CuttingShapes

This is our youth

When I was 14 I saved up my allowance for something like three months in order to buy possibly the most exciting item ever; my first of two pairs of Doc Martens. When the time finally came my mum and I had to trek to some impossibly out of the way shop and then I spent an hour carefully selecting the right ones. They were important. Black with a kind of red rub effect and gold eyelets. In hindsight, they were pretty damn ugly, but at the time I loved them so. I wore them to death.

A few years later my dad and brother went to london and returned with yet another pair of Doc Martens for me; this time black and grey with butterflies and flowers. And glitter. Oh yes. These were not worn nearly as much as the original pair but were still treasured. Their popularity waned but I still wore them up until university when my boyfriend at the time told me he hated them, and I foolishly put them away never to be seen again.

Until this week.

First in Ruby and then this week in Made in Auckland, I discovered several pairs of patent leather Docs, which immediately reminded me of the two pairs stored away in my parents cupboard.

So I forced my poor put upon father to remove his entire life from this cupboard to get my shoes at the back.

I'm still experimenting with how to wear them. Their only public outing so far has been to the supermarket on Sunday, when it was freezing. I tucked my black skinny jeans into them, and even though they have butterflies and flowers I still looked like I was about to kick someones ass. Which isn't normally a look I aspire to, I have to admit. But still, they were super comfortable, so now I need to try wearing them with something a little less bogan I think, a little less reminiscent of how I used to wear them. Ten years ago.

And yes, having shoes that are more than ten years old fit me does make me feel kind of old. Until I remember that I stopped growing at 13 (tall then, short now as every one else kept growing) and that if I really wanted to revisit the horrible fashions of the mid to late 90's I could probably just dig a little further into my parents cupboards.

My sister (who had a pair but hated them back in the day) is going to purchase a pair of grey patent leather ones from Ruby this weekend I think, so I may force her to dress up in various outfits for your viewing pleasure to see what they look like.

I saw a girl in Auckland wearing a nice battered pair of cherry red ones with bare legs and a short dress, but sadly winter has officially arrived here in Wellington so no bare legs for me anytime soon.

So I will be trying to incorporate these into my wardrobe in the coming weeks without looking like a) a bogan b) like my 14 year old self c) like I am going to kick someones ass. Wish me luck! (and give me ideas!)

The best person I have ever met.

Apologies for the overload of blog posts tonight; I realised I have a lot of things to say and if I don't write them now I will forget. This next one is particularly important.

On Thursday night I met the best person I have ever met in my life.

I was up in Auckland for a few nights to see my boyfriends show in the Fringe festival, and afterwards my friend Hannah and I were hanging outside the Basement, being all cool and theatre-scene and stuff, and this old man came up to us and told us off for not being dressed warmly enough.

His name was Joseph and he was seriously the most interesting person I have ever spoken to. His stories were so incredible that Hannah at I kept shooting each other these looks of amazement as they got more and more elaborate and intense. At first glance he seemed like a normal grandpa type:

Charming and American, dressed nicely but conservatively. Our conversation quickly turned from the weather to how you can tell a lot about a man from what is on his feet. His weren't too bad:

A little bit orthotic looking but clearly well made and well loved. He told us a story about a beautiful young woman he knew who ended things with a young man after the first date because he showed up in flip-flops. She was very well dressed and was having none of that. Turned out that a lot of Joseph's stories were about beautiful young women...

Within the space of about 15 minutes he told us about his nephew who was a professor at Berkley who only owned three pairs of jeans and a couple of checked shirts, about how he does "special physics" and now works on the Large Hadron Collider, about said nephews various relationships, including one with a beautiful Russian fur trader; he told us about "when he used to go to Paris", and what beautiful Parisian fashion models do when they need to pee backstage or at a party; he told us about how he went to Bali 30 years ago and it cost him $11 a night and they bought you coffee ever morning; he told us about how he has been married for 50 years and his wife has never worn any jewellery, not even her wedding ring, and how they are going back to Bali and to visit his son, whose wife owns two houses in the south of France for their anniversary in June.  This was all very fascinating (and I am sure I haven't even covered half of it! I hope Hannah reads this an elaborates for me) until I noticed his ring. Totally freaking amazing. We were mesmerised:

Oh yes. That is a picture of an elderly man wearing a skeleton hand ring. He said he bourght it from a 6'4 French albino who works out of London but who is in Auckland convalescing from a mysterious illness. He has a 6'5 father (or uncle?) and a 6 foot tall woman walked into the shop when he was buying it and Joseph told them he felt like he was in the land of the giants. As you do.

