23.3.12

'Naki

Hey, sorry for being a shithouse blogger lately. I just got back from 5 days in Taranaki, a few hours north of Wellington, where I attended the coolest music festival ever, Womad. We pretty much had the perfect trip- excellent luck hitching up, perfect weather (and somehow no sunburn), beautiful beaches to swim at, great company, and so on and so forth. And the music wasn't so bad either. The highlight was either the 14-piece orchestra from Japan who played mostly childrens/toy instruments or a group of Mongolian throat singers. I didn't have my camera with me most of the time due to dangerous dancing/beer/general distraction, but I managed a couple of shots.


Found ourselves in an amazing park feat. hundreds of ducks AND an aviary on the way up. I wore my new-old 1950s 'walkway' dress from Trademe that will definitely be featuring in an outfit post soon. I wore it for 4 days straight when I first got it; clearly I am adjusting well to life away from home where I have to do my own washing.


Making the most of the end of Summer, swimming with the boys.


Hilarious performance art from Sivouplait.


WOMAD. Wo-mazing.


Waterfall swimming on the last night.



We spent a night after the festival at Jack's parents' place in Onaero, which is a freakishly beautiful area. Legend told that his mum was an avid thrifter, which proved to be correct. The three of us spent two days cruising around all the Taranaki opshops, listening to Fleetwood Mac and scoring some insane bargains. We also stopped at a cheese factory shop on the way back to Wellington, where Jack and I purchased 2kg of cheese between us. It was the perfect way to end summer- I'm sad about the onset of Autumn, especially with such wonderful summery clothes and women's sandals coming on the market right now. But onto the vintage!


Jack has this weird talent for finding small brown leather items for me in opshops. First was the camera case/purse from my Petone post, and then these! A perfect purse to replace my broken cat-shaped one, and these amazing 70s oxford-y heeled shoes that were 50c! They're missing a shoelace, but some lilac ribbon will do in the meantime.


This 1970s-ish Mickey Mouse flask/thermos smells a little suspicious, understandably, but nothing a bit of bleach and sunshine can't fix.



Patterns! These were 10c each from an opshop in Fitzroy. The styling of the one at the front is dreamy, and makes me desperately want lilac tights. And at the next thrift store, I found lots of great vintage fabric to go with said patterns. I can't wait to get back to my sewing machine now.


All these pillowcases were thrifted on the trip too, except the Goodnight Kiwi which is my boyfriend's.


I'm soooo happy with this find. One of the opshops boasted a huge pile of aprons, and I dug this one out randomly 'cause the fabric appealed to me. I was looking for the price tag (50c, naturally) and discovered this lovely little tag here...

Horrockses! A Horrockses apron! Ah, I am so chuffed. When I saw this little tag I was ecstatic, which I guess is really strange to most people.

Sadly, after all this hedonism I now have to catch up on 5 days of uni work.

22.3.12

New loves

I found new love in my favourite opshop today:
I couldn't NOT take home this blue sparkly 70s sweater. It's even more amazing in person too.



The floral print 60s wool dress is so beautiful, it not only has a pleated skirt and a lace peter pan collar but it was only $5 and fits perfectly! This photo does not do this wonderful garment justice.




This dress is so perfect. Like, the most perfect 90's skater dress but with kind of a good-girl twist. It looks so good on. I'm going to wear the hell out of this!

 I also bought an amazing 50's blue and white figure-hugging striped t-shirt but forgot to photograph it.
All of this for only $30! I also developed my own film for the first time today. Sweet life.

10.3.12

Style stalking

A few days ago me and my painfully adorable and well-dressed friend Heather went out into our minimal city centre to find people with awesome style to photograph. There wasn't nearly enough people around at all so we didn't do as well as we'd hoped we would. We have plans to go out and try again though! You may get to see the results too, keep an eye out...



