kitty, daisy & lewis

it's wednesday again, time for some books, films, music and whatever else cultural products of interest..

lovely betty lou was so nice to tip her readers about this fantastic british teenage band "kitty, daisy & lewis" who will get you swing and dance in no time! treat your ears with a fantastic mix of r&b, blues, country and rock 'n' roll:



sadly enough i don't have too much to add to this wednesday list right now, but i'll go to the movies tonight to see "Brideshead Revisited" and might just have time for a little review afterwards!

made with love by hannah

there is this girl somewhere in the u.s., and she is totally infatuated with everything traditional and folkloristic. such as gingerbreadhearts, cuckoo clocks, the design of polish pottery, fairytales and so forth. also, she designs the cutest prints of such motifs and prints them herself on cotton fabric. AND she makes the prettiest skirts out of that fabric:
























"scherenschnitte skirt"

























"polish pottery skirt"
























"snow maiden matryoshka skirt" and "winter woods skirt"

especially the white "winter woods skirt" is right on top my current "i wish i wish" list. i so would like to have one and am determined to keep my money together so that i will be able to get one of them in january.
the girl i write about is called hannah, and she both has an etsy shop and her own web shop, and above all that, she has a blog called "knick knacks & ric rac" where you can get a peak behind her shop and every now and then she features lovely little prints for cards to print out for yourself or other diy ideas. have a look!!

the sniff experience

now, as you can imagine from the title (and from reading some of my previous posts), i have not been idle during those last two weeks of non-posting. indeed, i have been haunting different perfume stores (mainly the big turquoise one, but also three or four different ones in oslo, which actually were not sorted well - one of the ladies there didn't even know hermès! now, i don't expect somebody working in a perfume store to know every single fragrance in the world and every perfume house in the world, but hermès is not the smallest amongst them and doesn't exist only since yesterday... well. mainly they featured celebrity stuff and the general j'adore by dior and the one or other chanel.) and sniffing loads of bottles. i did also test quite a few on skin, most of them after reading a review or two, and i'll try to give you some of the highlights - and some of the failures...

after this post i was recommended to test dolce and gabbana's "light blue" and also chanel's "chance eau fraiche". i personally think that chanel fragrances smell of old ladies with pink poodle hair, and while i don't have anything against these ladies, i just can't stand the smell on my skin. "chance" started off with a nice fresh note, but the rest felt just unbearable..
"light blue", on the other hand, also started nicely and fresh and stayed fresh - and turned into an ugly air-refreshener's smell (think a blend of "sea breeze" and "green apple") after half an hour on my skin. which was sad as i liked the opening a lot. not such a promising beginning maybe..

the next fragrances i turned to was bvlgari's "eau parfumé au thé ..." series, and as the red one didn't appeal, i tried both thé blanc and thé vert. while i don't really recall the blanc version as anything remarcable, i love the warmth of "thé vert". it feels simple and elegant, it is not sweet at all and just perfect for winter. the bad news here was the lasting power: it vanished after an hour, as it is an eau de cologne with a very light concentration. the good news is that there is an "extreme" version which stays an afternoon plus half an evening and even survives a flight from oslo to hamburg (i applied some at the tax free on my way back). so this one is definitely something i will want to own!

what came next? i had read about this one norwegian perfume, "laila", which at some points had been recommended as a nice substitute for an everyday floral such as "j'adore" (which i actually like). i took the chance to try it on spot in norway, and was way disappointed. it was boring and had a weird buttery tone inbetween which i didn't like at all..
the same day though, i tried prada's "infusion d'iris" which turned out to smell special and soft and powdery and had a lovely wooden base. it felt very well balanced and gave me a feeling that you can have after a nice bath with some lovely soap. it felt really clean. lovely.

as i know that i sometimes do like "male" perfumes just as much as "female" ones (or even more), i thought i'd try the male version of the prada fragrance. what a desaster. the review said that "infusion d'homme" contained the same ingrediences as "infusion d'iris", but in different amounts. thus, i found out that i do not like too much incense in my scent. the thing smelled buttery and ugly, well, in the way that cold incense smells. ush. another iris-scent which went just the same way (though i don't know if there is any incense in it) was hermès "hiris". nothing for me...

so. enough perfume for today. there sure is more to come!

it's been a while...