Apparently the non-jewellery-wearing wife-of-50-years also loves the ring so they are thinking of getting her one and both wearing them on their ring finger. I really hope they do.

Eventually he wandered off into the night and I had to control myself from asking for his email address or phone number. I'm sure I looked creepy enough taking all these photos of an old man!

Hannah excitedly text me the next day and said she had spotted him again! Wearing an awesome pair of sunglasses. Of course.

Bad Blogger

Ok...

I've been very negligent with the blogging. Even after I said I would be better. So here is a special treat: Possibly the best music video ever. I saw this the other day while spending all of my money at the dentist. I saw this without sound, and while my teeth were being drilled, and I still thought it was pretty much the best thing ever. Mostly because of the amazing silver dress. I found some similar stuff on K-Road in Auckland today but I didn't really feel like spending $150 just to re-enact this video for you with Hadleigh in the lagoon. Which I am now regretting.  And i'm back in Wellington so I can't go back and get it.  Ah well.

Anyway, here it is, the amazing silver dress of my dreams:

There was a longer version with some exciting "acting" from our friend Huey in the beginning but for some reason I can't find a version that will let me embed it. Ah well!

Get your boots on

First of all I wanted to apologise for not posting for nearly a month. Time has somehow gotten away from me but I intend to remedy this starting today! I’ve been busy gardening, dancing, Cuba Street Carnival-ing  and just generally enjoying the tail-end of summer and the Fringe Festival.

However, it is nearly March, and I can feel the weather starting to turn, so my next few posts will probably be about winter fashion.

Much as I love summer, I much prefer my (and everyone else’s) winter wardrobe.  Scarves, boots, mittens and coats and lots of layers.  I’ve never been one to show much skin (OK yes I did wear a very short jumpsuit with a zip down the front to the Cuba Street Carnival on the weekend, but that was a rare exception) so summer fashion has never excited me as much as winter. I’m quite happy to throw on shorts ,  but I don’t exactly feel my most stylish during the hot months.

I have always been a big fan of The Sartorialist and his pictures of people all rugged up in New York, Paris and Copenhagen in the last few weeks have really inspired me.  I keep overdressing. Of course, by June I will regret ever being excited about the possibility of it being cold...

To get started I thought I would show you a picture of my favourite shoes. These are the most comfortable pair of shoes I own. I was going to clean them up for their photoshoot but in the end I decided against it. This is what they look like when I wear them:

They are Diesel Stylelab and I have worn them to death in the three years I have had them. The benefit of a good-resoling (before permanent damage is done) is evident in these puppies. I have much nicer shoes, and much better looking shoes, and much less bashed-up shoes, but these are what I wear most of the time in winter, and strangely enough, they are the shoes that I get the most compliments on. I guess they looked well loved in person, rather than ratty like in the photo!

The other day it rained really heavily here in Wellington and I reluctantly pulled them out. By the end of the day I pleased though, as my feet were warm and dry and comfortable.

Singin' in the rain

For those of you reading this who know me, it probably comes as no big surprise that Singin' in the Rain is one of my all time favourite movies. Although I will readily admit that a large part of this is due to all the ridiculous, over the top dance numbers, the other thing that draws me back in over and over is the amazing costuming by Walter Plunkett.

There are so many things to love about the costumes, least of which being there are great hats in almost every scene. I love hats, and I wish people (especially men) would wear them more often. I don't mean fascinators to the races either. In fact I think I hate fascinators. Anyway...

 

I love Debbie Reynolds little lilac cap. I can't for the life of me remember what this kind of hat is called?

I think I am going to have to find or make something similar for myself. Might look a bit silly with my long hair at the moment though.

Same scene here again with better details on the mens hats. Also, check out Lena Lamonts amazing glasses and hat combo! I love it. I wish I could find a better picture of her in this scene.

  

Another cute hat on Debbie Reynolds. I don't know if its her round face or her short haircut in this movie, or both, but she looks gorgeous in hats. I really like this one, though i'm not sure about the matching biege on beige ensemble it is paired with. Gene Kelly is looking dapper, even in his torn tuxedo.

 

Debbie in a kind of silly but cute drop waisted dress. Most normal human beings look awful in this kind of thing but she looks great. I also like the little scarf at her neck. No hats in this scene BUT there are two men wearing waistcoats which more than makes up for it.

I think a large part of the reason I read the Sartorialist is for all the pictures of handsome middle aged men wearing hats, three piece suits, overcoats or a combination of all three.

