clover

i got a lovely present from my favourite person on saturday. he had given me a bracelet by pilgrim earlier this year for my birthday, and now he gave me a matching ring and necklace. they are gorgeous and i'm in love.

Brand

we went to the theatre yesterday, my boyfriend and me, to see "Brand", a play by ibsen. it's the second ibsen-piece i've seen in norwegian now, and the first one set up in rhymes. which made the experience both interesting and exhausting. it was really difficult for me to understand the dialogue, but then the dialogue also felt very beautiful, through the rhyming.

















the play is about this norwegian priest, Brand, who lives after the principle of "all or nothing" and who is sick of the superficial society he lives in. he and his wife kind of flee from society to a small place in the mountains, but he neglects his little son who is dying of cold, and he seems not to be able to give his wife the love and attention she needs after the traumatic death of their son. in the end, he has lost his family and his congregation which leaves him for a more worldly approach to life. realizing his failure, he cannot go on with his life.

















i found the play very intense, even though i had a hard time figuring out what it was about (i hadn't read anything about it before), and i think i would like to see it again in a german version.

after theatre, i was taken out to a lovely dinner at an indian restaurant which we have wanted to try out for almost a year or so. it was soooo delicious!

(the pictures are taken from the national theatre's homepage)

fretex

today was the first time i ever got lucky at the fretex-shop (second hand shop by the salvation army) around the corner. usually the only nice stuff they have is far too expensive for me (600nok = 65eur for a vintage dress? nope, sorry.), and the rest is really crappy.

anyway, today i found a this nice jacket for autumn, it's a wool blend and it looks a bit like a riding jacket, and i do like that it's checkered as well. i actually got it a bit cheaper as there is a seam which needs to be fixed, but that i can do in almost no time.

























of course, as always, i'll have to shorten the sleeves as well.

then, i also found a jacket by kenzo, but it was a horrible colour and far too big for me, plus there was a hole somewhere which reminded me of, well, moths. so, that one didn't follow, even though i was really tempted (it would have been 49nok, around 5 eur). i did take a cute cute cute little ralph lauren dress for 10nok - just in case i ever have a daughter who needs to have a nice dress when she is one year old...

and, i found a vintage dress with gorgeous buttons. it looks very 40s, even though it looks like it might also be from the 80s. i'm not sure at all. it is black velvet - polyester, sadly enough, and it will need a little taking in at the back, but i think i can do that as well. and i think i could stand some polyester for a night at the theatre. we'll see tomorrow. i'll post pictures then as well.

now, i'll put a shopping embargo on myself for the next.. month?? ok, week. i'll never do longer than that.

desert rock

first of all, today i stumbled over this amazing swedish blog, ung farbror, by a really cool guy from stockholm who loves to dress in clothes inspired by the fashion from around 1900 and who makes his own hats. even if you don't understand all the smart things he writes, take a look at the pictures!

in his blog, he also features calexico's newest video, reminding me of all this desert-inspired music i like. woven hand, 16 horsepower, calexico. i love old westerns, too, did i ever mention that? even though i cannot agree with john wayne and his - private - opinions and even though i cannot agree with the way women are pictured in the movies he's in, i still think he was a hell of a guy. one of my screen heroes, ever. and no, i do not think that this contradicts itself.

anyway, from one thing to another and the next, what is also on my mind is that i am trying to kind of define the cornerstones of my own personal style (which i still haven't found, but i think i'm on a good way). one of those cornerstones would definitely be influenced by those 30s-40s westerns. but, i will come back to this later.

here today's outfit, a bit western-inspired.

























jeans and blouse: h&m
boots: i honestly don't remember
belt: vintage (it once belonged to my mother)
necklace: etsy

the heel issue

last week, the suburban queen posted about a pair of heeled boots which she doesn't wear very often as they inflict pain and discomfort. i commented then that two years ago, i bought my first pair of heeled boots and started training, and that now heels up to 6-7cm are quite alright for me: the boots, the red and the black pumps are all around that height. the converse and ballet flats obviously not.



















