a Cortez, but sportier, just so clean and nice. The perfect sneaker.
• Nike boatshoes? YES PLEASE! Also on the subject of boatshoes, i just can't go past these Sebago Docksides for breathing nice fresh air into a pretty standard shoe. Shame theyre limited to such small numbers, ill probably never see a pair.
• Official dropped these totally dope caps for their spring line, i'm especially feeling the Catalinas, the checked ones, i would wear the hell out of that.
• Stussy just keeps going from strength to strength IMHO, and seeing this collab with one of my all time fav cartoonists Peter Bagge, well, the cake has been iced.
• Who doesnt love Chanels bigwig Karl Lagerfeld? And just when you thought the glove wearing legend couldn't get cooler they release a Barbie (well a ken) doll of him! HOLY SHIT BATMAN!
  

This video cropped up and i just kept watching it and watching it, tAz Arnold is bringing the crazy styles! i could never come up with the stuff he is wearing in this clip! just inspiring.



I'll finish up with one of my outfits i managed to snag a photo of this week,
Just going for old fashioned class, trying to keep it simple and nice,

I was wearing, Van Authentics on my feet (pretty new, still got the tag!), Moji Pants that i inherited a while ago, C17 button up and an opshopped scarf!

Double, er ... Trouble?

I'm not a very serious person. I'm pretty silly in day-to-day life. With that in mind, it's pretty difficult to keep a straight face when I'm taking daily outfit photos around my boyfriend. He stands on the other end of the kitchen, talking, while I stand in front of the camera. So last night, after a couple of silly solo shots, I pulled him in front of it too.



I guess neither of us are much good at being serious.



No good at all.


I'm wearing:

• Red ruffled 1960's square dance dress. I cut the hideous ruffled sleeves off, so now it's sleeveless.
• Charcoal 'Cue' cardigan, Ebay.
• 1940's black and white spectators.

He's wearing (I think?):

• 'My Disco' t-shirt.
• The jeans are Levis.
• Puma shoes.

Two Painting Outfits

My life has been taken over. Invaded. Well and truly. Currently, my life is all about painting. And my Honours degree. I'm even dreaming about it, for chrissakes. Which is why my daily outfit photographs have turned into the outfits that I paint in - in all their cadmium-red-splattered, daggy glory. I've even started wearing jeans again, purely because most of my jeans are already covered in paint, so why worry about them?

One thing I like about being in the studio a lot is that it forces me to be more creative about what I wear - ideally, I would wear inexpensive clothes, clothes that I don't particularly value. But I don't want to just throw on a pair of tracksuit pants and be done with it, either. I want to put together an outfit that still bears the hallmarks of, well, me, even if my favourite dress-up ingredients, like 50's dresses and patent boots, are out.

(By the way, I don't own tracksuit pants. Don't worry.)

Please excuse my face in these photographs! They were both taken at about eight in the morning, and my face doesn't usually fall into place until at least eleven.




On Wednesday, I wore:

• Maroon geometric scarf.
• Maroon velvet bed jacket, formerly a dressing gown, worn as a jacket.
• White 'Just Jeans' cotton dress, eBay, $2.
• Black 60's ruffled nightie, underneath.
• Black 'Jay Jay's' skinny jeans.
• Black and white 1940's spectator heels, opshopped.




And today I wore:

• White ruffled tuxedo shirt, eBay.
• Jeans, bought in Europe.
• White flip-floppy thong things (I wasn't functioning well enough at eight this morning to think about footwear).
• Blue beret, eBay.


And while we're on the subject of my life-consuming painting obsession, here is one of my favourite painters, Rosson Crow, dressed fantastically at one of her shows (taken from this amazing interview):

Argyle in the Afternoon

argyle, originally uploaded by atriuum.

This is what I'm wearing to go and babysit my exhibition for the afternoon. Which means: read books in the corner while people wander around the gallery.

I'm wearing:

• Brown lace slip,vintage, underneath, opshopped.
• Brown sheer-opaque striped stockings, stolen from my mother.
• 1980's woven oxfords, black, eBay.
• 1950's pale pink embroidered organza dress, vintage shop in King St, Newtown.
• Argyle jumper, brown and pink, bought in Kmart of all places, in 2006.
• Black patent belt, taken from a 'Cue' dress.


Fabric detail:

How Great is This!

I copped this image over at Formatmag when i was trolling just earlier, and i just think its awesome, who would ever have thought of wearing differnet coloured stockings! totally wild!

Ketchup...

So I've been offline for a while, stranded in the country with its unbearable summers and terribly small internets, but ive sorted myself a laptop, and, as we all know, if there's one thing that's good about the country its the opshopping (sure as hell isnt the godamn internets). So i've been shopping like a fiend, and as result, ive gotten some pretty neat new pieces together, heres a couple i managed to get pictures of.
So this is a pretty clasic outfit for me, grey houndstooth pants which were a gift, nike sweets, my street fighter shoryken shirt (to celebrate the release of SF4), supreme mesh cap and to flash it all up my handmade nes controller bling. (im also wearing red socks to match with the cap an the red on the shirt, but you cant see them in the pic, sadly)
This has been my basic look for the summer, preppy, with those adidas forums, adidas germany coloured socks with matching adidas cardigan (which i only bought at ponys discretion, thanks :)) white short shorts, and an opshopped mickey mouse disneyland shirt for a touch of 80s flair.
These shorts are my favourite new thing i think, Fletcher Joneses, i opshoped them, and got them taken in, and they are just amazing. i've been pairing them with tailored shirts, either tucked or not, and matching sneakers, sometimes also with caps. that bag im holding is this brilliant 70s leather adidas squash number, which is starting to die, so i cant take it everywhere anymore. ill get more pics of it up asap.

