Improving the ol' mind...

I'm going to take a leaf out of The Clothes Horse's book, I think. She isn't allowing herself to buy new clothes until she's finished War & Peace, I'm not going to let myself buy new clothes until I've finished the three books I'm in the middle of right now (Leviathan by Paul Auster, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, and Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh). There's no point in emptying my purse and letting my mind rot at the same time.

I spent a couple of hours reading Leviathan today, and there was one part I enjoyed an awful lot, about a girl named Maria. I'd nearly recommend the book on the strength of those twenty or so pages.

"There was the long-term project of dressing Mr. L, for example, a stranger she had once met at a party. Maria found him to be one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, but his clothes were a disgrace, she thought, and so without announcing her intentions to anyone, she took it upon herself to improve his wardrobe. Every year at Christmas she would send him an anonymous gift - a tie, a sweater, an elegant shirt - and because Mr. L moved in roughly the same social circles that she did, she would run into him every now and again, noting with pleasure the dramatic changes in his sartorial appearance. For the fact was that Mr L. always wore the clothes that Maria sent him."
Paul Auster, Leviathan

Drawings & Sketches

Sorry for being so absent the last little while - both here and on the blogs I usually comment on. Work has been BUSY since I got back from being sick (I had to hold my first meeting by myself yesterday, eep!) and I'm still a bit ill so my urge to dress up and take photos hasn't really been showing its face lately. It's been replaced by my urge to watch Stargate Atlantis for hours on end... is that something I should admit to on a blog where I pretend to be hip and fashionable?

What's good, though, is that my want to draw is back in full force! I've been in a bit of an artistic slump for the last few months, but I've just felt the need to scribble for the last couple of days. It's fantastic!


Not works of art, I know, but I think they're nice anyway. Especially the pencil portrait, which I will freely admit a great liking for. Looking at this makes me realise that I should maybe find something to draw other than cute girls...

Daily Outfit: Burlesque-esque

I'm still sick, and took another day off work. Though today I drew instead of watching TV and eating, so at least it was a little bit productive. And I got my package from Sock Dreams in the post this morning, which brightened my day a lot! Stockings! My current obsession!


It's kind of hard not to completely goth it up when wearing these, but I tried my best! I still feel like something from a Tim Burton film.


I bought two pairs - one with LOADS of lace around the top, and one without. The ones with the lace are as comfy as can be, but the others are rather pinchy. I'm hoping they'll stretch out a little with wear.

My legs look physically impossible in this next photo.

Cardigan - second-hand shop.
Top - Dunnes.
Skirt - Penney's/Primark.
Shoes - I've had them since I was a kid. A giant-footed kid, apparently.

It's terrible when you're so sick that changing your clothes is as tiring as a whole day at work. I could flop down on the couch and sleep for hours now. I won't, though, because I was awake all night after doing that yesterday.

Daily Outfit...s. A lot of them.

I am dreadfully sick, which ruined a lot of my plans for the weekend. I missed work today, too, and spent the day burrowed into the couch eating Malteasers and watching the Gilmore Girls.
Still, I had a brief window of time on Sunday when I didn't feel awful, so I met up with a clothes-loving friend of mine and scoured the beginnings of the summer sales... and spent an awful lot of money.



1. Pants! How shocking! I've secretly wanted a pair of high-waisted pants for a long, long time, and these delightful, amazingly flattering things were 50% off in A-Wear. I adore the giant buttons. The top was something I just grabbed off the hanger to try on with the trousers, but I ended up liking it enough to buy, too.

2. This dress was reduced by €96 (about $150)! I tried on three different Whistles dresses in Brown Thomas (including this one, which I'm still in love with), and had a lot of trouble deciding... but this one was just so comfortable and classy that I couldn't leave it behind.

3. More high waists! I don't have to feel bad about these shorts, since I got them in a second-hand shop for €4. My waist looks really great in them!

4. I don't have to feel bad about this dress either, because it was 90% off in Vero Moda.

5. This skirt was also 90% off in Vero Moda, so I bought it in both grey and black. It looks so boring in this photo, but it's got nice buttons down the front and is a really great basic skirt.

I also got a beautiful dress from Saint Tropez reduced by 70% in Paper Dolls, but you'll have to wait to see a photo of it, because I'm too sapped of energy to drag myself downstairs to get it.

