Let there be colour.

It's February! Joy!

In celebration of it being no longer January I thought we should probably revel in some colour. A little brightness and vibrancy to bring relief to our poor, mouldering eyeballs.

Here are some of the things that I would like in my life right now.

this gorgeous top is by my friend Myf who is absurdly talented. She makes clothes and accessories with silk/hemp blend fabric and hand dyes them with natural dyes. Her shop is here and if you happen to be in Northcote Melbourne, she is running a workshop in natural dying using plants from your garden on March 16th, which I really wish I could go to. 

colour. Sweet sweet colour, by Emily Green. 

More experiments in vegetable dying, by Raw Colour. 

Sunshine in a cup. 

I wish I'd bought this when it was for sale on Achica, to go with my growing collection of brilliant yellow prints. 

This kitchen from David Mikhail Architects is my dream. I really want a bright pink dining table, at the moment we're using a cheap ikea kitchen worktop on some very cheap ikea table legs. I can not for the life of me find one though. And I can just see Nye's face when I suggest it now. Although he was accommodating enough to let me get the pink table legs. 

And this skirt. I'm almost certain if I lived in Melbourne and went to Myf's workshop (and had her teach me to sew), I could make this skirt and be effortlessly stylish for ever and ever and ever, the end. As it is I'm just going to make do with this picture by Jasmine Star. 

shop for me.

Where can I find really simple black wedges? High ones. With a platform. These ones were perfect but after letting me order them, get really excited about them and plan outfits around them, Aldo emailed me to tell me that they don't have my size any more. Bastards.

I can't start looking again, I just can't. Please do it for me. Thanks.

prettiness.

 You Don't Have to Be Pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked "female".   

Erin, at A Dress A Day.   

I thoroughly recommend reading the rest of the post, especially if you've ever felt that you shouldn't wear something because you're too old/skinny/fat whatever. 

* via Zoe, on pinterest. I 'liked' it, I commented on it, I repinned it, but it just wasn't enough.   

* image of Diana Vreeland by Andy Warhol, 1980

brat and suzie

When my mum was here last week we took the babies on their first shopping trip, it wasn't as painful as I might have expected. Mostly because Nye spent the day standing in doorways with the pushchair while my mum and I squawked over baby clothes and toys and hats and shoes and and and... Needless to say we enjoyed ourselves more than Nye did. And the babies? They slept all day.

Despite all the cuteness and all of the covetables there was very little that I came away well, coveting. These t-shirts (for grown ups, not babies. Ooh, they should make baby ones. Definitely) by Brat and Suzie that I stumbled across in La La Land have been calling to me since I saw them though, especially the motorcycling squirrel. And hello bunny and stripes, I love you.

*images from Brat and Suzie

*t shirts from La La Land Boutique in Glasgow

flowers, bows, immorality

N says that this is ridiculous. I say it's ridiculous, not to mention borderline insane, to have baby girls and not put giant bows* on their heads.

(By the way, we're having baby girls. Two.)

*or flowers

picture by Jonas Peterson

trench

Eagle-eyed Kristy spotted that, despite my whining on twitter about how I just couldn't find one that fits, I am indeed wearing a trench in this post

The thing is, it doesn't bloody fit. It almost fits*, but it's a 'petite' and despite being a skinny wench, I'm not petite. I'm 5ft7. So the waist of said trench sits up around my ribs, which is seriously uncomfortable. It also doesn't cover my butt and the sleeves are short. Which in my opinion does not a trench make.

("Why the hell did you buy it?" you may well ask, well I needed a jacket to brighten up a funeral outfit and I had all of 20 minutes to buy one. And despite it not really fitting, I kind of like it. But it's not a trench.)

A trench, since you ask, should cover your backside. Or possibly not, if it has full length sleeves. It should also button right up to the throat when necessary. When it is short and it leaves your arms and décolletage bare to the elements it does not make good rainwear, and that, my friends is the raison d'être of a trench. In Scotland at least.

In New York the point was just to stay reasonably warm on the chillier days and not wear grey for the entire trip. And so I wore it lots.

*of course now it doesn't fit me at all. Not one little bit.

{girl plus boots plus bag plus nottrench on the MET steps (yes, I might have been pretending to be Blair Waldorf, what of it?) by N.}

hare and stripes

This would be my summer outfit of choice.

You know, if Wholefoods in Union Square hadn't bled me dry.

* Reiss, Digby & Iona (@ Catbird), Nine West

New York - shoes

Say a girl was in the market for new shoes, and say that girl happened to be spending some time in New York City, where would you suggest that girl go looking for a little something to brighten up the situation south of her ankles?

*anyone who suggests somewhere that sells something zappos doesn't (thus encouraging said girl to grow a pair and go into a real shop) gets a gold star.

* image courtesy of Toast

Heavenly Delights {reposted}

The following conversation was observed on my aunt's flickr page a few weeks after our wedding....

Aunt A: If you look closely you can see the red shoes peeking out under her wedding dress. She wasn't going to buy them because they were really expensive but I told her they were an investment, like a sculpture. I'm so glad she listened to her Auntie A.

Unidentified Flikr Friend: What a good influence you are!