I was going to say that I wish there was as much singing and dancing in my kitchen as in this scene, but to be honest, there is a lot of that in my house anyway. I just wish we all looked quite as effortlessly cool as these folks when doing it.

  

Speaking of effortlessly cool; I don't care for Debbie Reynolds chiffon number in this one but it is worth noting that Gene Kelly is wearing what is essentially a cricket outfit with high waisted pants and he still manages to look awesome.

And last but not least:

   

The amazing Cyd Charisse. She even makes smoking look cool. If I could swap my curly hair for anything it would be this sharp black bob. If I had the sharp black bob and cool smoking then I am sure I could pull off the ridiculous green sequined flapper outfit as well. Hah.

Artikel

I just discovered that one of my favourite shops in Wellington, Artikel, has a website, so I figured I would share it with you. I apologise if this seems like one big ad for the shop, I just really love it, and the staff are always so lovely and helpful (and stylish!) as well.

Artikel is full of jewellery and homewares and art and clothing and is always my first stop when looking for gifts. The jewellery there is always a good bet for a present because they have a huge range and there is always something affordable. 

My boyfriend got my sister a really cute set of squirrel brooches for Christmas (sadly this picture is a bit average):

 

I really like this Meadowlark apple-core pendant:

Sadly I seldom buy anything for myself there, but if I could afford it I think I would go crazy kitting out my house with the amazing homewares.

I love this red filing cabinet. They use variations on these cabinets to display a lot of the stock and I love them so much. I have no idea what I would keep in it but I'm sure I could find something...

 

I also would love one of these bus blinds:

 

They have a variety of different ones from New Zealand, London and New York and they are so stunning. They are pretty big as well. The New Zealand ones are great because they go through a number of small hick towns with fantastic names.

Super duper strength

I had my eye on these kind of ridiculous Karen Walker sunglasses since I saw them on eyeheartglasses in October of last year, and I finally sucked it up and bourght them for myself as a Christmas present just before I went away.

I loved them in the blue frame with pink lenses as featured in the "Master of Disguise" ad campaign

 

But in the end I got them in black, as the pink lenses didn't really do much in terms of blocking glare.

 

I was a bit unsure of them at first but I really grown to love them. I've been wearing a slightly ill-fitting pair of vintage tortoiseshell wayfarers from the 80s (courtesy of my mum) for the last year or so and it is kind of nice to be wearing something different to everyone else now. They are pretty huge on my face and I get some strange looks but i'm really happy with my choice. Everyone at the moment in Wellington seems to either be wearing wayfarers or oversized squared off frames, so the roundness of these is pleasingly unusual.

I love Karen Walker sunglasses (and the ad campaigns that go with them) and luckily there are plenty of places that sell them online if you don't happen to be in New Zealand.

Faster faster pt 2

As per Jarrods suggestion I just googled Brigitte Bardot in relation to motorbikes and came up with the most hilarious/awesome/camp music video ever:

I think I just need to get some thigh high boots...

Either that or I could go the 80s red leather look with giant hair ala Liz Taylor:

I would have to get a dapper gent in a matching red outfit to go with it as well.

I also rather like the Joan Jett motorbike look; I could find some pleather one piece wearing motorbike ladies and we could form a sexy biker gang.

 

Fug

So i've been reading gofugyourself on and off for years now. I've realised recently that apart from the really obviously ugly and unflattering stuff, I often disagree with them fug girls. I saw this post of Jessica Alba today and realised that I would totally wear her outfit:

Is it wrong that I now want high waisted purple pants? I have a pair of brown wool Karen Walker pants with a very similar waist that I love. Wearing them (and all of my boots and scarves) again is one of the few things I am looking forward to about winter.

Brand new shoes

I have always loved dressing up. I was going to say fashion, but I don’t think that is really it. I think this mostly stems from having an amazing dressmaker for a mother.  One little girl at primary school apparently went home and excitedly reported to her mother than my clothes “came from Paris” when in fact, they came from our rumpus room.   (One day I hope to actually own something that “comes from Paris” but as yet I have not fulfilled my dream of going there. Soon! Soon!)

Anyway, I took this photo at Christmas of some brand new shoes that I wish wish wish came in my size, and they reminded me so strongly of the excitement I used to feel every time my mum produced some amazing, new outfit for me to wear as a child, and every time my dad bought me back another pair of ridiculous shoes from his overseas journeys.  My mum still makes a lot of my clothes and I still feel that same excitement every time.