If there's one thing I always realise when I try lots of clothes on, it's that sizes are ridiculous. I bought things in sizes 14, 12, 10, 8 (that would be US sizes 10, 8, 6, and 4), Medium, Large, and Extra Large, all of which fit me perfectly. It's mad.

That Friday Feeling...

Photo by my good friend Sebastian_Scholl

If I'm conspicuously absent for the weekend it's because I'm off eating delicious food and flouncing around the Irish countryside with baby foxes (!), if I'm not... well, then, it means all my lovely plans have fallen through. So I hope I won't be here!

In other news, I've just been informed that the Topshop website accepts Maesto cards... oh dear. But it's cheaper than buying in the shops here, even with the shipping (which is only £5, anyway) included! I'm currently considering breaking my bank balance for:

Playing Cards Print Dress - £45

Broderie Sun Dress - £35

We shall see. Maybe when I get paid next week.

See you all on Monday!

Daily Outfit: Emily, Fearless Explorer Extraordinaire!

Ebay-ing is stressful. I won a dress that may or may not be really ugly, but I'll report on that when I get it. I'm also eyeing another auction that ends in an hour or so... I'll be really disappointed if the bidding goes really high. But such is life, I suppose!


Today I was dressed for an archaeological adventure (or so I decided). Unfortunately, the only digging I got to do was through the mountains of paper on my desk at work.

Shirt & shoes - Penney's/Primark
Vest - Topshop
Skirt & belt - second-hand
Necklace - my sister's friend got it for her in America - it has binoculars, a camera, and a gramophone on it, and is my intrepid explorer necklace (because what self-respecting adventurer would go anywhere without a gramophone?)

Daily Outfit: Thrift-less Hipster Fashion

I'm sitting here munching on chili beans, rice, and chocolate chip cookies, and thanking God that the day is over. You know when time at work just drags and drags... yeah.

I felt like such a hipster today, so I borrowed my sister's giant Urban Outfitters hipster bag to complete the look.

None of my clothes came from a second-hand shop, and it felt odd. But the cardigan made me feel better. It's so slouchy and comfortable that it feels like it's been owned by a thousand people before me.


I should maybe find something to do during lunch at work other than take silly photographs. I'd have gone for a walk, but it was really horrible out.

Dress & shoes - New Look
Tights & necklace - Penney's/Primark
Cardigan - Monsoon
Bag - Urban Outfitters

Now I'm going to finish my food, wander down to the shop to buy a 3V voucher, and put in an order over on Sock Dreams. I've been lusting after these very sexy vertical striped stockings for a long time now, and... well... I really have no excuse to buy them, I just like being nice to myself when I can afford to!

Pyjama Pants in Public, Oui ou Non?

Photo by lkn4aurum

I was reading an article on the Limerick Leader's website today, entitled, "Limerick pyjama trend is a 'disgrace': Celia Holman Lee". Our city's "top fashionista" (their quote, not mine) is horrified that some women would dream of letting the world see them in their jim-jams, and her outrage got me thinking about this little societal oddity.

I'm not quite sure where I weigh in on the pyjamas-in-public thing, to be honest. While I can understand throwing on a coat and popping to the shop for some cornflakes in the morning, I've seen women with a full face of makeup in town on a Saturday afternoon in the same getup. I think it's probably all contextual. I must admit, whenever I think of the subject I think of the summers I spent at Nerd Camp, where groups of people (...myself included...) would wander around campus on Thursdays in dressing gowns and pyjamas as a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy homage. As a result, the whole business has more than a hint of nostalgia in my mind.
I don't think it would bother me too much anyway, though. My only bits of advice to anyone who partakes in this activity would be:

• Please please please no ugg boots! (This is not only a recommendation for when you're wearing pyjamas, by the way.)
  
• At least look like you just got out of bed. If you can put on makeup and do your hair, then you can throw on a pair of pants, too.
• Maybe don't do it at five o'clock in the evening. Early in the morning (even early afternoon) and late at night is fine, but I find it hard to believe you had so many important things to do in the hours after you woke up that you couldn't take two minutes to grab your jeans from the wardrobe/floor.

Even if you did do everything I listed above, it's hardly the crime that some people would lead you to believe. One commenter on the article was appalled that, "I've even seen them in hotel dining rooms at breakfast time!!" Someone on holidays was feeling a bit lazy? Quelle horreur!

