Countdown.

Hello! In my last post I promised an outfit post, but with a slight difference! Lately it has been too tricky for me to take ~proper~ outfit pictures because I don't have my tripod here, and I'm too busy/lazy to try and do them without one. Also, I'm always a little worried my flatmates will hear my camera shutter going off! I decided to start taking pictures of my outfit in the mirror (on days where I felt my outfit game was pretty good!) to catalogue these in a different way. I actually really like the way they've turned out, I think it gives a really good idea of what I wear day to day. Most of these are variations on things I've worn before on the blog, but they are my favourite outfits and so deserve to be on here!

Blouse - vintage, cardigan - charity shop, skirt - Topshop, tights & socks - Topshop, Doc Martens - Amazon, headscarf - charity shop.

Really, really proud of this outfit. I wear it a lot because I just love the way everything works together. I bought several new pairs of frilly socks from Topshop, and these yellow ones just bring it all together I think.

Top - ebay, shorts - vintage, tights - H&M, shoes - New Look, necklace - gift, flower crown - homemade.

First outfit from when the weather began to get slightly warmer!

Blouse - vintage, shorts - Liberty x Topshop, cardigan - Tesco, tights - Topshop, shoes - Miss Selfridge

Top - Marina & the Diamonds website, skirt - vintage/altered, tights & socks - Topshop, shoes - Office, necklace - Afflecks Palace in Manchester, headscarf - vintage

One of my new favourite outfits!  I think the blue just brings everything together. I adore my (fairly new!) Marina tshirt, I will be doing a post on this soon because it is really lovely.

Blouse - H&M with embroidery detail by me, shorts - made by my mum, cardigan - vintage, tights - Topshop, shoes - New Look, headscarf - vintage

Another favourite outfit. Just really love this combination, especially with the pink back in my hair!

Blouse - charity shop, skirt - Topshop, socks - Topshop, shoes - Office

I wore this on a night out to Itchy Feet, a club night which plays 50s, 60s, soul & funk music, so good! My nighttime wardrobe is pretty much the same as my daytime wardrobe, but slightly dressier perhaps.

Blouse - vintage, skirt - H&M with buttons changed by me, leggings - Matalan, socks - Topshop, shoes - Office

I have been wearing my leggings a lot recently, it feels too cold for bare legs! I can't decide if I like the way it looks or not, but I shall be persevering because it means I can do washing less often if I don't wear my tights all the time!

I hope this semi-outfit post is to your liking, until next time!

How much longer can I get away/with being so fucking cute?

Hello! Woops, it's been almost 3 weeks since I last posted! Not going to lie, I barely even noticed that time slip past as I've been so busy. I had two essay deadlines, and then another few pieces to write for the uni women's magazine and the one my friend is starting up. Actually, I will link you to the pieces I've written for the uni magazine so far, because I haven't done so yet! They are: How to wear disco pants/wear fur, So wrong it's right Hawaiian shirts/double denim. The one I have at the moment is a Great British Sewing Bee (Please tell me you're watching it!? So good!) inspired piece about knitting and sewing coming back into fashion, obviously very much my cup of tea. I'm really pleased about this one, as the pieces I've written so far are pieces I felt I could write, rather than ones I really did want to write about.

Anyway, here is a long-awaited outfit post! Also, my hair is pink again, yay! I realise that I was a bit premature titling my last post as "Princess of pink", because I am wearing almost all pink here and the title would have been so apt! Sigh.

I bought this absolutely adorable vintage bed jacket for £5 in a charity shop in Sheffield, in between buying budget bleach and looking for costume pieces for my upcoming (eek) burlesque performance. (It was a slightly disheartening shopping trip until this point as I had been looking for a holographic swimsuit in H&M, but couldn't find one - please let me know if you have spotted it!) It has taken me a while to find out where the good charity shops are in Sheffield, but I think I've finally cracked it! The one I went in had a pretty rack of vintage clothes, I also bought a skirt but it needs altering so it will take a while for me to post it on here! I'm going charity shopping again tomorrow so I hope I find more pretty things. Anyway, this piece was way too cute not to buy! It has a lovely pink and white flecked pattern and a pretty bow at the neck, as well as a cute scalloped trim.

So obsessed with cute things recently. I just love the combination of pink on pink.

(Please excuse my unmade bed!)

Jacket - vintage/charity shop, blouse - vintage, skirt - H&M (but I changed the buttons).

I'm so cute. Narcissistic as it might be to say so (but I think narcissism is fun and healthy and valuable so there!) Thinking that about this outfit really made me think about a poem I had to read recently for my poetry seminar, which I am going to put here as a nice little end to the post;

Miss July Grows Older, by Margaret Atwood

How much longer can I get away
with being so fucking cute?
Not much longer.
The shoes with bows, the cunning underwear
with slogans on the crotch — Knock Here,
and so forth —
will have to go, along with the cat suit.
After a while you forget
what you really look like.
You think your mouth is the size it was.
You pretend not to care.

When I was young I went with my hair
hiding one eye, thinking myself daring;
off to the movies in my jaunty pencil
skirt and elastic cinch-belt,
chewed gum, left lipstick
imprints the shape of grateful, rubbery
sighs on the cigarettes of men
I hardly knew and didn’t want to.
Men were a skill, you had to have
good hands, breathe into
their nostrils, as for horses. It was something I did well,
like playing the flute, although I don’t.

