To A T

Wearing a 1950s velvet floral rose-print dress from Trade Me, opshopped cropped cardigan, opshopped fur collar safety pinned onto it, opshopped belt, opshopped McKinleys t-bar school shoes, clear heart perspex hangbag from Etsy and velvet 1950s bow headband from Etsy. I am pulling those faces because my brother was doing some Austin Powers impression while taking these. Wow my face is so wonky around the jaw.

This outfit kinda seems full-on zany old lady to me, and I'm okay with that. I feel like all I need is some big round glasses and lilac hair and it could legitimately be transplanted to a 70-year-old former ballet teacher or something. Also, I've written and re-written a paragraph on the ethics of wearing second hand fur and leather a few times, but everything I say on the matter sounds horribly trite and self-important. Let me leave it at: on a sliding scale which goes from very evil to very good, I think there are a lot worse things a person can do than wear a second-hand, opshopped, 60-year-old garment made of an animal.

A few weeks ago I had a Friday off work because I covered someone's Sunday, and used the rare free weekday to do some opshopping. Jack and I bussed out to Johnsonville, where we have historically had good luck, and we were not disappointed. In the first shop I got these sweet 70s leather platforms. Excuse my pilled old tights. In the next I found this amazing dress printed with sketches of ballerinas as well as these perfect leather McKinleys NZ-made t-bar school shoes. Jack found a super nice three-piece late 60s suit, and we got all that stuff for free because we bought this AMAZING comfy and gorgeous 60s couch for $40!

Lazy photos off my Instagram.

And while I am posting photos from my Instagram, I've got to share this one because my readership is mostly Kiwis. I went to see Ginger & Rosa the other night and in the foyer who did I see being interviewed for a TV show but my favourite political figure, Tim Shadbolt! I stood around 'texting someone' until he was free and swooped in for the handshake and political chit-chat, which turned into us hanging out (!) and walking around Wellington together (!!) until I had to go meet some pals for dessert. He is, obviously, incredibly funny and cool and such fun. I am so happy to have met him! Most MPs I would never approach in public, and when I saw Aaron Gilmore furniture shopping I just gawked, but as soon as I saw him I was like THIS HAS TO HAPPEN.

Ugh soz for the bad photo, my crappy water-damaged phone does not perform well in low light.

 

In the end Tim got my email address so I hope he contacts me! Maybe we can be penpals. I am so starstruck haha. I know this has nothing to do with fashion. Um, I was wearing my blue cape at the time if that counts for anything. That thing brings me amazing luck I swear.

Retrograde

Wearing electric blue velvet 1960s cape from an opshop via Christie, 1950s cotton floral St Michael's dress via eBay for $2,  belt off another opshopped dress and old back 50s cashmere cropped cardigan. I don't remember what shoes I was wearing but it might've been my white Chloe ballet flats.

So I am wearing an electric blue velvet 1960s cape! Pretty great, right? Back when I lived in Christchurch and Christie and I used to go opshopping together all the time, we found this cape in one of our favourite shops. It was pretty expensive for an opshop (not actual expensive) and so neither of us bought it, but we kept coming back to it and trying it on over and over again until finally Christie bought it. And I pretty much coveted it ever since. Christie and I have a thing going on where we have dibs on certain items in each other's wardrobes for when they get sick of them, and earlier this year I had a couple of 50s dresses to get rid of so swapped them with her for this after a few years of reminders that I loved it.

 

Here's Christie looking adorable in it in 2010. Anyway, now the cape is mine and I wear it like once a week.  Every time I wear it people stop me on the street and in bars and shops and at the office to tell me how amazing it is, which is a nice feeling. It is surprising how many things in my wardrobe go with electric blue.

I am trying to be a more frequent blogger, so will hopefully post some more outfit photos later in the week. My brother is back from overseas and the days are slooowly getting longer so the conditions are more conducive to outfit photography.

Edit: I wrote and scheduled this post on Sunday before central New Zealand experienced a rather nasty magnitude 6.5 earthquake at 5pm. I have today, Monday, off work because my office is in the city. It doesn't really feel like a relaxing day home as I am too anxious to enjoy it. Some reclaimed land has slipped back into the sea and central city workers have been ordered to stay home while damage is assessed and we experience ongoing significant aftershocks. Wellington is a highly active seismic zone and it is an incredibly scary time, especially for the many Wellington residents who moved here from Christchurch following the earthquakes there. If anyone who has been affected by the quakes wants to chat, my email address is in the 'about' section.

I Made A Gif of Every Dress I Own*

*So the title isn't entirely accurate. It's three gifs because my computer couldn't process the images as one, and it's not actually every dress. There were a few in the wash, a big pile to be sold, my mending pile, a couple that Jack's mum opshopped for me, one that Will got made for me in Vietnam, some stuff that doesn't fit me in storage and since I took these photos, I've bought four more. I got a big tax return, okay? But I finally got contents insurance for my shit, which I've been meaning to do since my neighbours last year fell asleep with a heater knocked over and nearly burned the place down.

