A pick-and-mix outfit inspired by Boden

Last year sometime, while I was still living at my parents house my mum was sent a little catalogue from Boden. Now Boden is a brand I have been aware of a while but I have never bought anything from them; although I do have a blouse and a dress I got from eBay. But the when I flicked through the catalogue I liked a couple of outfits. One that stuck in my mind was this:

I have to say I do love the colour mustard, in dresses and in knit wear, oh and tights, and although I like the blouse and jumper combo its not something I've been able to pull off very well. I already had a vintage skirt that was a little bit like the one above, it is wool and a bargain from a vintage bargain bin (and it fit!) so I was off to a good start. I have searched charity shops for months trying to find the right kind of shirt to pull of this look but I found that almost all long sleeves blouses have frilly or frumpy bits on the front. If I was a bit more flat chested I would have just worn a mans shirt but I couldn't really get away with it.

Eventually I found one! In Oxfam in Tunbridge Wells and I found a mustard jumper too, it was like fate. Here's my take on the outfit:

And striking a similar pose as the model, natch...

Skirt: Ark vintage sale

Shirt: Oxfam

Jumper: Primark via charity shop

Brogues: Clarks

I thought I'd update you a little on my hair too as I have been trying lately to get a bit more creative with it. Here I wore a little beehive, using some Batiste XXL powder (thank you BzzAgent its awesome!) and my teasing/smoothing brush to give it a little more volume.

What do you think?

Last days of summer in Tunbridge Wells

Ah September, officially autumn and the weather is changing, working its was to winter and my posting has been a little back logged lately what with starting a new job and moving house AND having to survive without any internet. Cries. Its been a tough ol' time.

But on the bright side, I am not fairly settled into a work routine and have a cute little flat with my husband in Tunbridge Wells. Which I LOVE! I've lived in the south before so its not too weird for me but Tunbridge Wells is very different to Brighton and Hove. We have a little flat close to the station as I need to get a train to work, but the city isn't too big so we can walk pretty much everywhere. Across the road from our flat there is a short cut to the shops through a park which is quite pretty.

The slightly dried out grass made me think of another country, somewhere warmer probably. There is a more conventional park attached as well a little further down the hill and one close to the road on the other side of the building our flat is in. Park life it would seem...

I have to say I am really enjoying being in Tunbridge Wells, I haven't taken a lot of photos of the area yet but I will post more as I find new and exciting things :)

That stride is me feeling happy to have a few moments to walk in the park!

This dress is Laura Ashley and is fairly typical of their 1980s styles but I think what makes this one special is that the print is so wearable. It is navy with a red flowers and hints of green in the leaves but they are pretty small which makes the whole dress a bit simpler.

What do you think of the shoes?! They are from Topshop and I have not bought anything from that shop for at least 4 years, and I am pretty sure I have never bought anything full price before... but these shoes were the thing that broke me. They are lovely little red flatties with a T-bar and remind me of school shoes (that I hated at the time!) and are pretty much the most adorable footwear I've had for a while. 

One place I did manage to get a little bit of a look at was the Pantiles it has really pretty architecture and is an area full of cafes and shops with things for houses. Sadly right now I can't afford much of the latter but I will be making an effort to try some of those restaurants!

Here is me sitting in the Pantiles, you can get a better look at the colours of the dress is this picture. I have to say that the side bits of my bangs that I am growing out are driving me a bit mad though...

Dress: Vintage Laura Ashley

Shoes: Topshop

Headband: Accessorize

Sunglasses: Brighton stall

Satchel: Yoshi

Anywho, hopefully I will be able to keep you updated on some of my southern adventures and since it is coming up to October I can reveal that I have started working on some costumes :P but there will be more on that later on.

Why are red vintage skirts so hard to find? Oh and Bettie Bangs again... yes I'm obsessed.

I have been on the look out for a good red skirt for a while. I knew I wanted it to be a bit floral but not too garish which is a combination that can be difficult to get right. Furthermore, I wanted it to sit just below the knee... and I wanted it to be a soft and reasonably floaty fabric. Not pleated. With a fitted waist. It didn't even have to be vintage. Right.

