Outtakes

Argh, soz, work, busy, etc. Here are some outfit-y photos taken over the last few weeks, none of which are good enough on their own to warrant a new post but I guess if smooshed together they are somewhat okay?

1950s kangaroo-print novelty dress worn with opshopped braided leather belt, banana basket from my bf's mum and shoes from Ultra.

I LOVE THIS DRESS.  I Instagrammed it the day it arrived in the mail and I think it's my most-liked, most-commented-on photo ever haha. The print is KANGAROOS and the cut makes my bosom look majestic, and it was made in Riccarton in Christchurch, which is just around the road from where I grew up. The best part is I paid $26 for it. Nobody bid against me on Trade Me. Why?


Wearing 1950s Josella blue rose print dress and bolero set from Trade Me, 1950s sunglasses from Trade Me, shoes from Ultra, Cambridge Satchel from Recycle Boutique, 1950s yellow cardigan from Christie and Mac Fixed on Drama lipstick (in the second photo).  This set of photos is sort of hilarious because it shows the difference between how I look in a Macbook selfie and how I look in real life. Hahahaha.

This one is another amazing Trade Me find that nobody bid against me on last week. It is pretty much everything I look for in a garment, plus it has the matching bolero still with it! It is in pretty much brand new condition, and the colours are still very bright and perfect. Ugh. I love it so much. I've had such good Trade Me luck in the last couple of months!

1950s rosey dress from Recycle Boutique, sparkly pink Ruby belt from Recycle Boutique and purple 1960s Mary Janes from Recycle Boutique - a whole Recycle outfit, whoops. I didn't think this outfit looked very good, retrospectively.

Another reason why I've been meaning to update this blog for aaages is that the amazingly friendly and understanding folks at Smelly Cat sent me over some perfumes to blog about! I was actually looking at purchasing some from their website anyway, as their fragrances are way cheaper than buying in stores, so the gift came as a lovely surprise.

I chose Chloe Eau De Parfum, which a lot of my friends wear, and L'Eau d'Issey Florale, because my mum wore Issey when I was growing up. The Chloe is really beautiful, but the Issey is just something else entirely. I've been wearing it for maybe two months now, and I still do covert wrist sniffs throughout the day because the smell is so so good. It is rosey in the way that actual rose bushes are, and there is a fresh water undertone to it which keeps it crisp. Since I've started wearing it, a lot of people have commented on how good it smells. THANK YOU to Smelly Cat and I would very highly recommend them, not just for their bargain prices but their incredibly helpful and personable customer service.

 

Pefumes in a blog-friendly environment.

 

Perfumes in their natural environment, on my dresser with all my other beauty junk, Golden the Ponyboy in the background, stray bobby pins, etc.

I Went To Christchurch

So I spent Christmas this year with my boyfriend's family in Taranaki, so I wanted to catch up with my parents before Christmas. The festive season doesn't mean a lot to us, but I barely get to see my parents because they live in Vietnam for 95% of the year so I was super excited to hang out with them and drink sav in the sun.

When I arrived, I saw Aaron Gilmore in the airport! So the trip was off to a good start.

 I was also super excited to see Christie and go opshopping with her, such is customary every time I go back to Christchurch. First we stopped off at her place where I tried on everything in her wardrobe and we, as always, dressed in matching-ish outfits. It's a pretty regular occurence when we hang out that people ask if we are sisters, which is hilarious because do you know any sisters who have the same haircut and dress in the exact same way? Nooo. But we just run with it.







But yeah, after like 5 hours of shopping and bargain-finding and a little bit of arguing over 1950s dresses (THANK YOU CHRISTIE, I LOVE THE DRESS SO MUCH!!!) we were parched and some fancy drinks at The Tannery were in order. The Tannery is a new development in Christchurch, full of sickeningly beautiful boutiques and homewares shops and cafes. We took some outfit snaps too, in front of the beautiful Christmas tree.

Christie is wearing a 1950s floral dress that her grandma made for a sewing contest, with Urban Outfitters t-bars and her Cambridge Satchel.

I am wearing a 1950s rose-print velvet dress that I got from a vintage garage sale thing, with won-from-Mimco t-bar sandals, opshopped belt, bangle from Ziggurat, 1950s sunnies from Trade Me and my Cambridge satchel.

I always sort of forget to take photos on my proper camera but here are some Instagram shots from Chchchch:

Drinking something minty and delicious / Overcast garden in my childhood home

Cracks in my (condemned) childhood home / The flat my mum lived in when she was my age, where she met my dad, now earthquaked

My mum and I both wearing opshopped 1950s dresses / Returning home to my massive wardrobe

Stay tuned for Part 2: I Went To Taranaki And Some Other Places

Plato's Dress

If you asked me to describe my perfect dress in a series of keywords, or if you added up my top 10 favourite dresses and divided the result by 10, you'd get this dress. It's got every feature I require in exactly the right ratios - 1950s, decent cotton, blue, rose-print, a decent cut, a good length, sleeves and a work-appropriate neckline. Plus I didn't even have to engage in a bidding war to make it mine. Scooore.

My life at the moment is pretty much entirely consumed by planning for me and Jack's big Christmas-y camping break, but my temporary flatmate Zoe has a tripod so I nicked it to take some outfit photos. At first I tried to get Jack to do them for me but he isn't really photographically inclined (sorry, Jack) so I just got him to push the button once I'd lined up the shot, haha. The experience made me realise that it's dumb that I own like 100 dresses but am unable to spend $40 on a tripod of my own to take bloggy photos without needing someone's help, so I am definitely gonna get my own - but not until after she's moved out and taken her tripod with her.

