What I Actually Wore #111

Serial #: 0111
Date: 27/03/2013
Weather: 30°C / 86°F
Time Allowed: 10 minutes

It’s a hot day, and I dress for work knowing I’ll be going out at midday for a lunch date with a couple of friends. This summer, one of my favourite skirts has been a navy linen midi, and I wear it with another beloved item, a tomato-red top. (The summer of 2013 was their heydey, for both of these were culled a few months ago when I realised I hadn’t worn them for such a long time.)

My accessories include a vintage 1940s hat, and a pair of dramatic nude Finsk wedges, my 60s black patent bag (not pictured), my usual sterling silver ring and chain watch, and a pair of iolite earrings on a rare outing. I love the colour of iolite – a dark blue with a violet tinge: “A cube cut from iolite will look a more or less violet blue, almost like sapphire, from one side, clear as water from the other, and a honey yellow from on top. In the past, this property led some people to call iolite ‘water sapphire’, though the name is now obsolete.” [ICGA]

It’s funny, although the outfit is still quite minimalist in shape (apart from the quirky hat), I would never wear it today, unless I swapped the red top for something more neutral. A bright tomato hue like that I’d wear now perhaps with grey. I think it’s because that shade of red competes with the hat that has such a huge personality. Style evolves!

Photos: April 2013

Items:

Top: Veronika Maine
Skirt: Kokomarina
Hat: vintage 1940s
Earrings: Portobello Lane (now defunct)
Ring: Roun (now defunct)
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Shoes: Finsk

Summer Luggage

In homage to my vintage leather hatbox, I bring you some ads for Prada luggage from the 2006 Spring/Summer campaign. Of course I am partial to the rose-trimmed hatbox, but my favourite is the enormous vanilla bag in the third spread. (Isn’t it funny that people use ‘vanilla’ to describe white, after the ice cream of course, when a vanilla pod is actually quite black?) I love white in general, as high-maintenance as it is – it is a far more energising and uplifting non-colour than black.

I also enjoy the languor of the model, Sasha Pivovarova, lounging about decadently with her white cat, as though it is far too much effort to rise, and I love the dove-grey socks, and the bamboo-soled shoes. There are quite a lot more images in the series than I managed to collect; you can view them here.

(Click on images for larger versions.)

Jewellery: Where and Wear

Burke // Shilshole // No flashRecently I have been tidying up my accessories storage at home. I seem to own a lot of everything, which makes many people wonder how on earth I store it all in my tiny studio apartment.

Luckily I have a walk-in closet (which doubles as storage for other household items, such as the vacuum cleaner, etc), and while it is jam-packed, it is fairly organised. It’s about 3 metres wide by 1.5 metres deep, so it’s not huge. Here is my jewellery nook above my tallboy, with a tray of bangles, lots of hooks for necklaces, and sundry vintage boxes that hold other items such as sunglasses and hair clips and bands. I’ve since acquired a long wooden tray with a sliding lid in which I’ve put my earrings.

At least I can see everything now, and it’s much easier to choose jewellery each morning. The only problem is finding time to wear it all!

Holy Hatbox!

In January, my friend Sapphire and I went vintage shopping. I was looking mainly for various household items – mainly storage boxes or drawers, preferably wooden. Of course, when one goes vintage shopping, one keeps an eye out for anything; you never know when you will stumble upon some treasure.

Hatboxes are the Holy Grail of vintage shopping for me. I’ve owned some in the past, ‘cheap’ vintage boxes made of cardboard, although they were lined in beautiful stylised floral Forties fabric, and still bore the original travel stickers on the outside. I actually found these on someone’s rubbish heap in the street where I lived as a teenager! I couldn’t wait to get them home fast enough. They were in very good condition, and I actually used them as travel luggage when I went on camps and the like. Unfortunately, a few years later when I lived in my first apartment after leaving my parents’ home, they were stored in the garage and very badly damaged by damp and mould after it was flooded. Sadly, I had to throw them out.

Hatboxes are the Holy Grail of vintage shopping for me …

I have kept my eye out for hatboxes ever since. The only ones I ever saw were also cardboard, some in the most disgraceful rotted condition with criminal (and laughable) asking prices of $80 or more! This time, while doing a second circuit of a vintage bazaar looking for something to store my vintage gloves in (yes, I own that many), I almost literally stumbled over this hatbox that I had missed the first time round. It is in very good condition for its age, and incredibly cost only $45. It is also lockable, and I am considering having some keys made for it.

Made of yellow leather, the hatbox is lined in pale peach moiré rayon. There are two pockets, one large one in the lid, and a smaller one in the base. The interior is in perfect condition; while the exterior has an expected amount of wear, with only one area along one edge that is badly cracked (you can see that in the photo). The original label inside reads ‘Garstin, Made in England’. It is a pity, but I can’t find any information on this luggage brand. It does smell a bit musty inside, but I have been airing it out and storing a large bag of dried lavender in it, and it is slowly improving.

I can’t wait to use it next time I go travelling!

(For the record, I am wearing a new vintage 70s shirtwaister by Australian label Sportscraft, 70s eelskin bag and a 90s straw boater; the shoes are by Nine West.)

PS. Happy International Women’s Day!

Photos: February, March 2016

Sparkling Red

It’s the first day of my official favourite season (as much as I bemoan the end of summer)! To celebrate it I bring you pretty sparkling red things: vintage jewels.

I first bought the ropy necklace last year at a Salvos op shop (thrift store), naturally attracted to it like the magpie that I am, but for some reason I never felt inclined to wear it.

The reason came clear a week or two ago: it was crying out for matching earrings. I found the two little flower-like studs at the Sacred Heart op shop, twinkling up at me from the depths of a giant glass bowl on the shop counter. I wore the set to work the very next day with the deepest pleasure.

Some little trifles simply need to wait a little longer for their day in the sun.

Photo: February 2016