While I always love a good charity rummage I found hunting for a skirt like this to be very difficult! My observation seems to be that lots of charity shops have a huge number of blouses, a fair few dresses and not very many skirts, let alone vintage ones. I'm not sure if people just didn't wear skirts as often back then, or if maybe they wore them more so they don't last as long... who knows. If you can shed any light on that I'd love to know.

Anywho, what I did eventually find after a lot of browsing on eBay was this lovely little number:

Which was basically everything I was looking for :) I'm not sure what brand it is or even fabric it is as it has not labels but I didn't care. Its perfect! Even better - it only cost £4.

Skirt - eBay unknown brand

Blouse - Primark

Shoes - Lotta from Stockholm

Hairband - Accessorize

Belt - Charity Shop

Sunglasses - North Laines Brighton

Now you might have also notices that I've had a bit of a trim. My fringe was getting a bit unruly again so I bought some hairdressing scissors from Boots and decided to do it properly. I have been trying to decide whether to go for the blunter shorter cut Bettie Bang lately and doing a quick search for Bettie Page gave me a few ideas.

Bettie Page's hair was probably her most iconic feature but I have to say sometimes it did look a bit wild, it have me hope that it might be more of a style I could be manage. I've popped a few images on here to show where some of my inspiration came from. I particularly like the ponytail variant! The bottom right is from the biopic film The Notorious Bettie Page which is really worth checking out as it is very good.

...and here is my hair!

I don't think I did a bad job although the cut needs to relax a little bit and I LOVE the fact that it will take that little bit of extra time before it gets too long again :)

In other news I have began plotting costumes for London's MCM Expo in October, I can't wait to get my hands on my sewing machine to get going with that ;)

Hooping Around...

So... I got a new toy.

A hula hoop! But not just any hoop, one of those weighted exercise hoops, because like many of us out there, I want to trim my waist. I've heard that hula hooping can do wonders for toning your mid section as long as you stick at it. At present I am about good enough to go for 30-60s on a good turn, but I don't usually keep it up for any longer than that, but with a bit of practice maybe I'll be able to do some tricks? Hey, I can dream right?

So for your viewing pleasure, here are a few completely embarrassing pictures of me getting hoopy...

What do you think of red and orange?  Does it work?

This is a bit of a 90s combo, the dress is a St. Michaels grungy number I got from a charity shop and the cardigan is also M&S but considerably more recent. The headscarf was for hiding my ugly bendy rollers and although you can't see in these pictures, it has little blue and red cats on it - so cute! The shoes are a favourite of mine, they are Topshops current stock and are the cutest little T-bar flatties I believe on they are listed as 'geek shoes' not that I'm really sure what that means but I thought they'd work okay.

Oh yeah, turns out hula hoops are quite good for working out your arms too!

A Yellow 1970s Dress

You know, I can't help but think that this outfit was somehow inspired by bees... Even with that in mind I do still like the combination of yellow with bits of black.

When I spotted this dress on eBay I knew I had to have it! It is pretty difficult to find a good yellow dress and I was really pleased that it turned out okay once it arrived. I'm not sure what brand it is as the labels aren't very descriptive. It was sold to me as a 1970s dress and I can believe that is about right, although in my head the 70s was filled with more drab browns than bright yellows, but maybe I'm just being a bit judgemental there...

The dress does have a check pattern to it and a reasonably full skirt. It came with a matching fabric belt, but I rather liked the contrasting belt too. I wore some black shoes that came from Topshop that gave me an awful blister, but oh well, hopefully with a bit of breaking in they will be okay.

Dress - eBay

Shoes -Topshop (via eBay)

Belt & Socks - Primark

Hair Flowers - Accessorize

Sunglasses - North Laines Stall

I added a couple of hair flowers to go with my curly hair although it was fairly windy so any styling I had done was completely pointless but never mind.