I'm going to put a halt to this discussion now, because something tells me that my inner feminist would have a field day with this subject if I let her. It just doesn't sit right with me when people are so offended by women in "sloppy, shapeless, baggy fleece," and don't seem to realise that they're under no obligation to be pretty and feminine all the time. And nobody (well, besides me) seems to take any issue with those jogging-pants-things, which are basically pyjama legs with a more... how shall I say it... a more form-fitting shape. I don't know, maybe I'm all up in arms over nothing. What do you think, wise readers?

Daily Outfit - Audrey Hepburn Style

This dress belongs to my sister, but it's too big for her. I dread the day she finally gets around to taking it in. If anyone knows where I can get a similar one online for a reasonable price, be sure to let me know!

Dress - silly emo shop in George's St. Arcade in Dublin

Cardigan, shoes, and hairband - Penney's/Primark
Pearls (as always) - antique

I stayed with my boyfriend last night, and had brought this dress in a bag with me. I hadn't planned for today's weather (horrible, rainy, and windy), though, and ended up having to wander in to work this morning with my green coat on over it. I looked like Christmas!

How to Have a Stylish Holiday with Less than 10kg of Luggage!

I got my apartment sorted out for my trip to Sweden in August, hooray! Now that there's no danger of being homeless in Gothenburg for five months, my thoughts have turned to packing. It's going to be a pretty daunting task, and I have no idea how I'm going to compress all my belongings into one suitcase. I decided to book my flights with SAS , so I get 28kg of baggage in total, and at least avoid the horrible stress of dealing with Ryanair and their stupid 10kg-hand-luggage-only policy.

When I've sorted out my thoughts on the matter, I fully intend writing a guide to packing for an Erasmus exchange (or any long-term trip, for that matter), but until then I bring you a guide to packing for a Ryanair-style flight and still having a stylish holiday! I went on a trip to Iceland in March, and learned a hell of a lot about economising my baggage from it, so here are some tips.

• Colour Coordinate Your Basics
  

You can only bring a few items, so make sure the essentials can all be mixed and matched! I went for the safe and easy option, and brought black, black, and more black. A black dress, black skirt, two black cardigans, black coat, black tights, black boots, black flats, and a couple of black tops. You could even bring all black underwear if you're concerned with that matching. It sounds like quite a bit, but I was wearing most of that when I went on the plane, so there was plenty of space.

Here's an idea of what the things I brought looked like:




Now, obviously that's geared towards a cold climate, but the principle is still sound. I just need to replace a couple of the items above, and voilá, your summer holiday gear:




You'll probably come home and not want to look at a piece of black clothing again for six months, but you'll have had a week of practical but fashionable clothes!

Dress - A-Wear
Tights - New Look
Boots - Clarks
Coat, Bag, Belt & Scarf - seond-hand

• Bring Colourful Accessories

So your clothes are all black, it's very practical, yadda yadda yadda, but you'd rather not revive your teenage goth look. The answer is in accessories! They're tiny, don't take up much luggage space, and so this is where you can go all out with colour. I brought bangles, scarves, tights, brooches, gloves, and hats with me to Iceland, and they really helped me feel cheery. You can go for classy, or completely mad, it's up to you.

Winter holiday ideas:


Summer holiday ideas:

• Don't Forget to Leave Room for Other Essential Things!

There's no point in looking amazing if you're left stranded at the airport! Make sure you have money, your tickets, and a passport above all else - you can get by without everything else, or pick it up in a shop when you get there.

By no means an exhaustive list of useful (or just nice) things:

• A sketchbook/journal.
• A camera.
• MONEY MONEY MONEY.
• At least one book, preferable small-ish and paperback.
• A small tub of cleanser and moisturiser. I use Lush's Ultra Bland cleanser, and it leaves my skin so soft that I can just skip the moisturising part altogether! This would probably be pretty useful on a trip.
• Plug adapters, so you don't run out of batteries for your phone/camera/MP3 player/whatever else.
• A phone. Useful to tell family members that you're still alive! Meteor, by the way, SUCK at out-of-country coverage. A lot.
• A toothbrush. Or some of those rip-slip-brush-ahhs, whatever they may be called. There's nothing like brushing your teeth to make you feel clean, and it's a heavenly feeling if you're stuck waiting for your next flight.
• Underwear! Running out of it is horrible.
• Whatever medicine you may need. If it's prescription, get a doctor's letter before you try and bring it on the plane. You'll probably never be asked, but better safe than sorry.
• A nice cover for your passport.
  
