a holiday to familiar places

I just got back from spending a few days in Wanaka over the long weekend, and have many photos to share! It was beautifully sunny (albeit swelteringly hot) weather the entire time and I had a lovely time. The morning before we left, Vanessa and Warren of Two Squirrels were having a fantastic vintage clothing sale at their pop-up store, The Nest, at their home in Rangiora, and I found some absolute gems for a bargain price! All dresses were $10 so I ended up with seven of them!

A very photo-heavy post, be warned...

my suitcase: pink plastic rosary was a gift, floral t-shirt, lilac blouse, belt and yellow sweater all thrifted, Marc Jacobs Daisy was a Christmas gift from my parents, rose hairtie was a gift, daisy headband on sale from a retail store in the mall

I found this amazing sixties dress in my favourite op-shop for only $4 and accidently cut it a bit too short when I was altering it! I sewed on some broderie anglaise trim and it saved the dress.

also wearing:

tights - retail

vintage t-straps - a wonderful little thrift store that was on Colombo St but is now gone!

My family and I found this amazing new 50s-diner-style cafe out by the airport and the food was fantastic and the decor was perfect! I fell in love. 

I've just realised that everything I'm wearing in this photo was so cheap! My inner bargain-hunter is very content.

wearing:

t-shirt and skirt - Charity Barn, 33c each

socks - retail, $1

shoes - $5, vintage sale at The Nest

plastic rosary - a gift

belt - thrifted, $1

rose hairtie - a gift

I adore these brogues! They are in such fantastic condition and are definitely seventies if not older!

This is my little sister, Bailey. She is a lot taller than me and already a ton cooler at 14.

Bailey is wearing:

shirt - thrifted

sweater - thrifted

sunglasses - mine

shorts - used to be mine, thrifted

boots - vintage sale at The Nest

wooden rosary necklace - Vast Interior (my parents store!)

We visited a fascinating toy & transport museum that was filled with so many amazing things. It was chaotic and messy and wonderful. I am a really big fan of all things miniature so I was pretty happy.

This is another one of the gems I found in the vintage sale! The print is so pretty, I love the colours.

wearing:

70s sundress - vintage sale at The Nest

socks - retail

shoes and belt - mentioned earlier

sunglasses - retail

lipstick - Revlon 24k Orange, make-up clearance sale

Summer frivolity

peasant blouse - thrifted, SaveMart

vintage velvet skirt - thrifted in Wanaka

socks, sunglasses and shoes - retail

rings - Rainbow Doorways in Arrowtown and Trademe

nails - OPI Skull and Glossbones

I wore this outfit for a very windy but lovely day in Redcliffs and had a fantastic time in the sun. I've been looking for a pretty 70's style blouse like this for so long and found the perfect one in SaveMart for only six dollars! This skirt is one of my all-time favourites, the fabric is so amazing and such a wonderful shade of red. 

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments on my last post, they were very appreciated!

Dusk

fluffy angora sweater - thrifted

circle skirt - retail

tie-dyed socks - a gift

platform sandals - Number One Shoes

quartz necklace - Hettie's

I wore this outfit today to apply for a position at one of my favourite retail stores, Ruby Boutique, but unfortunately the position had already been filled! The girls in the store were lovely though and I left feeling very positive.

My sister found this beautiful yellow sweater for me in an opshop in Wanaka and I have received so many compliments on it! It is so soft and fluffy, I love it so much. I have a few more outfits to post so you will be seeing much more of me in the next few days, and hopefully more of me in general! Now that Georgia has moved up to Wellington I am making it a goal to post more outfit photos on here, just for her! So you just wait...

Also I have just ordered a pair of goldenponies t-strap flats and am very excited and can't wait for them to arrive!

Tuppence a bag

So I'm moving to Wellington in two days, which means I've quit both my jobs and have a lot of free time, in which I should be packing up my entire life. But instead, I'm doing fun things like dragging my brother out to Rangiora to go visit Warren and Vanessa at Two Squirrels for the last time ever.

Their pop-up nest is closing in a fortnight and they're moving their vintage trade online, so it was pretty heartbreaking to visit for the last time. I've been buying from them for 6 or so years, and my first ever proper vintage garment came from them- a pale green paisley shift dress that I bought for myself for Christmas when I was 13. I still wear it on a regular basis. I'm definitely gonna miss being about to visit them at the various incarnations of their shops, but I know I'll be buying from their online store on a very regular basis, and I'm sure they can bring the magic of their personal brand of vintage into the realm of the internet. Most of my favourite garments from my wardrobe come from Tete-a-Tete (their first shop) or Two Squirrels, including this amazing 1950s swimsuit that I wore in a photoshoot with Ruby-Rose in 2008!



