The quirkier things in life

Whenever we travel, we naturally seek out the more quirky things in the places we visit. Sights are one thing, but we like to get them out of the way early so we have time to wander about and find the real life in the city. The people who live day in, day out in these tourist meccas, and probably don't really notice that big ol' church they walk past everyday, or the people papping away at it. Some places you have to search really hard (Rome) and sometimes things just pop up in front of you when you least expect them (everywhere else)!

If you touch this guys' toe, you will have the good fortune of returning one day to Split. And it worked! Exactly 7 days later. Well, we were on a return sailing trip.

??

Man, we need a dog! Now.

I guess Minnie got dirty?

They sure do know their icecream over there. Not sure how old he thought I was though? Or maybe he could just tell that no matter how old I get I will always love this kind of stuff.

Best thing about Rome - free springwater everywhere.

Uh, dunno really. Wes wrote down the email address on this card, might have to get in touch. Cool, no?

Shakira's back! Be afraid...

I just had to share this video with you. It is hilarious! What is going on? Why is she dancing inside a big vagina? Is she now a lesbian? How much do you think she paid her choreographer for those moves? And most importantly, who the hell approved this video for release??
Shakira - She Wolf (Video Premier) Full HD Video by Shakira - MySpace Video

Shared via AddThis

LFW one and only post

I don't usually blog about Fashion Week - I don't think there's much point when it is covered so extensively by the fashion media, who are actually there. I, on the other hand have never been to a fashion show, and to be honest, I find them a bit overwhelming. Distilling the key themes and looks, well, lets just say I find fashion mags very useful for this purpose.

BUT when I saw these pics from the Fashion East show, I was really excited. After what seems like so many seasons of 'investment pieces' these prints are really inspiring. Whether or not I would actually wear them is to be seen. I know my 20-year-old self would have looooved them!

Oops, forgot to say, these designs are by Holly Fulton!

CatwalkQueen returns!!!

Why didn't anyone tell me that CatwalkQueen is back up and running??!? I was up late last night and something just beckoned me to type it into the address bar, despite being bitterly disappointed many times over the past few months. I used to check it daily, so it was a difficult habit to shake!
CatwalkQueen stopped posting abruptly in July because of some legal and financial issues. Perhaps not a bad thing for me at the time, as checking these kinds of sites made me miss London so much when I was in Oz.
But it is one of my favourite sites to visit for a little fashion industry insider news, peppered with some high street tip-offs, which are really helpful when I am in London, with money to spend...ie not at the moment. Boohoo for me. Anyway, check it out at http://www.catwalkqueen.tv

Bar-hopping across the Adriatic

This was not your average holiday. My average holiday usually consists of much activity planning and hectic sight-seeing and city exploration, making the most of every minute of holiday goodness. I don't usually like to lie still on a beach and do nothing. But this was something entirely new. Sailing for most of the day, jumping off the side of the boat for swims, getting fed waaay too much for lunch everyday, then a few hours of exploring a new port each afternoon before settling in for dinner and drinks. One week and we felt like the rest of the world didn't exist. Of course, holidaying with a bunch of (mostly) Australians meant the liver was not going to escape unscathed. Luckily, we were in the right place. We got to drink in the most gorgeous and idyllic settings. People have been known to use the phrase 'best bar in the world' to describe these places. We really didn't take many photos of the week, and these probably don't really do them justice, but trust alot of fun was had.

In case you desperately needed a cocktail but also had a bag of dirty laundry? Zagreb.

This bar (see the little cluster of umbrellas) on the outside of the ancient Roman walls of Dubrovnik was reached through an inconspicuos hole in the wall. No signs. No name. So cool.

You can jump off the rocks into the water then enjoy a glass of wine while watching the sunset over the Adriatic.

Sometimes beer drinking was so urgent one couldn't even wait to get to the bar and had to start drinking while sitting on the roof of the ferry!

My personal favourite, the Half-Tower bar in Korcula, at the top of an ancient stone tower.

People go up via this ladder. Drinks go up via a pulley system on the outside of the tower.

And the view of the sunset was pretty amazing too!

Having holiday withdrawals...

