Tuesday 30 November 2010

braving the weather

Alas, dear readers, the onset of winter is a very awkward time to try to keep up a fashion blog, especially when one has a rather sub-par camera and a dark house: I can only get decent pictures in natural daylight, and of late there isn't much. I start thinking "oh, I like what I'm wearing today; I'll take a picture when I'm finished with this other thing", but when I have done that it is getting dark. The nerve of this planet! Ugh. But I persevere, as I will stubbornly show you: today it is raining, but I still ducked outside to get a photograph, for it is high time.


My mother found me a lot of these little Elvish-y blouses that lace up the front and back at Goodwill for a dollar or less -- I have four now, in ivory, burgundy, and two shades of pink (the burgundy one above is shaped a bit differently from the others, however), and they are most excellent at dressing up an outfit. 
Blouses and boots are thrifted; socks from Kyra last winter; dress from Ross Dress For Less; belt and earrings from Rue 21; gloves from Claire's (a dollar!).


Notice: I am freezing. I love rain, and in the summer I quite like being out in the rain (Dad and I always laugh at people at music festivals who huddle under tarps and plastic bags when it rains: you guys, it's summer and humid; the rain isn't going to hurt you), but it is cold and blustery and I cannot fashion under these conditions. Also I am trying red lipstick out, largely thanks to repeat watches of Moulin Rouge!

Saturday 13 November 2010

trying mori-girl fashion on for size

I have a massive file of fashion inspiration on my computer, filled with everything from Buffy, Veronica Mars, and Legend of the Seeker screencaps to gothwear to rockabilly to 1940s high fashion to my favourite fashion bloggers to pictures of Amanda Palmer and Joanna Newsom. One fashion subculture that keeps turning up is mori-girl, a somewhat recent style out of Japan. The name means "forest girl", and the style is largely comprised of layers of soft, comfortable, loose-fitting clothes in naturalistic, rich colours, with a lot of quirky details and natural materials. A lot of mori-girl outfits are very folklore-y in aesthetic, which definitely appeals to me, and I also see a lot of asymmetrical layers and uneven hems, yay! (For a nice visual overview, check out this mori-girl Tumblr -- lots of gorgeous photographs.) I've fallen quite in love, and finally decided to have my first go at putting together a mori-girl inspired outfit. I'm sure I haven't got it exactly right, but I like the result.


These are largely things that have been in my closet for some time, though I'd bought the skirt at Goodwill when we had family visiting and apparently forgot about it because I don't think I've worn it more than once, which is shameful, because look how gorgeous!



Leaf earrings from a Rue 21 clearance rack; they were just a little too neat, so I bent them up a bit and like them ever so much better now. Hat from Rue 21, several years ago. And my Hot Topic fur collar, which is probably the best three dollars I've ever spent on myself, the amount of use it's getting.


I bought myself two warm pairs of knitted fingerless gloves at Ross Dress For Less recently (three dollars each for gloves that originally retailed for eighteen; not bad, I say!), as while I have lots of fingerless gloves, my only really warm ones are orange, and clash with a lot of things. So I've these lovely long purple ones (I may sew some buttons onto them later), and a grey pair with bows which will undoubtedly be seen later. The ring was twenty-five cents at a yard sale.


The first ring is from Rue 21, and the other, which I wear all the time, is my great-grandmother's engagement ring, from the 1920s. It's extremely beautiful and intricate with a tiny chip of diamond; I'll have to take some proper pictures of it someday.


My owl necklace from Kyra, and a lovely jumble-of-keys necklace from Rue 21. 


 Cosy purple socks! And yes, I do wear these boots almost every other day.

As I type this, my hair is up in a shower cap and full of dye, so I'll be a new(ish) me tomorrow, good heavens.

Monday 8 November 2010

and after this, five hundred words

November, being the month I spend all my days hunched over my desk writing frantically (happy NaNoWriMo, everybody; it's my third year), tends to be a year of a) cardigans, and b) story-appropriate clothing. Last year I wore my Vampires Beware t-shirt rather a lot, as well as long elegant dresses; this year it would seem there will be a great deal of boots and cardigans and flat caps, for I am writing about a 1940s English village (and also werewolves, and the Wild Hunt). Alas, we ran out of batteries all throughout the house, so I haven't been able to get very many photographs in between writing frantically, entertaining family company, and attempting to teach myself how to sleep again.


 My mother has a rather agreeable habit of snatching up inexpensive items for me when she's trawling Goodwill on her lonesome: I came home from a two-day excursion to Pittsburgh to find this beautiful crimson lambswool J. Crew cardigan folded on my bed, which my mother acquired for thirty cents. If I had all the money, I would buy a lot of basics from J. Crew, especially cardigans, but this is so perfect and cosy and right that it tempers the longing a good deal. Red sweaters are The Thing, you guys; they are in my perfect imagining of autumn and winter, and for whatever reason I can never find any that fit properly, but this is glorious (and so warm). 

I was feeling a bit bleh that day, so I simply layered it with my little white dress, a black skirt for length, and my cosy striped knee socks.

  

Closeup on the lovely cableing, and my beloved skeleton key necklace (by which I mean 'the key that goes to my door on an old chain'; it looks very storybookish, I think). 

 
I think brown may well be my favourite colour for shoes. These are wonderfully comfortable.


Mum thought me very 1890s in the above outfit, which was a sight better than some of her comparisons (street urchin, her mother, mystic she saw on the streets of Pakistan in the 1980s).I'm wearing a rather floaty grey polka dot dress under the red dress, again mostly for length. All items thrifted, save my fur collar from Hot Topic, which is swiftly becoming one of my favourite purchases ever.

 
I managed, after quite a lot of tries, to get the key tied prettily onto the collar (I tried to wear a necklace with this outfit and could not; either the fur or the buttons got in the way, so I thought I'd try this instead), but look, I did it! Earrings are from Rue 21.