It is pretty obvious that I was messing around with different backdrop-y things, though. The white curtain is the cover for my wardrobe. Also let's just pretend my carpet isn't in desperate need of a vacuum and there isn't an empty plastic bag on the floor behind me. God. If I had photoshop I would've edited that out, trust me. 

Wearing:

1950s blue rose-print dress - Trade Me

Black and gold leather belt - opshopped

J pin - vintage sale

Shoes - won from Mimco via Lost In The Haze 

Lipstick - Mac Rebel

Satchel - Cambridge Satchel Company
Plus my usual rings and the only hairstyle I can be bothered with when it's this hot. 

Bonus photo: Jack was pushing the buttons on the camera and thought it would be hilarious for me to do this.  For every one photo I post on here there are at least 50 outtakes featuring double chins and mid-blink eyes and poses even dumber than the ones that make it to the public viewing stage.

Guest frocking at Lucy Violet Vintage

 

The gorgeous Kylie at Lucy Violet Vintage has given me the honour of guest blogging as part of her Frocktober campaign to raise money for ovarian cancer research. You can read my post here and donate to her campaign here!

Patio

I've lusted over the Karen Walker patio dress ever since it first came out in 2011, and I am so happy that it is finally mine! I found it for a really good price on Trade Me because the auction was ending on a Sunday morning, so I was bidding on it on my phone while at the veggie market. This dress was designed for a Royal New Zealand Ballet performance, and the skirt is made of fluoro vest nylon and has EIGHT full circles of fabric in it, plus the lining, so it moves and sits incredibly well. There is more information about the dress on this Thread article.

Wearing Karen Walker Patio dress from Trade Me with 1950s black beaded cardigan from Trade Me, misc tights, opshopped belt and shoes, Fieldguided 'thunder in our hearts' tote from a blog competition and Mac Girl About Town lipstick.

Sitting pretty

Wearing sheer 1950s daisy-print dress from Reycle Boutique, rose gold Repetti mary jane heels from eBay via Ana, heart-shaped perspex purse from Etsy, Datter necklace and ring and misc opshopped belt, plus NARS Afghan Red lipstick.

My shoes sort of blend into my feet and my bag sort of blends into my dress... whoops. I got a new role at work and my boyfriend got a promotion so I wore this out to celebrate. My new thing involves starting at 7am and finishing at 3.30pm so it is actually still light after I finish work, so maybe I'll sort my shit out and start taking better outfit photos in the near future. Maybe not, though.

I don't know if you can really tell (I hope you can?) but I am wearing makeup in these photos. Woo! I am SO excited about beauty stuff lately and I have basically spent all my spare money from my last four paychecks on makeup and skincare stuff. The catalyst for this was my pal Morgan (who will have a beauty blog up and running pretty soon) who is essentially a beauty guru and amazingly inspirational and useful when it comes to me sending her random photos I've found around the internet and asking her to tell me all the products I would need to look exactly like that.

Morgan does these big beauty buys online and I've mooched off her international mail forwarding service to attempt to become more put-together and help towards my yo-pro aspirations. Pretty much everything I do now relates to my yo-pro aspirations tbh. The other day I went to Morgan's to pick up a haul of lipsticks and stuff that had just arrived for me, and got to pore through her impeccably organized makeup collection and damn, it has me inspired. But as this is sort of a new thing for me, I have been pretty lazy with my usual kind of harm minimization deal that I try to adhere to in my everyday consumption.

Because I don't really know a lot about makeup and my mum never really wore it, I've just been picking and mixing with a totally miscellaneous array of products that seem useful and/or fun, like undereye concealer to help with the 6am starts, and waterproof mascara because I am yet to learn that rubbing my eyes all the time = bad for makeup - but also glittery silver eyeliner because glitter. I do try to be as ethical as is possible and reasonable with my general consumption, through buying almost everything I own second hand, repairing my clothes and shoes and taking care of them, and buying local as much as possible - except makeup, because prices in NZ are insane. I am loath to pay $62 for anything, let alone for one lipstick.

However, I do not pretend to be completely consistent and there are always areas in which I could do better in terms of conscious consumption, and makeup is definitely one of them. As I learn more about beauty and how to optimize my face's cuteness, I want more and more to invest in really nice quality makeup that will last well. It is so easy and fun to buy cheap makeup to play around with and try to find out what looks good, but hopefully as time goes on I will be able to justify spending a little bit more to get a product which is quality, natural and not tested on animals, such as Tarte cosmetics’ great cruelty-free and natural products. I don't really want to support animal testing by voting with my dollar so I am going to try my hardest to be more consistent with my approach to makeup and invest in great quality products. I am really excited to conquer my fear of looking like a kid playing in their mum's makeup bag and start looking FIERCE.

NB: This post contains sponsored links but is 100% my own opinion and writing.

Good work, Sam. Come on, I'll buy you a falafel.

 

Wearing a forest green 1950s cropped jacket from Brag Vintage, 1950s copper rose border print day dress from an opshop, Columbine merino tights, t-bar shoes from Emporium Vintage and banana basket from Jack's mum.

I wore this to go get a falafel and some dolmades and some hair of the dog for my hangover. This is that dress that I was given as a gift from my manager at the opshop I used to volunteer at. She found it while sorting through donations and gave it to me to say congratulations when I landed my Big Girl Job. I wear it so often that I hadn't realised it had never featured on here before. Also wearing a new Ruth Rees Originals cropped dark green 50s jacket with awesome rectangular bakelite buttons,  from Brag Vintage. I have a really similar one to this but in a mid-brown colour that my dad got me three years ago and I've worn so much the lining is starting to disintegrate. I am always searching for its perfect replacement and I think this one might come close.

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.