In the forests of grey stems there are standing pools,
tarn-coloured, choked with brown leaves.
Through them you can see an arm, a shoulder,
when the light is right, with the sky clouded.
The train goes past silos, through meadows,
the winter wheat on the fields like scanty fur.

I still get letters, although not many.
A man writes me, requesting true-life stories
about bad sex. He’s doing an anthology.
He got my name off an old calendar,
the photo that’s mostly bum and daisies,
back when my skin had the golden slick
of fresh-spread margarine.
Not rape, he says, but disappointment,
more like a defeat of expectations.
Dear Sir, I reply, I never had any.
Bad sex, that is.
It was never the sex, it was the other things,
the absence of flowers, the death threats,
the eating habits at breakfast.
I notice I’m using the past tense.

Though the vaporous cloud of chemicals that enveloped
you
like a glowing eggshell, an incense,
doesn’t disappear: it just gets larger
and takes in more. You grow out
of sex like a shrunk dress
into your common senses, those you share
with whatever’s listening. The way the sun
moves through the hours becomes important,
the smeared raindrops
on the window, buds
on the roadside weeds, the sheen
of spilled oil on a raw ditch
filling with muddy water.

Don’t get me wrong: with the lights out
I’d still take on anyone,
if I had the energy to spare.
But after a while these flesh arpeggios get boring,
like Bach over and over;
too much of one kind of glory.

When I was all body I was lazy.
I had an easy life, and was not grateful.
Now there are more of me.
Don’t confuse me with my hen-leg elbows:
what you get is no longer
what you see.

found here.

PS. I will hopefully be back with another (sort of) outfit post later in the week!

Princess of pink.

Happy April! I have been in a very productive mood today, and I have got enough done that I don't really feel guilty taking a little break to write this post. I feel like it might be the only time I get before work and writing things start to pile up again, so here we go!

When I was back in Newcastle, I went with my mum to the most beautiful vintage fair I have ever been to! It was in the Theatre Royal in the centre of town, which is a really lovely building in the centre of town. They don't normally do events like this (but since the council cut all arts funding in Newcastle BY A HUNDRED PER CENT they've had to look at new ways to get money to keep from going under), but I'm so glad they did because it was amazing! They had like, six floors of really good quality vintage and retro stalls, we didn't even get a chance to look through them all as it was so busy. I've signed up to have a stall with them in August, and if I were you I'd really recommend going to one of the events if they have one near you - this one was called Newcastle Does Vintage, and they do lots in other cities (their Twitter is here!). I also met four people who I'd worked at fairs with in the past, which was surreal but nice. I also saw a woman who I'd kind of had a weird falling-out with and who I was a bit worried about seeing, but she was actually really friendly and it was a total relief.

...Anyway, I bought some pretty things that I want to show you! You know sometimes when you buy things from fairs, and you're happy with them, but they're not amazing? And sometimes they are just too incredible and you can't believe your luck? Well, the latter is what happened to me at this fair! Below is my first purchase, which is so fucking cute I can't even deal with it. (Above is the little box it came in)

It's a strawberry plant, in a strawberry plantpot! So so cute! It is just absolutely adorable, I have worn it almost every day since I bought it.

The woman whose stall I bought it from was absolutely lovely! She had so many cute things It was really difficult to decide what I wanted, but when she said this one was a complete one-off I knew I had to get it. She buys mystery Japanese dolls house tea sets (basically, there are no options on the website & what you get is a complete surprise) and this piece came from a little gardening set! I love it so much.

Here are a bunch of links for her shop by the way: Etsy, Facebook, Twitter, Two Penny Lane website.

Here is the necklace in close up.

Now to my second purchase! It might seem familiar to some of you, and that's because this little lamb featured in Meadham Kirchhoff's SS12 collection! Also known as, my favourite collection of all time!

I remember reading about the lamb and some of the other motifs in this collection being taken from Edward Meadham's personal collection of vintage decals;

We worked on this jacket for a long time. It’s appliquéd with a sequined lamb motif that is from an old crib decal that I have on my computer. He is the lamb that is on the invitation to the show under the collection title, “A Wolf in Lamb’s Clothing.” - Edward Meadham, at Rookie.

I'm sure I've read more about him having a collection of these, but I can't find it anywhere! If I do, I'll link it here.

I can't believe I actually own this! This is a very weird, fan-girly moment for me. It just feels cool to own something behind the idea behind the collection. Like, it makes it feel really personal somehow? I know I will probably never own anything from that collection, or be able to afford to even, but I still have a connection to it in some way. I think I am feeling really sentimental about fashion and material things today, a friend from my course is starting a new alternative magazine and I've just finished writing a piece for her on fashion and feminism, which has made me think about these things in depth a lot more.

The inside (which unfortunately isn't velvet but is some weird kind of velour?)

Here it is on my desk in my little room in Sheffield, with all my jewellery. I love seeing all my jewellery together like this, it's a pretty good collection I think. One of my friends told me I am the Princess of Pink, and seeing all of this together I think I have to agree with her!

*

Sorry that so many of my posts now are basically like ~hey, here's some stuff I bought! I'm going to try and work on some outfit posts soon, as I do have a few new pieces of clothing I want to show you, and I do want them to be in outfits, not just lying on my bed.