• Nice luggage. Or just slap some stickers all over your own. Make sure it's not too big, though!
• Whatever makeup you can't live without. This, ideally, should be none. Girls who are completely dependent on the stuff make me sad, but if you absolutely can't deal without it, keep it to a minimum! Concealer, eyeliner, mascara, and lip balm should do the trick.

So, lovely readers, have I missed anything vital? Do you have any super-amazing tips that I haven't thought of? Do share!

Style Tips - How to Feel Good

Photo by spike55151

• Buy new underwear.

I probably shouldn't suggest material things to make you feel happy, but... new underwear does wonderful things! Buy something totally over-the-top, either completely ridiculous or unbelievably sexy, and wear it under your normal work clothes. Then spend the day feeling marvelous as you flit around in the knowledge that you're dressed to kill underneath. And if you've got someone to show it to at the end of the day, even better!

Photo by minzimiu

• Bake Something

I was going to suggest buying some delicious baked goods, but then I realised... no! Creating something always feels great, even if you just buy one of those pre-packaged, just-add-water boxes (can I recommend Betty Crocker's Devil's Food Cake - it's a bit disheartening that it can be made in the microwave, and yet I haven't found a recipe to beat it.) Scoffing it in front of the TV by yourself is always good, but invite friends around to partake in the deliciousness for extra joy!

Crystal Renn by Ellen von Unwerth

• Get naked!

Half the time I'm feeling rotten, it's because I'm going "Blech!" at my body, which is dumb. I try to get along with my stomach and my boobs and my legs and whatever else, and getting naked is a pretty good way to do it! Lounge around your bedroom, jump up and down in front of a mirror (I'm imagining all my real-life friends reading this and either cringing at my freak-itude or trying hard not to picture this), dance to something fantastic, take a bath, cook dinner (maybe not if you're living with your family), slap out some tunes on your belly, and above all don't hate what you see! There are much better things you could be doing, I'm sure. And now that I re-read that last paragraph, I realise that you could do all those things without getting naked and still have fun :)

I Love... L'Occitane's Perfume

Image by yyellowbird

I was never really much of a perfume person, I have to say. It had a practical side to it in the past, I know, when people wanted to stink a bit less without taking a bath (I suppose I'd have chosen BO over cholera, too), but now it seems quite silly and indulgent. Who really needs to smell as though they've been prancing around in fields of flowers all day?

Last Christmas, however, I got a job in L'Occitane. It was a really great place to work - I've been told I have the same sense of fashion as the front of the shop - and I got a bit hooked on some of their eau de toilettes. I have a small fortune's worth of them at home now, and they really are delightful! They don't smell sickly-sweet, and they're not overpowering, but the scent is still strong enough to be noticable. The only downside is the price - a 100ml bottle will set you back between €40 and €50. I was lucky enough to get all mine for free, since they were testers or returns, so I'm getting my perfume fix without upsetting my bank balance. They'll last you for ages, though, and I can absoultely vouch for the quality of the ones I have at home. (I really don't mean to sound like such an ad here!)

Green Tea Eau de Toilette

Green Tea with Mint Eau de Toilette

White Tea Eau de Toilette (which I can't find a link to on the site)

I do love the idea of smelling like tea! It makes me feel as though I'm eternally coming from a tea party full of frilly, lacy old women. These three are all quite similar in scent, but I like the edge that the mint gives to the second one. They also had a gorgeous Green Tea with Jasmine one, which I might buy when I run out of these (though that won't be anytime soon).

Lavender Harvest Eau de Toilette

This is definitely my favourite of all the ones I own. I adore lavender, and I have a body exfoliator, body cream, bubble bath, and hand cream to match this perfume. Whenever I have clean sheets on my bed, I like to have a bath in the evening, use all my lavender goodness, and then spray a bit of the perfume on my pillow before climbing into a world of heavenly cleanliness. It is magical.

Citrus Verbena Eau de Toilette
This one smells like summer! Long walks down country lanes, picnics by a pond, lounging in your garden... Verbena products were always the easiest to sell in the shop, because everybody loved the smell!

I have one more bottle of something else, but I really can't remember what it is... and some searches online haven't done anything to jog my memory. Oh well, it's something a bit light and fruity, and I've never quite figured out what it smells like (other than pleasantness).

I really don't know what I'll do when I run out of these... will I work up the courage to fork out for some more? Or will I have to turn to cheaper things? Oh well, I don't think I'll have to worry about that for a while! And even if I do, I have a lovely little box set of Penhaglion's testers that I've never touched, and a big bottle of rose water (which doubles as flavouring for my hot chocolate), so I won't be left wanting.