I remember when I was like 15 reading a newspaper article about a girl whose house burned down and she had no insurance on her big vintage collection, and that would be so awful. I would be so gutted if I lost my collection, not just because it's all pretty but because there's stuff I could never replace, like the blouse my mum made in home economics when she was 14 or the dress I made from a 1940s pattern for a school ball when I was 16, or the 1950s dress my manager at the opshop gave me to say congrats on landing my first big girl job.

So I got insurance, and it took ages to sort out because of the 'special nature' of my 'collection'. Most policies pay less for stuff the older it is, but clearly that wasn't going to work for me. I was also asked to take a photo of all the stuff I want to insure, so I snapped these rather unglamorous photos quickly one afternoon. Christie gave me the idea that they'd look cool as a gif, so here we go. Sorry it's a lazy post. The weather has been crap here and Will has been in Vietnam and so I've had nobody to take photos for me. I should probs get a tripod.

Ladylook

Wearing a 1950s 'Ladylook' striped floral rose dress from Trade Me, opshopped white cardigan from ages ago, Columbine merino tights, vintage silver bangle that was a 21st present from my mum from Ziggurat, Doc Martens mary janes from Recycle Boutique and amazing leopard belt from Trade Me also.

This is, I think, the last one of the dresses I got from that one really good Trade Me seller that I have to show off here. It is pretty much everything I could ask for in a dress, including having POCKETS!!!! Plus I was the only bidder on it for some reason, so got it super cheaply. Sorry for the overload of blue + roses in these photos! 

I actually wore this to work on Monday, but I did a 12 hour day and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was eat soup in bed so didn't photograph it. I recreated it for some outfit photos, kindly taken by my brother while sitting on my bed as part of our high-tech new set up. I am doing that pose with the foot because Will was calling out to me that the bottom of the photos was too dark to see my nice shoes.

I got these shoes on the weekend from Recycle Boutique, and just as I was buying them I ran into Trees for the first time ever, which is surprising because Wellington seems like a pretty tiny place most of the time. We talked about having a Wellington blogger get-together thing, so please email me if you are interested! My address is our the 'about' section. Anyway, these shoes are suuuuuuuper comfy and amazing quality, plus they've already been broken in which is a plus. I often think I'd be willing to pay a huge amount of money for a pair of cute, plain, comfy black flats that will last for longer than a year, and I think I may have found them for a bargain. I feel like by the time I am, like, 25 I will have slowly curated this perfect vintage wardrobe full of the best weirdest nicest things ever, and these shoes feel like an important building block in this process.

Instagram + an outfit

It is officially winter here and it's sort of depressing that we have another three months of short days and days that don't get above seven degrees, but also 'cause it gets dark so early that when I get home from work at 5.30pm the daylight is well over. My brother and I have devised an outfit photo-taking set up involving lots of lamps and unnatural light, and it seemed to work out on yesterday's test run while it wasn't yet completely dark outside.

 

 Lol at my faces and pose. I need to figure out how to look normal in outfit photos. I'm wearing a 1950s pale blue lace dress with scalloped neckline and hemline from the Emporium Vintage sale with a cardigan off Etsy feat. Vivian cheerleader patch also off Etsy, opshopped belt, rose brooch from my friend Alex from years ago, old tights and Melissa velvet wedges from Recycle Boutique.

A couple of weekends ago a great Wellington vintage shop, Emporium, had a massive sale on a Saturday afternoon.  Jack and I arrived half an hour before it was set to start, thinking we were being super organised, and were greeted with a crowd of 100+ fellow vintage lovers on Cuba Street. By the time the door had opened even more people had gathered, and we were pushed up the stairs in the most intense throng. It was scarily riotous, and I'd imagine had I been less freaked out I could've got way more amazing stuff. 

My vintage senses were a little paralysed by anxiety, but I still came away with this dress, as well as a white Lanz sundress, a floral striped cotton dress and a cropped pale blue 50s cardigan. I tried this dress on when it was $95 in January 2012, so I was chuffed to get it for a fiver. My friend Madds was actually trying it on and even though it fit her perfectly and looked amazing, she still decided to let me have it. Score! Also, I wore my yellow striped Horrockses dress to the sale, and four different people tried to steal off me it while I was trying other stuff on, huddled in the corner of the bar with others in varying states of undress.

Also because this outfit post kinda sucks, here is some stuff from my Instagram. Hopefully there will be more actual new content in the coming days.

My Goldenponies shoes have been ridden hard and put away wet; dirndl dress that I got from a junk shop; rainbow wool skirt from Etsy.

A Moonrise Kingdom-esque 1960s dress from Trade Me; perfectttt 1950s pink and blue rose day dress from Recycle Boutique; a really good selfie from when I got my hair cut and brought back to its fringey best the other week.

Two 1950s dresses to sell, although the right hand one has already sold; sunglasses that I opshopped for $1 and am in the process of painting with glitter nail polish; amazingly comfy and durable Doc Martens mary janes from Recycle Boutique.