well, yesterday i felt rather painfully that this is only half true.. i am able to walk in 6-7cm heels, but i never said for how long i can walk in them. as long as i use my bike and sit a lot in the intervals between taking me from a to b, there really is no problem. but. when taking a city stroll of approximately 3h, i am still able to walk in boots with 6cm heels (that would be the boots to the left on the picture), but my feet are killing me! well, i guess people usually don't just walk for 3h in the city in heels, so i guess i can still say that i don't have problems with 6-7cm heels...

oh, and i never said i could walk in penny-heels. still training those as well. that would be the black shoes, the second pair from the right, on the picture.

and no - this is not my complete collection of shoes. i am right now staying in oslo for two weeks, whereas the rest of the collection, that is, the larger part, stayed at home.

roses and chocolate

yesterday, my favourite person gave me roses and chocolate when he came back from work. he really is the best in the world. i love him!

autumn coveting

one of the nicest things on the internet is definitely etsy. you can find all kinds of lovely things there, arts, jewelery and other things you never thought of before you saw them there.

lately, as autumn comes closer, i have been coveting these beautiful felted scarf-collars from etsy-seller Rudman (i borrowed the pictures from there, thus the watermark):















































they are not cheap (not sooo horribly expensive either, i have to admit), so i have been thinking about making something similar. but, as i do not do felting, i still haven't come across a way how to do it. i will update you as soon as something crosses my mind!

in the meantime, these lovely creations will stay on my i wish i wish-list, and, as we all know, christmas comes probably sooner than we all can say "i wish i wish"...

the secret lives of dresses

have you ever wondered about what all your dresses and clothes think about you? or how they experienced the latest party you went to? or how they felt about your latest breakup? are you interested? read a wonderful series of shortstories about the secret lives of dresses on erin's blog "a dress a day"!! you'll have to scroll down a bit to find the stories on the right side of the blog.

here is a link to my favourite one, i borrowed the picture from there as well.

revisiting your wardrobe

highfashiongirl Grace featured a great link in her last post, leading on to an article titled "10 Cheap, Simple Ways To Up The Eco Fashion Ante". while all of them are definitely important and good advice (read them here), i now picked the top 3 which i felt are most important to me and the relationship to my wardrobe and clothes.

nr.3/4: embrace tailor therapy/befriend a shoe repair shop.
both belong into the same category, namely the fixing/boosting things you already own category. the part of a shoe which usually will die first is the heel, so instead of throwing the shoe away, for not so very much money you can get the heeled up and walk away as if they were new. as well, if you realize after buying that the shoe is a little bit too small, you can get it widened a bit so it will fit better.

the tailor (or your sewing machine) does the same thing for your dresses, jeans, t-shirts, jackets coats... fixing small holes and broken seams does not cost much and will reduce the amount of clothes thrown away (and thus the need for new ones). as well, having taken in a bit of a dress or skirt, shortening jeans or adding some length to them will make them look differently and thus feel like you've just been shopping... this goes especially for favourite pieces which don't fit so well anymore!

while i am quite used to shortening my jeans on my own, there are other things which i cannot do. for example taking in a dress, or shortening the arms of a wintercoat. for these things, i surely will go to the tailor (which i for some reason or other never thought of before) in the future.

nr.5/8: buy refashioned, recycled and repurposed wearables/ revisit the past.
both buying clothes from designers who make lovely new clothes out of not so nice older ones and buying vintage/second hand is another way of reducing waste-production and boosting your wardrobe. plus that you can make sure that you have clothes which nobody else has! and who wants to look like everybody else?

i did think for some time about not buying second hand anymore, but also not buying so much cheap clothes anymore either. instead, my thought was to go for real good quality clothing which then might cost a bit more but would keep a long time. the thing is, this is a strategy which just does not work for me, as i definitely prefer to have more fun special things than less boring basic things. so, as long as the second hand things are in good shape and condition, i sure will go that way.

nr.6: cultivate a collection, not just a closet full of clothes.
Start thinking of your wardrobe as a collection of special pieces and shop accordingly. this will so much reduce the amount of junk lying in your wardrobe, never being worn. just the questions "what will this add to my collection" and "how will it fit in my collection" are really helpful when deciding if or if not to buy. you already got five black cardigans? no need for a sixth. you don't have anything that might go with it? leave it alone.