Daily Outfit - Miss Eyre

I'm still wearing yesterday's top, because I'm still enjoying it a lot. And my sister's home from England now, so I have someone to take decent outfit photos for me - hooray!

And it also means I have someone to take silly photos with, too :)

Me:

Top - Looking Glass
Cardigan & shoes - Penney's/Primark
Skirt - A-Wear
Pearls - antique shop (I never take these off, do I?)

Rebecca:

Top - Dorothy Perkins
Skirt - second-hand shop
Tights - New Look
Shoes - ???

And an added bonus - my baking outfit! My mother told me I should win Housewife of the Year with this apron and pose.
I made Lemon Bars á la The Barefoot Contessa, because I was watching the show at my boyfriend's house the other day, and they looked amazing. I'll report back once they've cooled and I've tried them. They look pretty good, anyway!

Daily Outfit: Blue & White

The last couple of days were taken up with planning team-building evenings at work (this mostly involved buying beer) and hormonal rampages, which left precious little time for blogging.

Today, however, I shopped! And since that's pretty relevant to this blog, here I am. I shopped quite a lot, in fact. I bought myself a new cardigan in the Limerick Animal Welfare charity shop, a top in Paper Dolls (aka the loveliest shop in Limerick), and a whole pile of underwear (you're not getting pictures). I also bought a copy of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, because there's something about the summer that sends all my literary desires out the window, and leaves me craving teen fiction. As well as that, I really wanted to read that book when I was younger, but wasn't willing to subject my mother to the horror of the title...

Top - Looking Glass
Skirt - Kabaret
Shoes - Dunnes
Tights - New Look
Pearls - antique shop in Dublin

This top really epitomises the subtitle of my blog, "Cynicism & Pretty Bows", because I'm completely torn between my complete and utter love of bows and lace, and my total disdain towards squealy girly things. I am about the squealiest, girliest thing you could meet, so I might want to resolve these conflicts some day. Maybe.

I'm really going to have to dig out my tripod and start taking better pictures, because my last few posts have just been shameful.

Daily Outfit: Green Coat

I like that my hunt for a winter coat finally ends in June.
Today is a horrible day for taking pictures. I only took the two I'm posting here, because it was too disheartening to keep going. Yuck.

I lost the umbrella about fifteen minutes after taking this picture :(
Coat: Dorothy Perkins
Dress & jumper (unseen): second-hand shops
Scarf & tights: Penney's/Primark
Boots: Clarks
Clown brooch: my mother gave it to me a long time ago

Those boots have saved my life in the rain many times. I bought them about two days before I went to Iceland, in a fit of AAHH NO I'M GOING TO FREEZE TO DEATH IN SHOES. I ended up running around Iceland in flimsy flats most of the time, but the boots work wonders in Irish rain. And since they're Clarks, they'll last forever!

Coveting Style: Audrey Hepburn

I do have a proper post in the works, one which has actual content and all (shock, horror), but for now I just have a tale from yesterday.

I, like every other vintage-inclined girl in the world, have that generic, predictable love for Audrey Hepburn. I've got the books, DVDs, calendars, and millions of posters to prove it, too. Even made a big poster of her for my Leaving Cert art exam a couple of years ago. Fangirl much? I think so.

Anyway, I was watching Sabrina with my boyfriend's family last night, and coveting her perfect dress:

As I sat there turning green with envy, I was suddenly told by Mammy Boyfriend that it looked just like something I'd wear. Mission Channel-Audrey-Hepburn's-Stylishness: accomplished, apparently!

On the same sort of note, there's an exhibition on in the Hunt Museum in Limerick at the moment that I'd love to go and see, and I'm going to try and make time to do so this weekend - "Followers of Fashion - Painting Exhibition". It depicts, "the development of fashionable dress from the Empire-line style of the early 1800s, through Victorian and Edwardian modes and wartime fashions, to those of the 1950s and 1960s", and sounds REALLY EXCITING. If you're me, anyway. They had a marvelous exhibition of 1950's/1960's clothes last summer, and I'm going to be holding this up to the same standard, so I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Sean O’Sullivan, ‘Sybil Connolly’

A Plea for Advice: Lacy Tiered Dress

I don't mean to post incessantly, but...

