Category: Uncategorized
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
SABA Men’s White Shirt – Similar here or if you want a woman’s version ASOS got you covered | Camilla and Marc Leather Leggings | Senso Boots – Similar here and here| Vintage Chanel Earrings | Karen Walker Joyous Sunglasses | ASOS Bandana – Similar here
Coco Chanel said “Everyday is a fashion show and the World is your runway”. Well sometimes I can’t function well enough to simply put one foot in front of the other, let alone dress well enough for a runway. BUT one lesson I’ve learnt along the way is that a boring outfit can be brought to life with some great accessories.
The other day, my alarm beeps, I roll over, hit snooze, hit snooze, hit snooze, hit snooze… You get where I’m going. All of a sudden I have 15 minutes to get ready and be in my car fighting the shitty Sydney peak hour traffic. With no time to think, I throw on my black leather leggings and a white button up shirt and look at my shabby self in the mirror. I mean, as you can see I don’t even have time to iron the shirt, if I’m being honest I actually didn’t even notice how badly crushed the shirt was until I looked at the photos. Whoops #blogging101.
I desperately need a quick fix to take this outfit from the “I have no clean clothes” look to “I clearly planned this” look. Just like delicious cream cheese icing hides a terrible, dry, vanilla cake. With 5 minutes and counting I grabbed the most patterned/busy shoes I could find (a lucky last minute purchase at the Senso warehouse sale), the biggest earrings I have and a crazy pair of gold, glitter, mirrored sunglasses. With one last look at myself, I run out the door.
To be fair I was still a couple of minutes late to work and when I sat down I noticed my shirt buttons were misaligned… Doh. Let’s just hope everyone was too busy looking at my earrings or my dirty hair to notice.
ANOTHER PERSON’S TRASH
Market haul – Gucci Vintage Bootleg Sweatshirt $60, Missoni Knit Top $20, Iro Jeans $10, OneTeaspoon Denim Skirt $10
Gucci Vintage Bootleg Sweatshirt – bought at Manly Markets from Queen Justine Vintage | OneTeaspoon Denim Skirt – bought from Kirribilli Markets | Guess Boots – bought from EbayAU | Hiking Shoe Laces – bought from EbayAU
There’s nothing like cracking open a freshly delivered Aus Post parcel and featuring your fresh new purchase on your Insta story. I’m using this analogy because I am 100% an online shopping person. Anything I can do from my bed in my jim jams is A OK with me and who doesn’t love being able to accomplish a task bra-less and in trackies.
So as I paint the dream in my head of a life spent online shopping, in reality, life just gets more expensive. Every month it’s bills bills bills and then all of a sudden I’m Destiny’s Child wishing someone would just pay my bills so maybe I could chill/shop…
So how do you get your fix while keeping most of your bank account intact? Second hand or vintage, my friends. The only down sides are wading through a bunch of crap at markets and Vinnies stores and feeling bad when you try to haggle prices down when they’re already pretty cheap. But hey, if I’m putting pants and a bra on to go to an actual shop, I better be bagging myself a bargain.
The other weekend I went to Kirribilli General Market on Saturday and the Manly Markets on Sunday, finishing up the weekend strong with a great haul of mostly designer digs for $100. The key is obviously finding the right stalls and digging for those golden gooses, and I’m not talking about the sneakers, or maybe the sneakers? You never know. Someone’s trash is another bargain hunters treasure.
Usually my strategy is to weave through the market stalls with an eye out for labels, the more well known or designer labels a stall has, the higher the probability of finding gold is. Who said maths wasn’t useful after high school. My other strategy is to keep an eye out for a rack of old Levi’s jeans, skirts or denim jackets. This is usually a slightly more expensive stall because it’s not just someone getting rid of their last seasons wardrobe. It’s a proper vintage shop where you’re more than likely to find a gold mine of old Harley Davidson Tees, Hilfiger, Guess, anything 80’s and 90’s really. It’s a sign of a seller that knows what the consumer wants; Vintage shit you could’ve saved money on if your mum had just KEPT ALL HER CLOTHES, but now you have cough up top dollar because this old shit is cool again. Yes mum, I’m talking to YOU.
Lastly, West Coast Customise your shit up. Cut the sleeves off to turn your top into a muscle tank, buy some new shoe laces to vamp up a pair of boots, fashion yourself a crop top out of an oversized men’s tee, chop a step hem in a pair of vintage jeans and chuck them in the wash for a frayed look.
You don’t have to spend a fortune to have the outfits you want, just a $100 in your pocket, a pair of scissors, the courage to hack into your new old clothes and the musty, second hand world of vintage fashion is your oyster.
Awesome online Vintage Stores
This customise rule doesn’t just apply to second hand. Here’s a photo for your enjoyment of me wearing a pair of Kmart men’s jeans. I bought the smallest size I could find, yanked them up Steve Urkel style to sit around my waist and chopped off the hem at my ankles. 15 buckaroos for these bad boys.
Get your Urkel on here
HIATUS
It’s been awhile…
Exactly 570 days since my last post and let’s just say I’ve seen some shit.
I’ve started a new job, traveled a bunch to China, Paris, Hawaii twice, Byron, multiple trips to Melbourne and 90% my friends have had babies, while I’m sitting over here nursing a food baby.