this one has been the advice i've been looking for for quite some time now. it feels like all my thoughts have been going in that direction, i just never could put my finger on it. so here it is. i will try and make my clothes a collection. of course, each collection evolves around something, some theme or in this case, style. think of yourself as the gallery, and each outfit as a new exhibition. it will be a lot of fun to revisit my wardrobe and decide what will stay and what will have to go. actually, i have started the process already, but i will have to take it this one step further.

the geisha-sash

yesterday, i took up a refashioning-idea from the suburban queen: an "obi-belt" (hello starwars!!), or, for me, a geisha-sash. made out of old ties. it's real easy: take two ties of the same size and sew them together at their thickest area, right sides facing:



















then flap the triangular ends back and stich them onto the corresponding tie (there is a picture of this by the suburban queen here). done!!!

you can either tie it more the obi-way, or, like me, with a little bow at the back (or front, depending on the length of the ties and the size of the bow), which you can see further down on my outfit pictures.

so, today's outfit, a bit geisha-secretary, maybe. or something like that.

























skirt: gina tricot
blouse: zara
tights: lindex
shoes: deichmann
sash: selfmade, vintage-ties

blue blue

so, today's look is blue, a quite dark blue, to be sure. and to fight all those very autumny feelings, a lot of flowers on my skirt. and above all that, my hair open. which happens like, once every other month. but i guess it will get soon on my nerves and then i'll tie it up some way or another... so, enjoy the sight while it lasts!

























skirt and tights: h&m
longarmed t-shirt: bikbok
shoes: skopunkten

perfect glass

i don't know how they do it, but when it comes to designing nice glass, finnish Iittala is just plain best. one of their collaborations with marimekko, the maribowl, has been haunting me these days, and the craving does not seem to go away. i wish i wish!!!

















i mean, look at the small details! it looks almost as if it was made of coloured ice, the form is classic and it comes in don't ask me how many different colours....

























it's just plain perfect glass. for dessert, ice cream, cookies, pralinés, cherries, whatever you love.

the beautiful girls

when i opened the postbox today, i finally had a large envelop in my hands containing an etsy-order. i love opening letters and boxes and everything the mailman brings - well, that being except bills, of course.

inside the huge envelop was, amongst other little paperthings (such as a set of cute stickers and a set of postcards), this lovely lovely aceo (art cards editions and originals):

may i present to you: viola!


























the artist making such beautiful cards and prints is a young norwegian woman called annette mangseth, and her works can be obtained at her etsy-shop "carambatack" for very little money. i warmly recommend taking a look at her art!!

i also featured her here in my blog.

with some delay

since last thursday i am back to oslo, with my favourite person a. with all the packing and unpacking and travelling i couldn't really get myself to do a post, so here come three outfits at once:

























wednesday last week, 10th of september:
sailorstyle dress: vintage
belt: thrifted
tights: lillyput
shoes: deichmann
watch-necklace: marc by marc jacobs
and also, for the first time on any picture, me with lipstick on. but i still felt really dressed up with so much colour in my face. it will take some time getting used to that.


























friday last week, 12th of september:
still a bit nautical inspired:
skirt: gina tricot
blouse: h&m
tights: c&a
shoes: skopunkten
watch-necklace: marc by marc jacobs


























yesterday, monday 15th of september, and according to "a dress a day"
international wear-a-dress-day. which of course i did.
dress: betsey johnson
cardigan: h&m
tights: h&m
shoes: deichmann

retro blouses

these are my other finds from the fleamarket today: two retro blouses by h&m and a nice black cardigan, with little black flowers made of tiny tiny plasticpearls...

for quite some time i couldn't really decide if i should stop buying clothes second hand, on ebay or at fleamarkets. on the one hand because of, well, i have had bad experiences with those small animals eating up half your wardrobe, and on the other hand, it also is very hard and takes a lot of time and energy to find good quality things for a decent price. but then, also, fleamarkets and thrift stores are so much more interesting, and it is also a lot of fun browsing them. and, finally, shopping second hand is just more environmentally friendly, in german we would say "nachhaltig". and that's a really good point.

























