matching elegance

i sometimes wonder why everyday-fashion seemed so much more elegant back in the 50s and beginning 60s. but then, it actually isn't so hard. don't you think a matching jacket to your dress, made of the same fabric and in the same style, would produce an air of elegance immediately?
























just think, to have the luxury of a matching jacket to each of your dresses... (ok, the gloves and hat actually do have an impact as well..)

























i think that's something i'll try to do this year. sew a dress and a matching jacket.

little things

now, while i said i wouldn't show all my christmas presents to you, i thought i'd at least take a picture of the prettiest ones:

























the white tin boxes are from myself (i'll store my muesli in the big one and some tea in the smaller one), and the polkadot one is from one of my best friends, vroni. one can never have enough boxes!
the ornaments (the apples and the silver reindeer) are also from myself - the apples will hang on my christmas tree next year (in case i'll have one, that is)!
then i got this fantastic book from my friend and colleague maryann: "the little black book of style" by nina garcia. loads of tips and tricks and i'll sure come back to this one sooner or later.

and: a new pair of shoes from me to me. they are from deichmann and i've worn them on a previous post, but i like them so much i thought i'd show them off once more. i love the colour (lila!!) and their 20s-style.

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 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.

dressed to impress

during the last few days, i have been reading a couple of really smart essays and articles about how to organize my wardrobe better, how to find my own style, and basically, how to dress better. so, i thought, i'd share some of those articles.
the first one which i want to feature is by a blogger whom i have come to like a lot, even though i do not comment so much on her entries. her name is erin, the blog is called "a dress a day", and the article "dress to impress".

here is the beginning for you to read. it is smart and witty and oh so true.


The conventional wisdom on dressing for success is ridiculously straightforward. Buy good, simple, quality suits and separates. Iron your shirt. Shine your shoes. Wear a good, understated watch. Splurge on a high quality handbag or tie. Avoid the outré and the trendy. Dress like your boss, or for the job you want to have.

To which I say: BOR-ing.

Instead, wear orange. Wear polka-dots. Wear both together!

I am a big advocate of orange and polka-dots because they do stand out, they are outré, and since I've worked from home since 2000, I really want to make a splash when I go into my office. I don't want to have to be reintroduced each time I walk into a meeting. I want someone to say, "Great to see you again, Erin. Nice dress!"

The classic, the understated, the quietly chic--they make an impression a little bit at a time, day after day. If you're only in the office one day a month, that impression takes years to settle in. Nobody says, "Oh, Erin, you remember her. She's the one with the fashionable, yet timeless, tank watch and the well-cut gray suit." No, they say, "You know Erin, she wore that dress with the giant yellow birds on it." Or "She's the one with the bright blue eyeglasses." You get the idea.

You may be thinking, shouldn't people know me for my work? Well, they might, but in any company over a dozen people, how many will really have seen your work? How many will have looked at it closely enough to judge it? And how does "You know Erin. She wrote that incredible Robertson piece" help them put a face to a name in a meeting?

When you work in an office every day, you have more avenues for presenting a fuller picture of yourself to your colleagues. You have daily opportunities for random conversation--not just the working lunches or the few minutes of chit-chat in the elevator telecommuters make do with. You can decorate your office or cubicle with your rubber-stamp art, your memorabilia from your college curling team, or pictures of your (adorable) Welsh corgi.

But if you're a telecommuter, all your colleagues really know about you is your work and your look. And since the colleagues who don't work directly with you will only know about your look, it's worthwhile to spend a little time thinking about what that look should be.

the whole article can be read on jugglezine, and it is worth while reading, for after this fantastic introduction, you get a lot of great tips and ideas of how to pull off your own distinctive look.

the pictures in this entry are both from erin's blog and they are dresses which she has made herself. i adore her very personal style with bright patterns, even though i never would wear any of those myself. still, they carry, above all, one message: wear what you love!

about lipsticks and other colours

i finally made up my mind to buy some colour stuff for my face. i admit, i have, until now, never ever worn make-up. no lipstick, no mascara, no concealer, nothing. mostly because, well, my mother never uses make-up, so i never got used to it at home, and as a teenager, i never really was interested (it was, somehow, a way to distinguish me from all the other teenage-girls), and later on i had developed this "my face is a holy region, no colour is to get close" attitude. yes, and since maybe a year ago i have started to think that maybe it might be nice to be able to change my look by having some colour on my lips or some mascara on my lashes.




















anyway, does any of you girls out there have a clue how strange it is to stand in front of, like, endless rows of different colour pots and stuff of which you 1. don't have a single clue how to use it and 2. don't have a single clue which one might or might not suit you - and your skin??

so, by reading a lot of interesting information on the internet, i kind of made up my mind what i more or less wanted. i'm still not totally sure, BUT: i got myself to buy a matte (not too much glittery stuff to begin with) lipstick in some halfway dark rosewood-colour. basically like my natural lipcolour, just a tiny bit darker and a little more towards brown-red-pink. kind of. i haven't brought myself to using it yet, but i will - next week when i am back in lüneburg and have my own bathroom and mirror. i promise to post pictures!




