Confident as I am in my ability to strut around in ridiculous clothing from second-hand shops, when it comes to things that cost more than about €20 I lose my sense of judgement. So I beg of you, dear readers: opinions!

I fell a little in love with this dress from New Look, of all places, last weekend:


I thought it might be the sort of thing that looked lovely in my imagination, but ridiculous on. But... I don't know, I still liked it an awful lot when I was in the changing room:


Ignore the terrible cameraphone photo, and the fact that I look as though I'm about to cry, and riddle me this: could I justify shelling out €45 euro for it? Does it even look good??? Are there nicer ones for sale anywhere else? I'd be tempted to keep it as a birthday present to myself... but I don't know.

I'm going to blame another Emily, of Some Girls Wander, for my fixation on this dress, I think. She made something similar look so lovely:



I am ridiculous in these situations, just so you know. After hum-ing and haw-ing for ages over this in town, I went and spent €45 on a winter coat. What? I'm a loon. Someone should maybe tell me that it's the summer. But it was wool and on sale and green! I've wanted a green coat for a very long time. I'll post pictures of it tomorrow when I get back from Ennis.

But that still doesn't solve my dilemma.

Runway Looks Meme

The lovely Miss White tagged me for this, and I'm going to blame her for the sharp dip in my productivity at work today!

The rules:

1. Choose runway pictures from ANY season you like and choose 3 outfits for Day, Evening & Party.
2. Briefly explain why and state the name of the designer & which season the outfit is from.
3. Tag 3 other bloggers once you are done and let them know by posting a comment on their blog

I must confess that I'm really not very familiar with big-name designers, so this was sort of an adventure for me. I mostly stuck to the Spring and Fall 2008 collections, because otherwise I could just kiss my job goodbye for the next couple of months!

Day looks:

1. Anna Sui - Spring 08
Okay, I might be a bit in love with Anna Sui, I have discovered. There can be a lot of hideous going on in her shows, but there are also all these explosions of pattern and colour that mean the clothes are, at least, never boring. I love this one in particular because it looks like something I'd actually wear - I have a black cardigan-vest-thing that's sort of similar to the blue one, and I wear it with a belt in exactly the same way. I'm going to have to find a bow for around my neck in future, I think!

2. Luella - Spring 08
OH THE GHOST WORLD INSPIRATION. Why did nobody tell me that this collection exists before?! It's all amazing.

3. Pucci - Fall 08
I'm really taken with the big, graphic-y blocks of black and little hints of pattern. It's just the way I like to use black when I'm drawing, and it's nice to find out that it works just as well when applied to fashion.

Evening looks:
I like the little black dress, apparently.

1. Luella - Fall 06
The giant pearls! The waistline! The huge bow! The shiny shoes! There is nothing about this that I don't love.

2. Anna Sui - Fall 05
The combination of the texture of the dress with the pattern of the tights is doing things to me.

3. Abaté - Fall 08
I'm not that mad on the straps, but I adore the shape of the dress, the brown belt, and the ruffly skirt lining.

Party Looks:
Okay, it's official, I'm not dressing in anything but Anna Sui and Luella any more... oh wait, I'm poor.

1. Anna Sui - Fall 05
Oh, I'd have to be feeling vain to wear this - it's like a walking peacock. I'm coveting the shoes an incredible amount right now.


2. Luella - Fall 07
This outfit would be fairly unremarkable if it wasn't for the polka-dots on the skirt. It could be the costume of a really, really fashionable clown.


3. Anna Sui - Fall 05
Ignore the horrible furry coat, okay. I love how the beads make the pattern on the skirt look almost like an accessory. I like all the brown it's based on, too - brown is a colour I'm very partial to.

I'm not going to tag anyone, because... I never do. Not in my years over on LiveJournal, anyway. If you want to do it, though, it's a load of fun and I highly recommend it if you have an hour or so to waste!

Style Evolution

When I was writing my post on finding the perfect handbag the other day, I was making fun of myself for saying "I think my style might be evolving..." Since I posted it, though, I've been thinking about how much my dress-sense has changed in the last couple of years.

Exhibit A*, me of about two years ago:

(If anyone's ever seen the film Cowboys & Angels, that's the bar he kept getting kicked out of!)

Those pictures were both taken around the end of my secondary-school years. It's not too dreadful, I suppose. I could have been wearing things much worse than Dr. Seuss t-shirts and colourful madras (I could go back a bit further and shown you my baggy-jeans-and-chains days, but let's skip past that bit...), but my main point here is this: PANTS! I think I wore that pair of jeans non-stop, with the occasional break to give them a wash.