Heather wears:
coat - her grandma
pleated skirt - Savemart
chiffon blouse - thrifted
sweater - thrifted
sandals - Trade Me
silver leather bag - from her childhood



wearing:
velvet dress - thrifted
wooden rosary necklace - Vast Interior
tights - Farmers
platform sandals - Number One Shoes
Also today I ordered a pair of black suede Demonia creepers like these and I'm so excited for them to arrive in the post! Not sure exactly how they will work with my wardrobe of vintage dresses but I like them too much not to own a pair! Being 2 inches taller, still being comfortable, and looking badass at the same time? I'm down!

9.3.12

Petone party



Today Kita, Jack and I had a pretty great adventure. We jumped a bus to Petone, a little town a few minutes out of Wellington, to check out a big second-hand shop our flatmate discovered while working there. Our journey was mighty fruitful, and we came away with a big pile of amazing treasures. I've missed opshopping like this so much- back home we were pretty spoiled when it came to huge cheap warehouse-y thrift stores, but in Wellington this is the first one I've found. Best of all there is a second one in the same chain in another even further-out suburb, so we've got future adventures planned too. We also explored the main street of Petone and bought way too many British lollies and specialty cheeses. Whoops.




(Wearing the Ruby Boutique Gloria dress via Trademe, vintage floral cardigan via Trademe, Clevernettle 1950s cropped tweed jacket, We Love Colours stockings, costume cupboard 1950s school satchel, and silver ivy brooch thrifted today)

You may remember this dress from this post last year. What I failed to mention there is that the one I tried on originally in the shop was the pale blue version, which I've always secretly liked more. I was mindlessly browsing Trademe last week when I came across it in blue for a pretty tiny price, and was thrilled when my bid won! So now I have the same beautiful swiss-dot peter-pan-collar frilly dress in two pastel colours. Considering their original value was $620NZD total, I'm quite happy with my little investment in them.




Here's my haul for today- a sweet 1960s geometric-print bathing suit, a leather camera bag complete with instructions for the Kodak it once contained, orange woolen gloves and an amazing white lace 1960s vaguely-Edwardian nightie that I plan on wearing as a dress. Plus the silver ivy brooch that I'm wearing above. Success!

Photos by Kita

8.3.12

Shabby Apple giveaway!

I am super excited to be able to announce a giveaway with Shabby Apple, an excellent online boutique of womens dresses in lovely vintage-inspired styles. There were almost too many beautiful dresses on the Shabby Apple website to choose from, but the Waimea dress comes in first for me- clearly I'm still riding the wave of the scalloped detail trend.



So how can you win this adorable dress?
1) Like Shabby Apple on Facebook.
2) Leave a comment here saying your favourite thing on Shabby Apple at the moment.
3) Make sure you leave your email address so we can contact you if you win.

For an additional entry, tweet or blog (or both!) about this giveaway including a link to The Velvettes, and post a separate comment here linking to it.

Entry is meant to be only open to those with a US shipping address, but thanks to the amazing Tricia at Ventricular Projects, readers from everywhere in the world can enter! If you do not live in the US, your package will be sent her way and then forwarded to you. Thanks Tricia! The winner will be chosen with a random number generator. Entries close Thursday 22nd March at midnight NZ time- that gives you two weeks. Good luck!

5.3.12

Sunday afternoon




wearing:
70s chiffon dress - my childhood dress up box
suede platform boots - Trade Me
70s faux fur coat - a gift
wide brim hat - retail
dreamcatcher necklace - retail (it was $1!)
belt - thrifted

I wore this outfit yesterday to a little outdoor concert in Rangiora. The dress-up theme was 70s (and I would never miss the chance to dress up in a 70s-era outfit) so I put on one of my favourite dresses and donned my platform boots. Any excuse to dress like Stevie Nicks and I'm there!

These are the most amazing boots ever. Every time I put them on I remember just how fantastic they are! I paid only $25 for them on Trade Me, and they were in perfect condition, as if they'd hardly been worn!
So in love. They make me so much taller too!


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...