yes, that was the first step, and once taken, it actually wasn't too hard to move on. i knew that i really wanted to have a semi-matte bright red lipstick (kind of to match my red skirt), and some mascara. then, nice betty lou did a post about bésame, and i liked their concept and as they have a sale going on right now, i decided to give it a try and ordered their 1930s mascara, a bright red lipstick and a carmine (orange-red kind of colour) one as well. so now i am waiting for stuff to arrive. or rather, for me to arrive in lüneburg to be able to try stuff out. and guess what: even if i might not like the colours, i absolutely love their design...

sunny tuesday

this is me, today, in a white sailor-style terrycloth-dress.
the problem with the weather right now is, that as soon as the sun is away - plus inside our house - it gets pretty chilly, but when the sun shines i sweat.. so at some points today i really wished i had not put on those tights this morning...

























dress: thrifted
tights: c&a
shoes: h&m

my latest catch

right now i'm waiting for this lovely lovely dress to arrive:

























it's a betsey johnson one, obtained through ebay as it is no longer available in betsey's online shop. i think it will be perfect for late summer and even autumn, maybe with a nice cardigan and thick tights..

nevertheless, in her shop, there is still this perfect summerdress to have:



















there is also a slightly cheaper (and shorter) alternative from topshop (well.. still a bit too much for my purse this month, after above namned purchase), in five different flowery prints - here is one of my favourites:

last friday

here is last friday's outfit.

























shorts, polkadot-shirt, tights and belt: h&m
cardigan: kenvelo
necklace: selfmade (the telephone!)
shoes: skopunkten

the polkadrop-bracelet

i am working right now on a few projects with my jewellery, two necklaces which i cannot finish yet as i am waiting for some supplies, and matching bracelets. one of those bracelets i made today:











i called it the polkadrop-bracelet, and i plan on making one or two more in the same style.

liten karin

this girl has done such a beautiful series of pictures:



































































aren't they bewitching? the little red dress, the cage and the trees - i'm still charmed...

the weddingdress

well. rather the dress i will be wearing at my brother's wedding. i had been searching for quite some time, and didn't really know what i actually wanted. a polka-dot-dress? a little black dress (i actually bought one at h&m's sale for just that purpose, but then - it's a wedding, not a funeral..)? something huge? today was my last attempt to find anything, and i really did. here is the result:


























dress: mango
shoes: dinsko

the purple is a bit more towards the red than on the picture.
i do like that it is simple, and classy, and a bit 50s. and i just love the detail on the belt:


still, the way to the dress was rough. i had time and there weren't too many people out there shopping, as it was just after 10 in the morning, so mango wasn't chaotic yet. but then. the dress was only hanging there in sizes s and xs (which for normal people would probably be xs and xxs), so i did try it on in s.
which would have worked out fine, had not the zipper been broken. i don't have a clue how i managed to work myself into the dress, but it wasn't such a big problem. just, when i wanted to get out of it (and it sat really tight - so it would have been no food during the wedding..), i realized that the zipper went only halfway. i did try very hard. until i had to realize that i needed help and asked someone who was working there. they were really helpful, but it also was a bit embarassing. anyway, in the end, after about ten minutes, the zipper gave in and i could hop into my own clothes again.

and, all's well that end's well, they even had a size m hidden in the back somewhere, which fitted quite well (ok, i guess i will need a very good bra), so i bought it and am very pleased and contented with it.

foundation

here is the video-clip to kate nash's song "foundation". they played the song around the interview with me. i didn't know it before, but i found that i do like it very well.
i also like the video a lot, especially the staircase with the different colours and patterns on each step. and also the socks. they are very engaging.

50s wrap-dress

i really got into the thought of sewing more again. and not only shortening jeans and trousers, but sewing a dress or a skirt. today, i found a pattern for a pretty pretty wrap-dress by butterick from the 50s. it's not for free, but it really is appealing:

anna's café

today i tried out a new café in lüneburg, and it has good chances to become my favourite. it is called "Anna's Café" and located at the Stint, which is one of two café-bar-pub-streets here.
anyway, the atmosphere there was such as i like it to be at a café, snug and comfortable, with a lot of room, lovely furniture and tableware (seemed like they went and searched all antique-stores around) and homemade cakes and breakfast. i had some tea there while correcting the last swedish-papers for my course, and i have to say, i don't know a single other café in lüneburg where that would be possible. it's cosy there, and nice people are working there as well.
as for the whole thing together, i'm not sure if it is supposed to feel like a typically swedish café, but it definitely does. i guess that's why i felt at home there...

The Puppini Sisters

do you like the 40s and 50s?
well, i do (and the 60s and 70s..), and i also like feel-good music.
thanks to my friend rana, i found out about this absolutely ravishing girl-band called The Puppini Sisters, who combine this cool 40s-50s-diva-feeling with superb music and style. Three girls singing and fingersnipping, performing old and well-known songs (such as Dusty Springfields "Spooky" or the all-time-classic "Bei mir bist du schön"), giving them a new, jazzy, feel-good sound. And as if this wasn't enough, their homepage even features beauty-tips (for that 40s-style), recipes and other nice stuff.. To complete the whole thing, they got to wear Vivienne Westwood in their video "Jilted"!! Take a look, it's fun and gorgeous!!