Well, I just returned from the most amazing trip to Croatia and Italy! Okay, maybe it was a week ago but I'm pretending I only just got back, as it's my only excuse for not posting in so long. I am still recovering, and let me tell you it didn't start well, either! Packing was always going to be a bit of a challenge, being my first summer holiday in a very long while: What do you wear when it's hot? To the beach? And to go out after a day at the beach? AND what do you wear when you're going to be spending a week on a sailing boat, going to the beach, and then going out after?? Anyway, had to go through all the boxes of clothes packed away in my friends' cupboard only to find that the whole box of shoes was missing! They must be at my old flat! Arghh! So I basically had to go on a summer holiday with shoes from my endless winter stint! I had to wear joggers pretty much everyday for almost 2 weeks! It was so hard to get dressed everyday knowing you look like a daggy tourist and not being able to do anything about it! Got some pretty funny looks from the locals, too, like they'd never seen a pair of athletic shoes before or something! Don't you just love travelling to countries where it's not considered rude to stare and point? Anyway, I think I managed to choose only photos where you can't see my shoes. Here are some typical sight-seeing photos to whet your appetite, more to come...

The promenade at Split. Hmm, I look kind of pregnant in this picture. Yeah, not.

Cafe culture inside Diocletian's Palace, Split

Dubrovnik, Croatia's 'Jewel'. Basically our week-long sailing trip was filled with scenery like this!

The Pantheon, Rome. Copied from the Greeks.

The Colosseum. Massive. Awesome.

St. Peter's Basilica, in the outfit that was supposedly so offensive it had to be covered up by scarves bought for 4 Euro each before I could enter!

After seeing the Sistine Chapel, you have to walk for about half an hour just to get out. This staircase was a welcome sight! Not that the Vatican wasn't great, just never-ending.

Viciously, she sleeps

Wow, I have been in London for a few days now and it is completely surreal. In some ways it feels like I never left, and yet my friends have so many stories of the stuff we missed out on :-(
Off to Croatia tomorrow, VERY early but very excited! Hopefully might be able to post from some internet cafe or something, but I'm not getting my hopes up. But of course I will have heaps of fabulous photos to show everyone when I get back!
I am incredibly jetlagged as I write this and have a headache along with occasional sea-sickness (what the?)!

Sorry for the lack of photos but I forgot to take any when I saw all my friends, I was a bit overwhelmed!

Down on the farm…

House-sitting again, which includes quite a few animals to sit as well. I must say, I have been known to be a bit of a prissy princess when it comes to getting my hands dirty, but I have really warmed to having animals in my life! What’s a bit of dirt when you’re having fun, and is it the end of the world if you need to wash you hands a bit more than usual? We took a few photos with Powder Puff the adorable bunny and with a bunch of funny laydee chooks, one of which is called Burt! Some of the photos turned out quite nicely in the setting sunlight, but we couldn’t take any more as we did have to feed them too!!

Headband: Accessorize; Tee: Comic Relief; Cardy: Urban Outfitters; Jeans: Kate Moss for Topshop; Belt: Wes'.

Capsule Wardrobe

As the 21st August draws nearer, I start to think about packing. Maybe that should be panic about packing. Of course, in the past 2 years I have had to pack my entire life & move it halfway around the world twice already so I should be a pro, right?

I like to approach it like I’m a designer creating a capsule collection from my archives. It has to distil the essence of me, in a suitcase. Sometimes you might find you learn a lot about yourself & your style. I may have forgotten that item even existed for the past 2 years, but it does serve an essential purpose in a wider context, I swear!

I really should have brought less with me, seeing as I have worn the same outfit pretty much everyday for 4 months. Plus, this time I need to take summer clothes with me, which I haven’t needed since December 2007! Wish me luck!
Made a collage of a few things I couldn’t live without…

My Josh Goot silver trench; My tan brogues I wear every second day; My Carrie dress - a vintage one my sister bought for about 20 bucks but reminds me of Miss Bradshaw; Primark shirt dress that must have a cost-per-wear ratio in the negative by now; Marc Jacobs (that I think might be Marc Fakeobs); Morine Comte Morant top I got on sale from ASOS just in time to wear once before leaving London :-)

Adios muchachos!