The Butterfly Cabinet

Photograph by Robyn Stacey of the Macleay Butterfly Cabinet from the NMA journal archives.

Another strange piece of inspiration. I stumbled across this image online this morning. The colours struck me immediately. I put together three outfits based on the kinds of colours in this beautifully arranged butterfly cabinet, based on a simple outfit of taupe boots (Mollini), lilac stockings (We Love Colors) and a brown lace slip (St. Vinnies):






In this outfit, I added:
• 1960's tweed cape, bought at a vintage market.
• Ivory 'Cue' galaxy-style dress.
• Grosgrain ribbon belt, borrowed from a vintage lace dress.






In this weird colour combination, I added:
• Blue silk and organza scalloped dress, 1950's, eBay.
• Yellow cardigan, 'Avocado'.
• Mustard belt, borrowed from an old 'Cue' dress.
• Blue beret, eBay.






And in this, I added:
• Turquoise heavy duchesse satin 1950's tulip dress, vintage store on King St, Newtown.
• Multicoloured knit cap, bought by my sister in Chile.

Glam Army Gal

I pulled out this dress from the back of my wardrobe today. I haven't worn it for over a year. I couldn't figure out why - it's beautifully made, the striped silk is feather-light ... I pulled it on and suddenly remembered. It doesn't suit me. The colour is wrong against my skin. My waist is 24 inches but you wouldn't guess under those folds of olive green. The skirt is too long and dwarfs me.

I've worn the dress all day in an effort to convince myself not to sell it on, but really. Even after donning my favourite Mollini boots, my favourite garrison hat and some red lipstick, the dress still looked more middle-aged-big-busted-matron than twenty-two-year-old-girl-with-Billy-Idol-hair. Sad. Even hamming it up in photographs didn't change my mind - I still felt frumpy:






Hmph.

So today I wore:
• 1950's silk shirtwaist dress, soon to be someone else's via eBay, I guess.
• Mollini cut-out boots.
• Garrison hat, eBay. I had a stewardess hat obsession for about a year and a half.
• Extras: Red lipstick, 50's petticoat, child's singlet.

Please, Please, Please Let me Get What I Want

That is, a pair of buckled thigh boots. I have been looking for months, but I can never seem to get exactly the right pair. I'm not talking about a latex-look stiletto affair à la Pretty Woman. I'm thinking about something like this:

Unfortunately, these particular boots are a size 10 ... four sizes too big for my itty bitty feet.

To wear with long, demure, ballerina-length skirts? 1930's lace dresses? American Apparel white lamé leggings and white metallic lace? I don't know - but oh how I want them.

Pictures At An Exhibition

This is just to give you a little peek into the group exhibition that has been taking up a bit of my time and a lot of my headspace lately. The show opened on Thursday night.



An installation by my friend Chely. Claire, another artist in the show, is in the background.


I'm on the left. I love that dress.


That's one of my old paintings on the right. Awesome expression on the face of the total stranger on the right, too!

And as much fun as it is quaffing wine until you forget how your shoe works, and wearing a pretty dress, I'm much calmer now the opening is over!!

A Practical Outfit

This is what I wore a couple of days ago to hang my work for a group exhibition that opened last night - photographs of the exhibition forthcoming! It's not a great outfit, but some days I don't dress in lovely dresses and shoes - I get into paint-splattered trousers and do practical things ... Crazy, huh?

Here's me doing a little dance to Gomez before I left!







Wearing:

• Skinny jeans, bought in Europe.
• Vintage'Vanity Fair' petticoat.
• Vintage 'we love space - 2004 space odyssey' sweatshirt. Bought at a market in Kyoto from a bunch of teenagers for 300 yen.
• Vintage scarf, opshopped.
• Black paint-y boots, eBay.
• New pink Rayban clubmaster knockoffs, eBay.

The Vagrant Prom Queen

Each Winter, I like to have an overriding aesthetic - last Winter, it was what I dubbed a “homeless prom queen” look, similar to what Meredith calls “Cheap Glamour”. Ratty, tattered, luxe, pastels: Velvet tuxedo jackets with the velvet bare in places, chantilly lace dresses with gaping holes where the lace has separated, gloves with the fingers cut off, wool berets with holes in them, an old “simulated fur” capelet from the 60s.

I want to develop this look again this winter, but with less poofy tulle and more semi-futuristic, sleek elements. Shiny black legs, silver sequin jackets. With turbans and moth-eaten cashmere. Deconstructed tweed jackets and 1930’s silk slips, mixed with patent boots and mirrored glasses.


These Repetto shoes would be perfect if only my little size 37 feet would grow!

The idea is that the look involves pieces that connote old world glamour, while also looking like you pulled them from an estate sale, a clothing swap, or from outside your nearest Vinnies bin.

I may find a use for all of those beaded flapper-esque ivory dresses I bought when I was 17, after all! I’ll play a little dress-ups with this look & my (vast) wardrobe later on, when I have some time that is all mine (!) but until then, here are a couple of Polyvore pretties:





I'd love to paint in these all day, until I feel hazy from the fumes, and go and buy some Czech pilsners and take them to a public garden with a few fellow Ponies and some balloons (and possibly some blankets to rug up in). I would occasionally do the Charleston along the way to break up the monotony of walking.

The House of Teese

These are old photographs, so you've probably seen them before, but I love how stuffy and dustily glamorous Dita Von Teese's house is. I couldn't live within those walls, but it appeals to the red-lipsticked, purple-rinsed fabulous old lady I will one day be:



Photographs by Jeff Minton for the New York Times.