However, what remains the same are my life goals: All black everything, travel where possible, eat burgers, dumplings, ramen, any kind of smoked and BBQ’d meats, cheese, any and all the carbs, mac and cheese (my biggest weakness), any type of pasta really, especially gnocchi and I can’t forget hot wings… You name it, I’ll eat it, after a quick check online for reviews, obviously.
I originally had a thought to compile a recap post with photos from the last year and a half. BUT then I thought, why the hell would I do that when currently, at my pretty lazy finger tips, I have a whole lot of content for future blog posts. This, in turn, requires less of me being photographed awkwardly in obscure locations and backdrops, while still being able to provide exciting and relevant content. SO instead of a recap, you get a photo of me enjoying the start of a feast and a bottle of Rosé at Restaurant Hubert and the possibility of semi regular posts on fashion, food, travel and life in general.
I’M BACK … for now 🙂
In the meantime go and check out Hubert’s menu. All the dishes are amazing but you HAVE to try the Steak Tartare and the Malakoff (it’s pretty much a deep fried gruyere bomb) and see why they opened up last year to 2 chefs hats.
SHORT SKIRT & A LONG JACKET
Maison Margiela black tshirt dress / STELLA McCARTNEY coat / Yves Saint Laurent black high top shoes / 3 1 Phillip Lim black shoulder bag / Marni necklace / Michael Kors stainless steel watch / Marni bracelets bangle / Smoke & Mirrors mirrored glasses
My favourite time of year is coming up.
It’s the last month of Winter and as the days start getting warmer, the need to layer fades. Soon the amazing feeling of throwing a coat on over a short t-shirt dress and kicks will be all you need to step outside into the great outdoors. Gone will be the days of trying fruitlessly to grab on to the ends of cardigan or sweater sleeves so that they don’t bunch up under your coat sleeves. Which by the way are way too tight to fit anything under comfortably anyway.
As a minimal dresser, layering items in Winter is just not my forte. I end up just being either way too cold, or way too hot. Also anyone who wears a lot of black will know the pain of putting on a entire black outfit, consisting of many layers, only to find that some of the blacks you’re wearing are blue/black, some are red/black and some are green/black…
The struggle is real.
ALL WORK & NO PLAY
Lately I’ve been spending almost every spare minute of the day and night where I’m not working, either on the couch or in bed with the blinds drawn in partial darkness. Although it sounds like it, I haven’t developed a chronic illness.
I’m just super busy working late and weekends which means that for the 10% of my week where I’m not working, my brain is also not working and I’m allowed to be a lazy, couch sitting, pizza wearing, pyjama eating slob. Wait did I say that right?
That means that unfortunately my time spent in and around the blogosphere has become a bit more erratic than it used to. Quality over quantity right? Or at least above average.
That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. Either that or you’d be getting outfit of the day posts of all the track pants I own…
And they’re not the fashion type.
THE SUNDANCE KID
Boho Peasant Top by Zen Garden / Isabel Marant Cowboy Boots
Who’s ever hitchhiked before? It seems like a terrifyingly stupid ting to do, getting in a car with a stranger who’s willing to pick up another stranger.
While the sensible grown up in me says, why on Earth would you even entertain the idea, the rest of my brain (the majority of it) romanticises it as the stuff carefree road trip, self discovery movies are made of. To be fair it also has all the makings of a pretty hairy horror movie.
It must be the boots, because as soon I put them on I want to hitchhike from Virgina to Texas, ride a mechanical bull, drink Whiskey and eat a lot of smokey Southern BBQ.
Or it’s not the boots and I actually just want to do all those things.
Yee-haw
| Get the look |
Dress
Asos – Here & here / Revolve Clothing
Boots
Net-a-Porter / Farfetch / River Island
SYDNEY FESTIVAL
Sydney Festival is well and truly over… Note to self, work on timing.
Luckily it’s never too late to look at photos of delicious, mouth watering food.
It was a balmy Thursday night when we ventured to Sydney Festival, set up in Hyde Park. Porteño and Messina were our main targets. We made a bee line for the stand and promptly ordered Chicken and Waffles, Philly Cheese Steak, Chilli Cheese Fries and a Salmon and Cream Cheese Bagel (for something light of course). From the Messina counter, we went with the Not Chicken and Waffles and a Not Cheeseburger.
The Chicken and Waffles were delicious and my favourite of the selection. Fried crunchy chicken, crispy bacon on top of a sugary, crusted Belgian waffle. The dessert was slightly underwhelming for all of the hype, but in saying that, deep fry some gelato on a waffle or slap some chocolate gelato on brioche bun and you can’t go too wrong.
Although Porteño and Messina set out to be the best in show, a left field quiet contender stood out as the shining, cheesy star. The Cheesesmith.
Tucked quietly in the back corner of the Hyde Park set up, was this gooey, mouthwatering, delicious, glowing beacon of cheesiness. Their fresh looking cheese plates were tempting, but my eyes were set on their cheese toasties; 3 cheeses with an optional 4th cheese. The definition of optional went out the window when I saw this “4th cheese”. The half wheel of Raclette sat toasting under its own personal grill, warming itself for the next order. Once it had developed a layer of bubbling, oozing mess it was removed from its home and the molten cheese was scraped on top of an unsuspecting 3 cheese toastie. I chose the Le Grand, which consisted of Spanish Manchego, Truffle Infused Cheddar and French Blue Cheese. Add a schmear of quince paste and this was the highlight of Sydney festival for me.
Because “That’s too much cheese” – Said no one ever.