I met up with Sadie of The Vanity Case for a wander around Brighton and we popped into Taj's Tea Parlour for a quick drink. I had a popcorn tea which was a little bit weird, but yummy, and it came in a huge pot which made me happy. We were too full to try any of the cakes but they did look quite good, I'll have to go back and let you know how they are :)

 Look how gorgeous that tea pot is!

Clogs from Sweden with Lotta's from Stockholm

I have been dithering over summer shoes for some time now, even though summer is nearly over... I really struggle to find comfortable sandals, ballet pumps that fit and shoes that don't shred my feet when I don't wear socks...

The idea of getting some vintage style Swedish clogs has been floating around and there are several brands available for varying prices but since I am waiting for my first pay check I felt a more budget friendly option was important. I came across Lotta's from Stockholm via their eBay shop which has pretty extensive stock but nowhere near as much as their online store.

I decided to buy a pair of red low heeled peep toe shoes to try out. They have featured in a few posts already (here and here) and to my surprise they turned out to be pretty comfortable once they were broken in, but they did take a few outings to soften the leather up and break them in. The low heel meant that the soul was also pretty comfortable and the orthopaedic sole means that my rubbish fallen arches were well supported. One little note on these shoes would be that they are quite big fitting, I usually take a size 40 and I ended up with a 39 in this style although you are well warned about this on their shop information.

I spoke briefly to the folks at Lotta's and they sent me a second pair to review free of charge! I decided to try out a different style so I chose the braided style in a higher heel and in that tan colour that goes with everything. I had to order a size bigger than the red style as they were a more average fit, however I will say that they took more breaking in than the red pair. The braids themselves were very tight when I first received them, but with some pulling and a bit of in house wearing they soon stretched to fit. They are less easy to walk in for long periods of time than the low heel but they're not too bad once you get used to wearing a heel. It probably isn't such a big deal if you're not a complete high-heel wuss like me!

All in all I'd say for this type of shoe Lotta's are pretty good value at half the price of some of the other brands. I can't speak too much on durability but I've been wearing them quite a bit for most of August and they seem to be still going strong!

Of course it wouldn't be a blog post without an outfit too! So here is the dress I wore my tan clogs with when I had the photos taken. It is from BHS but I have no idea when, it has shoulder pads which makes me think the 1980s, but the colours seem a bit off for that although I think the style looks quite 80s too. Anywho, I love this dress' pastel florals, it has an elasticated back but its so old the elastic has stretched indefinitely so I needed to re-sew pleats back into the back of the dress - I think I got away with it though :)

What shoes do you wear in the summer?

Brighton Pride 2013

Well well well, what a way to come back to Brighton - for Pride weekend! After living in Brighton for 4 years I managed to miss pride every year, mainly because it always fell in August which was when I seemed to end up taking annual-leave during my PhD.

Not this time though! This time I managed to hit it about right, time wise, however I have been living out of a suitcase so I didn't really have the wardrobe resources to be able to truly dress for the occasion. I think Pride is a great excuse to celebrate how far LGBT rights have come, but are also a reminder that there is further to go.

Overall though Pride is a great opportunity to get dressed up, to dance in the street and celebrate diversity and equality. It is great to know that so many other people are able to happy to celebrate too - including cafes, shops and individuals. I loved seeing the shop windows all done up - especially choccywoccydoodah! With their Friends of Dorothy cakes, they looked so good!

I absolutely loved this boutique window with the wedding dress accompanied by rainbow shoes!

Of course, then there was the parade! There were lots of different floats, and many people on food too, I couldn't really get close enough to take amazing pictures, but I wanted to show my favourite floats:

Since I didn't have a rainbow dress I had to make so with a red and blue multi stripe dress that is Per Una at M&S via eBay and cost £9.99. I also got some new sunglasses from a stall in Brighton and they had an exaggerated vintage wing style which I really liked the look of.

I put my hair up in lots of twists on the top of my head which I think worked quite well and helped keep it out of the way in the summer heat.

Have you ever been to a Pride event?