both blouses must be from some older h&m-collections, the are both light blue, though in different shades, and both have black piped seams and black buttons. the one to the left has a print with a small 50s-style lady sitting somewhere in an elegant dress and fine hairdo. the one to the right looks more like a blouse a waitress at a 50s diner would wear, and has a small tag saying "Peachy Keen" on the left side...

light up my room

today i went to a flea market here in lüneburg. my plan was to find some nice little 50s china thing to have my sugar in, but of course i ended up buying totally different things. actually, not so many things, some clothes which i will show in another post, and - a lampshade.

up to now, i only had a lamp with a lampshade in my sleeping room, and a naked lightbulb in my kitchen/livingroom. i didn't want to have just any kind of lamp there, but something special which might go together both with my furniture and also with the lamp in my sleepingroom, which looks like this:

























when i arrived at the fleamarket, more or less the first thing i saw was a cute 50s/70s-style lampshade at one of the first stands there. i guess i passed it at least three or four times until i finally asked if it still worked? the answer was yes, resulting in me wondering if i really might dare ask how much he wanted for it. fearing the price might be way above my purse, i finally asked and got as an answer that he wanted, well, 10euros? which was definitely a lot less which i had expected, so i didn't start arguing and took it home. here it is:


























now the only question remaining is: how will i get it up to the ceiling? i do have something which might be called ladder-phobia. it's not that i am afraid of heights really, but i can't stand anything where i am up somewhere and can see down between my feet. so ladders are mostly a no go, and so are floors made of glass, even though i am training..

a new favourite

i got a new favourite. when it comes to music. i really really like. her musik. i don't know how many times i heard this song and thought "i like this song! who is this?" so, as i do not listen to radio and do not own a television, thus not being able to watch mtv, i took the effort to check the german top 50 list and the correspondend videos on youtube to find it out, and here it is:

amy macdonald's "this is the life"



this woman has a wonderful voice. just the right amount of melancoly and strength. fantastic. goegeous. lovable.

the betsey dress

it has finally arrived, after having been stuck in customs for a short while. my brand new betsey johnson dress. it fits fine, i guess it might have been a wee bit better with a size smaller, as there is quite some strech in the fabric, but it works nicely such as it is. i'm not quite sure how i am going to wear it, but i will wear it even now during autumn. maybe with a blouse under, or a longarmed jersey-shirt, and of course, with tights. i love it already!

the bicycle-issue

i have a tendency to forget that pencil-skirts are not a good idea for biking around town. i have started to wear them anyway. and feel great!!!

























pencil-skirt: h&m
blouse: gina tricot
belt: thrifted
tights: c&a
shoes: wedins

today today

here is today's outfit. nice and easy.

























blouse: thrifted
miniskirt-tubetop: vero moda
jeans: h&m
shoes: vero moda
watch-necklace: marc by marc jacobs

this is goodbye

finally i am saying goodbye to my approximately almost 10year-old doc martens.

i still remember the day i bought them: it was a cold autumn day, i was fifteen and i had permission from my parents to go to nürnberg by train to buy shoes. i also had a paper in my military-bag which my parents had written, allowing me to follow my christian youthgroup to a band contest where one of our leaders, called Burli, would play with his band "Ångström", and staying there until midnight. this day felt so important to me, and i guess i was really happy. i went to this really cool store, the "British Empire", where they sold, amongst other things such as ben sherman clothing and british food, doc martens shoes and boots. and not only did they sell the classic black and bordeaux-red ones, but all sorts of colours and patterns. but. as i did not own enough money for a pair of the overly cool scottish-tartan-patterned boots, i finally settled upon classic brown leather. they also were reduced and only cost half of what then seemed to be a fortune.

























one might say, they served me well. ten years is a good age for a pair of boots, and i loved them. still, i do not like to wear them anymore, they are not as comfy as they used to be, and, above all, taste changes and they are anything but elegant.

i always think it is hard to say goodbye to shoes and clothes, but i also think it feels very refreshing and liberating. especially when it comes to things with a past. such as my doc martens.

i wish i wish

number 1 on my current i wish i wish - list.

















beautiful shoes by vagabond. oh, i want to have!