... since i posted something here. i don't even know why it took me so long, but i guess i needed a break from all the writing and taking pictures. winter is definitely here and it is, at times, both refreshing and depressing. i do have loads of stuff to do for school which stresses me out quite a bit, but then christmas is approaching and that's a treat.

i just came back from a prolonged weekend in oslo at my favourite person's place. it snowed a little, but mostly it was just cold and we went to the park. the park seemed literally full of music, it was so enchanting! this little girl was so sweet playing the violin, and she seemed so lonely, so i put a little money into her box. she was so absorbed in her playing, i think she didn't even realize me approaching her..

















here is one of the most famous sites of oslo, the monolith at vigelandsparken, taken by my favourite person. with me right in front of it, in my favourite white winter coat and matching hat:

















other than enjoying ourselves in the park, we spent our time on the sofa, eating good food and playing video games. or rather, a. played and i sat besides watching. for me it's like watching a movie, i actually prefer watching him play than play myself.

he had two new games for his x-box, fable 2 which is a weird blend of ancient english myths and the victorian times with some whiffs of steampunk in between, and mirror's edge, based on doing parcours. both are very well done, and while fable 2 was engaging in the tale that is told and your choices between good and evil, mirror's edge got my pulses racing just by watching the player jump between skyscrapers and onto helicopters. if you want to face your acrophobia, there's your chance.

fröken lila goes Comme des Garçons

this morning, h&m's cooperation with Comme des Garçons hit the stores. as a poor student saving up for a pair of great frames, i wasn't too excited when i saw polkadot blouses and shirts quite above my budget (even though i guess the price is alright). the things that would have interested me most would have been a trenchcoat and the two lovely dresses, but those three things would really have busted my bankaccount. as well, i wasn't too excited about the thought of getting up really early to join into a massive catfight at one of the two h&m stores in hamburg which got the line.

instead, i made up my own Comme des Garçons outfit with what i have at home this morning:

























polkadot blouse: thrifted
grey jumper: vintage (was once my mother's)
skirt: lindex
tights with dalmatiner dots: h&m
shoes: skopunkten
bag: some store in oslo

other than that, i am waiting for a skirt from some previous collection by Comme des Garçons which i bought on ebay. it should arrive any day now:

an evening in hamburg

yesterday i went to hamburg to sniff perfumes, to look out for those frames in grey and to meet with a fellow blogger, ulrike, who writes Dotti's Dots. we had a great time at the café paris, drinking beer and talking about one thing and another and another and everything, basically. sadly enough (for me, as it is happy for her) she is moving away soon, but as the world is small and the internet makes it even smaller i guess we'll meet again. i mean, she has been to a restaurant in the little village where my godmother comes from, and that's a place nobody else i've ever met knows - apart from those living in the region, that is...

about the frames. well. i had a list of seven different opticians carrying chanel-frames. two of those where in a street i didn't find, two didn't exist any more and the other three didn't have that model. so. in the end, i found frames in what seemed to me the same greyish tone, tried them and asked the optician to take a picture of me:

























the lighting there was weird, i think they looked better in real life than here, but i am quite convinced that the colour is not as nice as the dark red one.

i sniffed some perfumes and had some on my wrists as well. i got a sample of un jardin sur le nil by hermès, and sniffed the classic acqua di parma eau de cologne. not my thing at all. then i tried acqua di parma's fico di amalfi, which reminded me a lot of hermès' un jardin en méditerranée and which was really nice, and i also tried a classic dior fragrance, diorissimo, which is lily of the valley through and through. very much spring, i'd say, nothing for winter. but nice. i'll go on searching and trying and sniffing and smelling, it's a lot of fun to explore the world of fragrances...

a fragrance for me

not only have i begun to search for a pair of new frames, i also started to look (and sniff) out for a new fragrance. the world of fragrances is not as scary as the world of make up has been for a long time, but it is just as huge and seemingly unorganized. where to start? what to look for? i have real difficulties saying what i like and what i dislike in a scent. i know it when i smell it.

so. here's my history. the first edt i ever owned was davidoff's "cool water". i got a sample at some point, didn't even like it so much at first but it grew on me and so i bought a small bottle which lasted me for about two years. then i looked for something in that direction and ended up with kenzo's "l'eau par kenzo". i still got about half the bottle left. a little later i got to smell "eau de cartier" which i really really liked but somehow i ended up buying cartier's "declaration". which i like a lot - on some days.