And this was my first ever wardrobe_remix post:

(This makes me miss my hair... I also sort of want to chop it all off again, but that's a whole other post for the future.)
Cardigan & hairband - Penney's/Primark
Top - Kabaret
Jeans - TK Maxx
Shoes - hand-decorated
Necklace - my sister

I felt awesome and stylish and sort of like a cartoon character. It was a new and amazing feeling for me! I was never the most self-confident of people, and I never wore what I'd have liked to when I was younger.
The sad truth is, it wasn't until I lost a load of weight that I started enjoying dressing myself. It's a story I hate telling, because it goes against a lot of what I believe in these days, but I'd be lying if I said otherwise. I'd love to go back and tell my poor sixteen-(and seventeen- and even eighteen-)year-old self to stop with the misery and self-deprecation, and try a bit of happiness and self-confidence for a change. It's a bit late for that, though, so I guess I'll just appreciate the fact that I did manage to make peace with myself, even though my means of doing so was a bit questionable.

But I digress. The story continues with my discovery of a marvelous thing - the skirt! I haven't looked back since.

I wore nothing but short skirts for a long time:

T-shirt - Yann Tiersen gig
Skirt - second-hand shop
Shoes - my beloved Doc Martens

I discovered that I kind of like long skirts, too:

(Me with straightened hair + rain = bad news)
Shirt - Penney's/Primark
Dress - TopShop (for €7!)
Pocketwatch Necklace - a present

And now I've developed a love for anything knee-length-ish with a waist:

Cardigan & shoes - Penney's/Primark
Skirt & bag - second-hand shop
Tights - New Look
Skirt - second-hand shop
Belt - vintage shop
Pearls - antique shop

Looking back on photos of a couple of years ago is odd, because I look like a completely different person. In some ways I am, I suppose, and the outside's changed to reflect the inside, but in other ways it just feels like different icing on the same cake. Which I'm not saying is a bad thing at all :)

*Whenever I see anyone use the phrase "Exhibit A", I think of a story my sister told me about a kid she overheard on the train. He was talking away to his mother, and all of a sudden went, "Exhibit B, a bee!" Smart kid. It's a story that pleases me a lot!

It's Autumn in Gothenburg... or will be when I go there, anyway.

I spent all of my lunchbreak today e-mailing landlords in Sweden. Finding accommodation is pretty stressful! And I need to book our flights tonight, too.

To cheer myself up, I thought I'd go looking for nice things in Gothenburg that I can look forward to! Other than singing Jens Lekman songs all the time, that is.

Dromma seems to be a mish-mash of boutique designers and vintage clothes. I can't understand the site, but it has some promising-looking pictures, like this one from Bric-a-Brack:


This is an old photo, taken in an ICS store in the 1960s. It looks so very American:


PrickigKatt sell vintage clothes and quirky-looking accessories. Or so I assume. They also have a really adorable website:


A nicely-dressed, vintage-y girl in Gothenburg:


There don't seem to be that many sites for quirky Gothenburgian shops, really, but I'm guessing that my lack of Swedish might be the problem here...

And just for good measure, here's a Jens Lekman video, since he is one marvelous thing Gothenburg has produced! I saw him playing in Galway a couple of weeks ago, and he was really deadpan and amazing, and had a fantastic band with him. His cellist complimented me on my Poe badge. Grin.

Daily Outfit: June 05, 2008

Excuse the missing face, but this was the best of a bad bunch of photos. I at least have part of a head here.

Dress and belt: vintage.

Bag: second hand shop.
Top: Dunnes.
Necklace and tights: Penney's/Primark.
Shoes: no idea... somewhere cheap.

I got this dress when I went to Iceland in March, in a really great vintage shop called Spúútnik. It was pretty pricey, but they had a deal where you could get a kilogram of stuff for about €35, and between three of us it worked out pretty well. I'd wanted a tartan dress forever, but everything I found here was ugly or, for lack of a better word, skanky. This one is a bit big for me, but a belt fixes that right up and makes it all lovely and hourglass-y.

The shoes I'm wearing are a pair I've neglected for a long time. I bought them years ago, never wore them, and they ended up forgotten about at the back of my shoe-pile (they won't fit in my wardrobe anymore). I found them yesterday, liked the eighties-ness of them, and took them for a test drive today - they're so comfy! And not very high, so I don't look ridiculous wobbling around in them. They have the official Emily seal of approval.