Aunt A: No pockets in a shroud, as Granny Peonies used to say

Unidentified Flickr Friend: Your granny a fan of the old Monolos was she?

stripes + tulle

It should have been mine...

clothes by Ouma, photographs by Galaxie Andrews

pink and white

Today I want this outfit. I would dance my little socks off in it. And drink champagne. Actually I would drink rum cocktails, I don't really like champagne. I would wear false lashes and paint my toenails shocking pink. My legs wouldn't be a deathly shade of blue because it wouldn't be October in Scotland and I would be having a fabulous party with my fantastic Mr because our house would be done and ready to have friends over and there would be loud music because we would have lovely neighbours who would never complain and all of my dearest friends would be there because there would be no such thing as geographical distances and oceans and continents that take days and moneys to cross and oh wouldn't it all be fun? See you there? Dress code: Fabulous.

hat dress shoes

Can I have an ohmygawd...

delicious confections from Marchesa's Spring 2010 Collection
via Coutorture

The rules of florals...

So it turns out that giant hair flowers are over. Whatever. But the terminally opinionated east side has deigned to allow us to attach them to our shoes instead, which I like.

I kind of want the whole shoes, not just the clips. Could the colours be any more perfect together?


. shoe clips by B.Poetic, who also make non-shoe flowers, for putting on your lapel, your wrist, your waist, your bag, not your hair.
. via east side bride

choo choo.

No, not the shoes silly. Trains. Choo choo trains. For your ears...

I love jewellery that is really miniature, wearable sculpture. Oh and the graffiti is customisable. Crazy huh?

. earrings and pictures by DMDmetal
. found via Kidchamp's twitter

A hundred years ago I tried on a dress, it was brightest bright blue and I tried it on just for fun because I was in a grey mood and brightest bright blue seemed like it might help, even though I would never in many many years wear such a colour (such a colour is altogether too look at me for a girl who really isn't very look at me at all*).

I loved that dress, it turned out that I quite liked being look at me and that the colour perfectly suited my so-pale-it's-slightly-blue-and-oh-my-god-is-that-your-internal-organs-that-I-can-see? skin and dirty blonde hair. It make me all strutty and pouty and I may even have winked at myself in the mirror. Just a little. But alas, the dress was three hundred million and sixty two pounds and I was getting married and had just bought one rather expensive dress, a second one was really not justifiable, and so it went back on the hanger and with it went my strutt and my pout and I haven't seen them since.

This dress is the same colour. That perfect colour that I've been dreaming about ever since. That colour that I can't quite find the word for. And I want it. And it's reduced. And yet again I've blogged about it so yet again I'm not going to be able to buy it, sneak it into my wardrobe and tell the husband that it was such a bargain, only £10, reduced from £100 and wasn't I clever to snaffle such a deal!

Sigh.


* although I suspect that this might be changing. Last week I saw a girl in pink, leopard print skinny jeans and I thought, oooh, I like those, I wonder where I can get a pair? She had to be at least a decade younger than me though and for the first time in my life I wondered if I was just too old to be wearing such a thing. Which was depressing.



. dress by Rachel Comey, from Frances May
. photo courtesy of Frances May

yes, yes please...

feathers and sequins and grey, oh my.


dress. from ChickDownTown

new shoes

my new shoes are made of happy things. things like recycled tires and old carpet padding, bamboo and plastic bottles. ethically certified leather and recycled inner tubes, hemp and wheatgrass and bio-live organic yoghurt. ok, maybe not wheatgrass and yoghurt, but all the other things. they are happy shoes and they make my feet happy. they make my eyes happy too, they're so much nicer to look down on than the powder blue suede trainers that i've been wearing for so many years that they're not powder blue so much as yucky yucky grey now. and they had a rabbit nibble on the toe, which looked a little silly. yes, it was definitely time for new shoes. happy shoes.

. shoes - black leather Satire by Simple Shoes
. photo by me

White owls and Le animal

I love this eco-friendly wedding dress by Leanimal on etsy. Draping and folding are my very favourite things in a garment, followed closely by super soft silky fabrics that are good for snuggling in.

I also like old lace and recycled bits of stuff and these necklaces by Whiteowl are tickling my fancy...




. images courtesy of the respective sellers on etsy

I don't have £150 to spend on a dress...
I don't have £150 to spend on a dress...
I don't have £150 to spend on a dress...

If I keep telling myself this then maybe I'll stop fantasising about the one on the left. Two weeks ago, when we had a heatwave and I realised I had nothing to wear but an old pair of linen trousers with a tea stain on one leg, I spent all day looking in every shop in town for a dress like this one. It's exactly what I was dreaming of and couldn't find.

I will comfort myself with the knowledge that the British summer is over. This year it stretched over a whole week. Last year, if my memory serves me, it fell on a Tuesday. A Tuesday three months prior to our outdoors, August wedding. Not that I'm still pissed off about that. Honestly.

fancy pants..

I like expensive underwear. I like silk and ribbons and lace and frills (somehow all of my pants are black cotton and arrived in my house via a shop that has distinct middle-aged to elderly connotations though. Sigh.) But as much as I may adore those tiniest scraps of luxury and as much as I lusted over the fanciest of pants in the run up to our wedding, I just couldn't conceive of spending £110 on knickers, for that would be madness people. Madness.

Cue Ell and Cee, delicious knickers (and brassieres and floaty things and pantaloons {pantaloons!!!}) that cost a whole lot less yet are still expensive enough to be quite the treat.

Delicious, no?

. all images courtesy of www.ellandcee.co.uk