This adorable dress I picked up on Saturday is no exception. It's 100% silk, by Rosina Lee, with the most amazing layered collar and pintucked detailing. It makes me feel like an Edwardian child, although without a belt it makes me look like a sack of boobs. Unfortunately a lot of this adorable detail was hidden under my little Clever Nettle coat, as today was rather chilly. Another awesome thing I can do with all this new-found free time is hang out with my best friends and say farewell for now. S0 today Ruby-Rose and I went on a good old-fashioned adventure, which for us means ludicrously impractical clothing and carting around way too many cameras to various trespassed locations. We also indulged in some chips in the earthquake-battered port of Lyttelton, although the seagulls seemed more into them than we were.








(Wearing a Two Squirrels Vintage dress, thrifted belt, Clever Nettle coat, DIY necklace, Goldenponies shoes and DIY flower hairclip. All photos of me by Ruby-Rose Ross)

Like my necklace? It's one of my mum's teeth. I've found tonnes of awesome junk while cleaning out our family home, and this is no exception. I bleached it for a couple of days to make it super white, then glued on a sterling bail and put it on a long sterling pendant chain. I think it bridges the gap between creepy and stylish quite nicely.

I guess this is the last post I'll ever make from Christchurch! Goodbye quake city, see you later maybe.

~kitten around

Sometimes when I open my wardrobe in the morning (or open my 6-foot chest of drawers, or rummage through my boxes of stuff to go into storage, or my sewing pile, and so on), I end up tangentially wondering about its existence. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, although most of it is intensely whimsical. And I'm turning 20 in a couple of months, so I'm not getting any younger, especially in the scheme of the blogosphere. In less than a year I'll be graduating if all goes to plan (hahahahahaha), and maybe one day after that trying to find a serious, big-girl job in an office or something. I wonder, when will it get weird that my favourite outfit is a giraffe-print minidress with patent t-bar flats? When will my bum-length hair start being 'inappropriate' for my age? What is the half-life of rainbow glittery oxfords?

Except for the occasional odd look/point/laugh, and the occasional question about the theme of the party I'm attending, people I talk to are generally pretty positive about the ~zany~*~ wardrobe I've spent the last 7 or 8 years collecting and curating. I hate subscribing to arbitrary social standards around personal style, but I do occasionally worry that I look like an overgrown 3 year-old. Women like Helga and Vix are serious inspiration for me though when I have these weird little quarter-life crises about my dress sense, reminding me that you can be a grown up and still wear bright, interesting, quirky, whimsical vintage clothes. I hope my wardrobe does have some real longevity, and I don't wake up one day wanting to only wear black and beige and bin all my weird, questionably-ugly clothes.

This dress was one of those things I see on Etsy and think 'oh, if only, but the price tag! I could never buy this!' and then find myself hunched over my laptop typing in my debit card details ten minutes later. It reminded me of an amazing skirt I had years ago featuring a border print of pale yellow kittens playing with balls of wool, that I sold in a fit of madness and have regretted ever since. It's by the amazing Katie-Louise Ford, who has a gorgeous blog too. I just couldn't get past the saccharine combination of green-eyed kittens frolicking in hearts made of flowers, plus the peter-pan collar and full skirt. I don't know if I've ever seen anything more twee. I've probably only got 7 or 8 years left in which I can wear this dress before I start pushing the boundaries of age-appropriateness, so I guess I'll just wear it every day between now and then to make the most of it.





(Kitten-print dress by Katie-Louise Ford, Asos t-strap flats, fuschia belt off another vintage dress, costume-cupboard satchel. P.S. None of these are edited, I just left my camera on weird settings accidentally. I don't know how to make them look better... soz)

Regarding my Asos shoes, my mum ordered them for me as my old pair of t-bars were getting into a terrible state from me wearing them every day. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but when they arrived I was extremely disappointed- they're very bad quality. There were glue marks and smears on the side of one shoe, and the fabric of the straps was starting to fray quite badly already. I've worn them twice and not only are they very uncomfortable, but the fraying is getting much worse and they look old and worn already. What a waste of money. They're the first Asos item I've ever owned, and probably the last too. I'm going to order a pair of Goldenponies t-strap flats in the near future to replace these- the wait is long, but it'll be worth it. I'm sure these will have fallen apart by then!