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.

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!

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 ♥

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!

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!