So I found out a week ago, but now it’s official – I have, in my hand, our Visas for the UK that have so far taken 4 months to get!!
I can’t believe it, we’re heading back to London! Yay! I feel like I won the lottery! I have missed my friends so much, I can’t wait to see them again, hopefully I do not smother them to death with too many hugs!
To top it all off, we can also go on our Croatia sailing tour which has been in the works since January!! (Bikini body not quite ready, hopefully can get away with a caftan for a whole week).
Of course I have not only missed my friends, but the whole life we had there. We have so much fun, get up to a healthy amount of mischief, travel, and the fashion. Oh, the fashion. I’m really looking forward to blogging from an “Australian girl in London” angle, and I hope you enjoy it too! There are so many interesting, creative exhibitions, collaborations, projects and the like going on all the time, I will be able to share it all with you.
I’m so ready to leave Aus, which is no real reflection on the place, just the fact that I haven’t worked in so long which means no money, and I think I have had enough quiet nights in to last a lifetime. Am definitely thinking about freighting my sewing machine over, though, so I can keep up with my newly acquired hobby. The next week is going to be frantic! We fly A380 on Friday!!!

Lookbook.nu and Weardrobe.com

As if I didn’t have enough on my plate with blogging, sewing, packing and tying up all the loose ends associated with moving back across the globe, I have joined a couple more fashion sites so I can spend even more time shooting photos to upload onto them! They are both great sites. For Lookbook I had to be invited, so was very excited when one of the lovely ladies from the Sportsgirl forum offered to invite me! Thanks to Demetria, who also has a blog you should check out here. I have only posted one look to each site so far, but if I get a good response I guess I might get into it more! We’ll see…here is my Lookbook page and here is my Weardrobe one.

9 years and counting!

We are not very big on celebrating our anniversary. Most of the time we don’t even remember when it is. But this year, this year would have to be different, right? See, for our visa application I’ve had to collate all the proof of our relationship’s existence, write statements about how we met and what things we have in common, find photographs of us together, and I even found a calendar from the year 2000 to get my dates right. I did all this over the past 4 months. Our anniversary was about 3 weeks ago. And we forgot again. We really do love each other, I swear!!

This pic is one we took on our travels early last year, in Vienna. It was especially good gelato that required documenting.

Well, Marilyn is really a Joan

Ahh Mad Men. I watched it non-stop on the flight home, and I'm really hoping they will have season two for me on the way back to London. Fascinating show for many reasons, but I am particularly in love with the girls and their dresses. Especially Joan. I love how she looks like she is sewn into them. On Election Night one of the junior boys surmises “You can’t sit down in that dress!”, when she proceeds to not only sit, but to gracefully sink to the ground with all the poise of a dancer with her ankles crossed just so, and not so much as a sharp intake of breath. See, everything is effortless for Joan. She is the perfect picture of a woman as a woman should be. Well, you know, in freaky 1960 TV land.

Style-wise, though, I think I am a Betty. I would honestly wear every fabulous outfit she wears. I probably wouldn't even feel the need to mix it up to modernise it, literal is just fine in this case.

But you know what? I sometimes even like the dresses Peggy wears. As a character I think she is supposed to be a bit of a dag. I guess in the 1960s even the dags were far more polished than what we get away with nowadays. The inspiration for my Vintage Vogue dress becomes apparent, huh? I want nothing at the moment if it isn't waisted.

bmibaby!

I know, I just did a cutesy puppy post last week, but I swear the cutesy baby post is actually for the outfit I am wearing in it! I forgot to take any photos of me by myself :-P (though the bub is very cute! He is Mylan and he just got that stage where all of a sudden a baby is interesting and can smile and stuff).

This is my most favourite skirt suit (okay, pretty sure it's my only skirt suit) that I bought from Topshop just before I left London in March. I have actually had heaps of wear out of it in Aus. Both pieces look fab on their own, but I really like wearing it together, it's just the right side of too much, you know? The skirt has the cutest bow on the bum! Will have to take a photo of that too one day. Oh, and this bow tie necklace is also a current favourite from my beloved Sportsgirl that unlike the Reece heels, gets lots of wear.

