Nostalgia for outfits/versions of myself.

Hello! Time for Part Three of my Alteration Series.

 This skirt used to be part of a dress I loved when I was sixteen, I think there's probably a (very embarrassing) outfit post of me wearing it floating about on here somewhere. On of the straps broke a while back and couldn't really be repaired, but I didn't have the heart to throw it out because A) I am ridiculously sentimental about clothing, and B) I always thought I would change it up into a skirt one of these days - and now I have!
You can't really see it properly here because I was lazy and took these pictures without using my tripod, but it's really cute I promise! Also, I am inadvertently matching the colours of my room perfectly.

Blouse - Dorothy Perkins, skirt - Motel/DIY, necklace - gift.

I have been sitting on these pictures for a long time because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to say about them. The fact that both of these pieces are recycled items from my past has made me do a lot of thinking about how I think about my appearance now. I feel like I'm in the middle of a transformation in the way I dress, moving away from an all pastel aesthetic into a brighter, more varied array of clothing. I do love pastel shades, but I feel like I had been using that colour palette as a means of restriction - a few times I looked at clothes online and found myself thinking "oh that's nice, it's not pastel though" as if that some how diminished how much I should like it. What I guess I'm trying to say is that I think I was forcing a strict identity upon myself, through clothes but also myself as a person. I want to move away from this now and become more adventurous and explore vintage dressing and presentation more (a few of you  might have seen me with my hair in rollers on Instagram, this is part of that exploration and growth). This series of alterations I have been doing has also been a step in that direction, the skirts and dress I have shown you recently are a step towards my hopefully more open approach to dressing. I just want to have fun again, I think. Last week I started looking through my blog archives because I was feeling nostalgic for the enthusiasm I had for blogging last year, and I was also missing the way I looked back then (in this post specifically). I have had this weird notion in the back of my mind that Summer 2012 was my peak and that I will never look better. Obviously, this is a really odd and stupid notion, because growth matters. Change matters. I feel like I am in the halfway stages at the moment, my style and my approach to it are going to continue evolving and this blog is going to be the site of it.
I have been really apathetic about blogging lately and sluggish in showing you all new, pretty things that I have bought because I have been taking the time to think a lot more lately. I have been a bit confused about lots of things, some to do with my style - because I do think that is worth thinking over and deconstructing - but my personal life as well. I am not going to share much about it here (because I'm not sure what I'm thinking myself, but also because I don't really want to), but know that I am a little fragile right now and that, even though I do want to write about things here, I do not really have the energy to post a lot right now.

Plaid on plaid.

Thank you for reading.