I love... Brideshead Revisited

Coming-of-age stories and stories about lost innocence are nearly always sure to delight me, but few have managed to do so as well as Brideshead Revisited. My mother has loved it forever, and I remember being bored by bits of it when I was young, but a few years ago I sat down with my sister, watched it in its glorious, heartbreaking entirety, and fell completely in love. (Rebecca did too, she even named her baking blog, Heaven with Strawberries after it).

I've been toying with the idea of rewatching it recently - believe me, it's an emotional investment - and I thought I'd tantalise myself by looking up some of my favourite photos and quotes (which, I confess, I read with Jeremy Irons's voice in my head):

"I knew Sebastian by sight long before I met him. That was unavoidable for, from his first week, he was the most conspicuous man of his year by reason of his beauty, which was arresting, and his eccentricities of behaviour which seemed to know no bounds."

The scarf! The gloves! I'm just going to die of perfection right now.

"Dearest Charles,- I found a box of this paper at the back of a bureau so I must write to you as I am mourning for my lost innocence. It never looked like living. The doctors despaired of it from the start."

I've seen the book described as "sentimental" before, which I would agree with if the connotations of the word weren't so negative. This is more than sentiment. This is youth and longing and memory so exquisitely expressed that I'm not sure I can handle it.

"I have been here before," I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were creamy with meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour, and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest."

The new film that's coming out in September is... a little bit horrifying, to say the least. From what I can gather, they're repackaging it as the love story of Charles and Julia, and getting rid of the whole religion aspect of the book (i.e. the whole motivation of most of the characters). If I'm to be completely honest, it looks nice, but also rather sterile. I'm not sure how this...


...can even begin to compare to this:


But I guess we'll see. Not that my hopes are high.

And I've thoroughly convinced myself that I want to watch the series again, by the way. And also read the book again, while I'm at it.

"But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiousity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchaned garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city."


Emily-head Revisited... or something.

Extra Reading:

• A much more eloquent Brideshead-love post over on All This Happiness.
• The Brideshead Revisited community on LiveJournal, marchmainhouse.

Things That Confuse Me: Handbags

I've been needing a new bag. If only because I'm tired of shuffling into business meetings with my Nightmare Before Christmas one (shh, I've had it forever and can't bear to part with it) turned backwards and clutched at my side.

The thing is, I own endless numbers of messenger bags and shopping bags, so I'm not completely lost in bag-land... it's just handbags that elude me. I'm the kind of person who feels compelled to drag lots of (mostly useless) stuff around every day, and canvas bags are so roomy and practical! Unfortunately, I think my style might be evolving beyond them (what a dreadfully pretentious thing to say).

So, in the quest for the perfect handbag, I hit up wardrobe_remix for inspiration:

ireneadler
That bag is exactly what I'm looking for, really. Lucky girl.

lebonbonmulticolore
The granny bag! It delights me! Unfortunately, I don't think I could pull it off with such panache.

thesnailandthecyclops
A carpet bag, how very Mary Poppins.

And then I went charity shop shopping (I haven't quite succumbed to the word "thrifting" yet):

€6.50

€1

Neither of those is quite what I'm looking for, though. The navy one is all wonderful and compartment-y, and I'm actually really delighted with it, but it's a bit too small. The burgundy one is the perfect shade of almost-ugly, but it's just one pocket and also kind of small. I love them anyway, but my search is far from over!

Extra Reading:

• Man Bags, a guest post over on GalaDarling.com, is pretty useful for the ladies too.

In The Beginning...

...Emily created a(nother) blog. And Lo! it was beheld by all. Some, anyway. Maybe one or two?

Much as I have always wanted (and briefly tried) to write a blog on a kooky, interesting, unique topic, I think that might be a task for the future. I think that a bit of self-centered blathering about clothes and delightful things is the way to go for now, since it's what I really enjoy doing most of all.

On that note, an introduction!

I'm a nineteen-year old (...for another couple of months anyway, eep!) English/New Media/Japanese student, working in an online marketing company. I like bargains, cats, food, and acting like an obnoxious four-year old. Certain people will tell you that my interests can be summarised in five words: pretty red bows and buttons. This is sadly not too far from the truth.

Cardigan: second-hand shop
Dress: TopShop
Tights: New Look
Shoes: a present (from a second-hand shop)
Poe brooch: Etsy
Reluctant Cat: my back garden