Man my hair misses Vanessa! Why does my hairdresser always have to live on the opposite side of the world to where I am? 4 months and counting since I last had my hair cut.

Jacket, skirt: Topshop; T-shirt: H&M; Necklace: Sportsgirl.

Fab new market finds and Max Brenner is next door!

I haven't spent alot of time in Sydney this visit (a bit too expensive on zero income) but I did have time to rediscover Paddington markets one Saturday. Wow, they are not like I remember! There were so many great stalls with really well-made pieces from up-and-coming local designers. I was especially excited when I came upon the Kylie Hawkes stall. I fell in love with her entire collection! She is definitely going places, this girl, and I just had to share these pics with you from her own website.

Also there was another standout stall with gorgeous shirt dresses, but I didn't catch the name of the designer! Any regulars might know - it was in the back, along the wall of the hall? Oooh and a gorgeous jewellery stall right at the front near the street that was so busy I could barely see the merch! Anyway...will be a long time before I get back there, I hope they all do well!

DIY Galaxy

I bought this fabric a few weeks ago. It is a galaxy-themed quilting fabric that I think is intended for little kids’ bedspreads. It reminded me of the latest Antipodium and Josh Goot collections. Anyway, I sat on it for awhile, mulling over the possibilities and finally settled on a gathered-waist full skirt. I’d also love to make a dress out of it but it’s a bit too expensive.

A gathered skirt is pretty quick and easy to make. I didn’t use a pattern for this skirt, just followed some basic instructions from my Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sewing book. First you just cut two rectangles out of your folded fabric. The big rectangle is for the actual skirt part. You can make this as wide and long as you want. The skinnier rectangle is for the waistband. It should measure your waist circumference plus a couple of inches for seams and overlap for the hook and eye. I interfaced the waistband bit, minus seams.

Then you sew up the ends of the skirt to make the side seam, putting the zip in at the top of the seam. Zippers can be tricky but they should have instructions on the packet.

Next you sew two straight lines of wide stitching along the top, and pull the bobbin threads to gather the fabric. Compare it to the waistband as you do it so you get it to the right length.

Then you just sew the right side of the waistband to the skirt, close to the other line of stitching.

Sew the ends of the waistband together and turn the right way out. Then sew the inside of the waistband in by hand.

Sew a hook and eye closure on to the ends of the waistband. I hate doing these and always have trouble lining them up! Basically I hate doing anything I can’t use my machine for!

Hem the skirt at whatever length you like. I usually just do a 1cm hem with my machine as I can’t be bothered doing a blind hem by hand and I think the machine ones look fine.

Ta-dah! I’m loving wearing high-waist skirts with either bodysuits or loose tees tucked in. Opaques are mandatory for me now, I hate wearing bare legs, probably because I haven’t had a summer in almost 2 years! (I don’t count English summers when they only last 2 days). I wore this outfit to the supermarket in Orange today and got so many stares. You'd think they'd never seen someone wearing a purple beret and a galaxy skirt before!

Beret: Jendi, a present from my mum (bought in Berry - true story!); T-shirt: H&M; Cardy: Urban Outfitters; Skirt: me!; Boots: Topshop; Belt: vintage.

You come at the king, you best not miss

I know I’m not gonna be the first person to say this, and I know I’m not a critic who can wax lyrical about subtle nuances, but The Wire really is the best TV show ever made. It is like they have watched every other TV series and figured out how to make it better in every way. It blurs the distinction between good and evil like never before. Its character development is like nothing you have ever experienced. You feel compassion for people you hate, you want to adopt street kids that don’t even exist, and you will thank God that you don’t have to live your life like this.
Thanks to the recession (it had to work in our favour sooner or later) JB Hifi was having a ridiculous sale & we picked up seasons 2, 3 & 4 for less than half price. Trouble is we’re so addicted we stayed up ‘til all hours every night watching episode after episode until they were all gone! There is a big Wire-shaped hole in our lives that only Season 5 can fill. Obtaining it is our new life purpose. ps. Have you overseas people seen Underbelly? Season 1 is a must!

I am totally in love with Omar (yes, I know he’s gay, it just adds to the mystique).