i finally realized that i really need more fragrances to actually be able to use one every day, which i really would like to. it's just that i prefer going without if i don't have a fragrance i like for the situation or mood i'm in.

the difficult question then was, or is, where to start with all those gazillions of bottles out there? the answer is probably rather simple, ask a friend.
my friend rana had talked about a fragrance she really likes at the moment, so i thought i'd just try it out. it was one of a series of three perfumes by hermès, "un jardin en méditerrannée". i thought it was interesting but maybe not so much me, so i tried another from the series as i found the idea of a garden fascinating. "un jardin sur le nil" felt like it suited me much better, and i am seriously considering it (but first i'll have to try it out a few more times. it is so important to try fragrances more than once before buying, as you may like them one day but detest another). i still want to try out the third one, "un jardin après le mousson" which another friend of mine is quite in raptures about.

as i also want to know what it is that i like in a perfume, i started reading reviews and one thing led to another, i found other interesting descriptions of scents worth trying.

one that i got a sample of today is another by hermès, "kelly caleche". it is not at all like anything i have ever had on my skin before and i couldn't stop sniffing my wrist since i put it on. it has a light sense of leather somewhere within a cloud of flowers. it made me feel sexy. and sophisticated. and very feminine. just the thing. i guess it's the first totally feminine fragrance i ever really liked on myself.

what do you like in a fragrance? and what do you detest? would you recommend anything especially, from what you know about me through my blog?

sunday coffee

today i went to hamburg to meet my cousin who is doing his internship at airbus in a small town close to hamburg. we almost never meet, basically only every other anniversary on my father's side of the family, so it was really cool to meet him outside those rather festive occasions. he looks exactly like my youngest brother, the only difference must be that my brother has much wider/broader shoulders. anyway, it was nice to meet him and talk smalltalk and ask about the family and his sister (who is said to look almost exactly like me - the difference is that i have a larger bust and a more creative style of clothing, in my opinion at least) and studying and airplanes.

























so. this is what i wore today. i forgot to wash my hair (well, partly i was too lazy and then i only have warm water for either taking a shower or washing my hair, and it was too late to heat the water once more before i had to leave when i realized that i needed to wash it), so i made a neat bun in the neck and had my hair tight to my head, which is a hairdo i like a lot and which even looks nice with unwashed hair. like this at least it sits as it should and doesn't drop after ten minutes.

blue shirt: bikbok
white top and blue tights: h&m
skirt: adessa
boots: vagabond

and by the way, did anybody see that i used my freshly purchased eye make-up today? i guess nobody did. i even had some rouge on, which was definitely not too much as it doesn't show on the pictures. see this post just down here for close ups in case you want to take a closer look, but i guess the frames take it all away...

eyes and frames

well. i want new frames for my glasses. and rana found really perfect ones, by chanel (don't even ask the price!!) which i like for myself as well. i was able to borrow them in two colours from my local optician, so i made some pictures. sadly enough, they didn't have them in the colour i would like to have, so i'll check in hamburg if i can find them there.

















































dark red. really nice. but. i love red clothing and am afraid that they won't work out well with everything. also, i'd have to really take care with the colours i use for my make-up.

















































i think these are the ones rana bought. a dark brown with lighter spots here and there. the lighter parts are two yellowy for my taste and my face i think, and the rest too dark. oh well.
















those would be the ones i think would suit me best. light grey. i sooo much hope i can try them on next week in hamburg. i borrowed the picture from the chanel homepage, by the way.

what do you think? which colour, what do you think about the form?

dance like a criminal

if fred astaire had still lived to hear and dance to michael jackson's "smooth criminal", i am sure he would have made a video like this:



it's plain fantastic. just think, to be able to dance like this. and those clothes!!!

random things

some week ago i was tagged by "all this happiness", a blog which i highly recommend reading as it is just wonderfully sweet.

6 random things about me

1. i'm a tea addict. i usually drink one big pot (almost 1 liter) black ceylon tea in the morning, and depending on time, temperature and mood i drink between one and three more pots during the rest of the day, especially early evening. then it will not be black tea but either fruit, spice or herbal tea.

2. when i was a kid, i guess i must have been four or five years old, i was bitten by a huge german schäfer at a friend's birthday party. since i was born i had always had a spot in the rightside region of my waist which was a bit darker than the rest fo my skin. the dog bit me excactly there, making the mark even more visible through the scar. i used this spot as an excuse for not wearing a bikini during my teenage years.

3. giving presents to people who i like can, at times, be enormously important to me and then i will spend hours on finding just the right thing, wrapping it up, writing a nice card - and obsessing on how and when would be the perfect time to hand it over. if i am very close with a person who is supposed to get a present from me, i also have difficulties of keeping my mouth shut about it, but will give hints or talk about having found the perfect gift. and i am always really proud about myself if i actually keep my mouth shut!

4. i am one of the few people who stay in the cinema until the text has gone all through, and i can get very annoyed if people get up and stand in the way when i want to sit and see who was responsible for the costumes. i also get very annoyed if the people who run the cinema turn on the lights before the text has rolled through. and i probably am one of two people in the world clapping my hands at the end of a good movie.

5. during fifth grade, my way home from school used to be really long, and even though i had a bike most of it was going uphill and really tiring. then i started imagining that i could fly home and my bike would find its own way there. ever since i imagine me flying whenever i am bored of walking or biking somewhere.

6. during 5 years of university i have lived in 7 different houses in two different countries. that's pretty impressive i'd say. the result is that i find moving rather annoying now and i wish i will not have to do it in a while.

6 random things i like

1. sitting alone in the cinema watching a good movie.

2. recieving and writing old fashioned handwritten letters and cards. i love to open my postbox and do it almost every time i pass it.

3. spices. a big favourite is cinammon and ginger in fruit sallad. i also like spices in chocolate. chili or rose pepper in dark chocolate, cardamom in milk chocolate.

4. the smell and feeling of new sheets on my bed.

5. gratin. if i could i would have cheese baked over basically everything. apart from cakes and deserts, that is.

6. the mountains.

6 random things i don't like

1. smelly people. cold smoke and cold sweat, especially on men who apparantly haven't showered for weeks. i have a rather sensitive nose.

2. dogs in stores. dogs smell and lose loads of hair, they put their nose in and on everything and some also salivate wherever they go. i am not allergic to pet hair (and i am happy for this), but others may be, and i find it rude to take your dog into h&m where it will leave its hair and bacteria on the clothes which other people want to try on before buying. even worse is people takign their dogs into grocery stores. there are things i want to eat, and i don't want anybody's dog's nose on them! i think it should be a common rule of good manners to leave your dog at home while shopping, and i don't understand why people obviously don't think about these things.

3. noise pollution on public transportation. i do not want any random person sitting close by to decide that right now it is time for some hip hop or metal being presented for the whole bus through their bad quality earphones. also, i do not want to hear other people shouting into their mobile phones when i happen to stand next to them on the tram. and the fact that you can use your mobile phone as a kind of modern juke box does not imply that you have to play the dj for the whole train department now when somebody else would like to sit quietly and read.

4. asparagus. there are very few things i do not like to eat, but asparagus is one of those few things.

5. spiders. it is not a total phobia anymore, but i still have problems with those really ugly big fat ones.

6. people who don't know how to behave in a theatre or cinema. that is, people who talk, throw popcorn around and forget to turn off their mobile phones and generally behave as if they were at home and not in a public place where they might offend others.


now you know a little more about me. oh. when i read the things i don't like it almost looks like i don't like people. i do like people, in general. i just don't like some ways of behaviour. maybe i am too sensitive? what do you think about these issues?

anyway, i tag the following 6 blogs:

the suburban queen
dotti's dots
strawberry kitten
betty lou got a new
om stil
almost stylish

selling more

i just put another dress and another pair of boots on ebay. the link is under the pictures...

























i bought this dress for a northern soul party in göteborg, about two and a half years ago during my stay as an exchangestudent in sweden. i guess it's from the 60s, maybe early 70s, and perfect mod-style. it was really tight then already, but since then it seems to have shrunk some more.. =) or maybe, i grew out of it. i only used it once and loved it tremendously, but it's no use having it hang in my wardrobe as i probably never ever will fit into it again. as you see on the picture, it is very tight. i had to hold my breath for taking the pictures and hoped all the time it wouldn't burst. it didn't. if you are a small 36 or a 34, you can buy it here.


























the boots were another miss from ebay. i liked them a lot and also used them every now and then, whenever i knew i wouldn't have to walk more than 20m. they are just a size too small. very comfortable, otherwise i wouldn't even have used them for 20m-distances, but i guess they would like to be worn more often. so, if you are a size 37, you can grab a bargain here.

oh, and by the way. the boots from this post haven't sold yet. in case you are interested, write a comment.

brown and lila

just a short post on today's outfit. the dress i haven't worn so far, as i found it too long when i bought it from ebay this summer. i finally got around to shorten it and now i really like it. i should like to find a nice light blue soft cardigan to have with it, or maybe a white one.. i don't like sweaters so much anymore (i love to be able to take of upper layers as easily as possible), so i feel that there is a lack of cardigans in my wardrobe. maybe i should change some of my old sweaters (none of which is light blue) into cardigany, i think i found a how-to somewhere on the net..

also, i haven't gotten around to go to the hairdressers as yet, but will set a date with her tomorrow for next week.


























dress: vintage ebay
shirt: passed down by a friend
tights: aldi
boots: esprit, via ebay
belt: thrifted

shoe dreams

i have very strong cravings for those shoes right now. i do know that i need a pair of either ankle boots or at least rather closed pumps which i can have during the cold months now when i do not want to walk around in boots, and either of those two pairs would be perfect, especially as i thought i might train my walking on heels a bit more:



















this pair i missed soooooo close on ebay (i stole the picture from the auction). they are by topshop and not to be had on their onlinestore anymore, and i didn't dare to lay too much money on them as i do not know how large or small a topshop 5 is in comparison to a "normal" european 38. the problem is, that sometimes i can have a 38 but sometimes it would be slightly too tight or too lose. usually i would ask the seller to measure the inner length of the shoe for me so that i can compare with my foot's length, but this time i forgot to do that in time. well. maybe another time.

























this is a pair by buffalo. they do have exactly one pair left in my local goertz dealer, and this one pair is my size. online at goertz they are sold out already. plus, they are on sale (well, which means they are not overexpensive but just expensive). so i thought i'd gamble a bit. let's wait until next month's money arrives on my bankaccount (which should be on monday). if the shoes are still there, i will have to consider very seriously if they are worth it. if they are gone, well, they are gone. i will probably bite my knee but that's life. it's not like i couldn't find any other pair that i might like just the same.

wednesday list nr.2

well. after promising myself so faithfully to do one list each wednesday, i already broke my promise after the first week. to my defense i can only say that that was the day when my favourite person in the world finally arrived here in my town, and we had better things to do than sit in front of the computer. i did get sick also later that day.
but. this is a new week, i am fine and ready to post my weekly list of films and books i saw and read.

- North and South. novel by Elizabeth Gaskell and BBC mini-series from 2004.

i first saw the movie, now i am reading the book. which is a procedure i highly recommend for everybody who does not want to spoil the movie version of a great piece of literature. chances you don't like the movie are much higher if you have read the book first, which is only normal because no actor or place will ever look exactly as you have imagined them while reading. on the other hand, part of the possibility of using your very own imagination gets lost as well. so i guess it depends, but i personally always prefer to see the film first.

the story is set in england, in the middle of the 19th century, and circles around a rather unusual heroine for the time. margarate hale comes from the beautiful south of england and is taken from there to an industrial town in the darker north when her father decides to move. there, she is confronted with work, dirty air and a set of people very different from everybody she ever knew before. her antagonist, or the male hero, is the owner of a cotton manufactory, john thornton.
actually, the whole love story resembles at least in parts very strongly the constellation in austen's pride and prejudice, which i find very interesting, as the setting is so totally different and also some of the main themes of the novel such as issues of faith, social security of the working class and power. the movie features some extremely enchanting pictures and passionate scenes, fantastic victorian costumes and some great acting. i think i have read about one third of the book yet and like it just as much as the mini series, and would like to recommend it very highly to everybody who likes jane austen, the bronte sisters or charles dickens.

- in bruges. when andreas was here, we took the rare opportunity to go to the cinema and watch a movie in the original version with german subtitles. we didn't really know anything about the film, and were positively surprised at how good it actually was. the story is about two assassins, one elderly and one younger, who are being sent to bruges in belgium by their boss. they don't really know why or what they are supposed to do there, it is cold and around christmas and the whole thing is a little surreal. while the elder one of them really enjoys the sightseeing and the fairytale-like atmosphere, the other one gets in touch with a girl who sells drugs and a dwarf who is shooting a movie there.
i won't tell more of the story, but the end is perfect, and all the characters have so much depth, that you feel with them even if you don't really like them. or feel that you really shouldn't like them. anyways, see it, i think it's already out on dvd.