16TH APRIL, 2011 ♥

Deviation.

Good old DeviantART! Upon doing some trawling of it just now, I came across an amazing Chinese photographer, Zhang Jingna. At only 22, she has an extensive portfolio and has started to work with big name brands. She focuses on capturing women surrounded by beautiful light, exquisite backdrops and often slightly gothic undertones. Jingna works pure magic with hair; I am obsessed with the hair in just about every photo! Here's a selection of my favourites, but make sure you visit her DeviantART page and own website for more of her work.

Saved my absolute favourite until last; I can't stop looking at this following image. The light, the curls, the symmetry, the dress, the jewels, the lips, the eyes... argh! Photo-gasm right there. This to me is a perfect photograph:

- C x

12TH APRIL, 2011 ♥

Blast Off.

So, we know by now that the whole nebula thing is some kind of trend as of recent years. For example, this spacey tee by Christopher Kane:



And more of his colourful constellation collection (alliteration win!) for Resort '11. Beautiful blending and colour palette choices in the prints!

Oh hai! I found a nebula kitty!





And another nicely styled nebula shirt:





BUT. Be prepared for the #1 greatest use of nebula in the world of fashion. Possibly even better than actual nebulae (apparently the plural of nebula is nebulae). The ones in space. YES. I am very excited to present this find:


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NEBULA WEDGES!!!!!











Custom made by Kustom Kix on the always wonderful Etsy, these babies will set you back $180 US - but let's be serious, that's a fairly tempting offer! Shoes of nebula glory, let me have you!

I want to DIY these in canvas sneaker form, as I'm too poor to even afford plain black wedges to paint on. Or paints. Hopefully I'll see them in my dreams, my starry ethereal dreams!

Until next time...

- C x

5TH APRIL, 2011 ♥

Womad Nomad.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the WOMADelaide festival - for people not familiar with WOMAD festivals, they stand for 'World of Music and Dance' and are a weekend of musical heaven and hippie adventures! The movement was started by Peter Gabriel in 1980, and the festivals consist of bands and artists from all over our beautiful world. This year was magical for me as I was able to attend all four days by volunteering! I had to do a four hour volunteer shift each day, and in return was given a free pass to the festival, which was such a great deal as the shifts could hardly be considered work.

It's a very hippie festival - the crowd is completely chillaxed, anything goes and that goes for fashion choices too! If you ever wanted to test out a slightly experimental ensemble, this is the place to do it! I love the WOMAD atmosphere - sunsets, dust, running barefoot, dancing through forests of flags, the delicious array of international food and most of all, the beautiful music that we probably wouldn't discover otherwise. At last year's WOMAD, I was lucky enough to see the world renowned Indian sitar player, Ravi Shankar - he was 90 years old and I never thought I'd have that opportunity!

Highlights for me this year were Calypso Rose (a 70 year old woman from Trinidad and Tobago with more soul and joy than I've ever seen inside one person), Space Invadas (a totally rad funk band from Sydney and the UK, very Curtis Mayfield-esque), Band of Brothers (virtuoso classical guitarists), Imelda May (Irish rockabilly singer), Faiz Ali Faiz (a group of male Pakastani singers and drummers), Joanna Newsom (US Indie harp goddess), Martha Wainright (folk singer from Canada) and a cute little Irish band called the Allan Kelly Quartet.

Here's a few pictures of my time at WOMAD 2011 - easily the best weekend of my year so far!



















It was one of those weekends where, when it's all over, you're a little bit shocked to be back in the real world again. Counting down until next year :)

- C x

9TH MARCH, 2011 ♥

Southern Belle.

Yesterday evening, I finally turned to the 1010th (and last) page of Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I will readily deem this great historical romance as one of the most engaging, enlightening and heartfelt stories I've ever read.

It's really one of those "I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT EVEN THOUGH IT'S 4AM" kind of books. Here is a scan of the actual copy I read from, so you can re-live the full experience with me :P (don't worry, no spoilers).



Whether you've read the book or not, most of us are familiar with Scarlett O'Hara - she's a strong willed, vibrant, hot-headed young woman who fights for survival throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction eras of the South. She defies the constraints of gender at the time, making countless enemies, 'beaux' and the occasional friend along the way.

I set off on this literary adventure not knowing anything at all about the American Civil War - as an Australian girl in the 2000's, I was never taught about it, so I read the historical sections of the book with immense interest. I have often found Gone With The Wind to be portrayed purely as a romance novel, but is actually full of detailed (extremely biased to the South of course) descriptions of the savage path the war took; its various battles, how the lives of families rich and poor were torn apart, and for those who made it through, the horrors of the Reconstruction era. If you haven't done so, READ, READ, please READ!!

Obviously, one thing I very much appreciated were the wonderful descriptions of the clothing worn throughout the book, especially those which sparked the fancy of the eldest Miss O'Hara. Dresses of huge circumferences made from crisp European fabrics, 'stays' laced to sixteen inches (the smallest waistline in the County!), silk pantalets, slippers, velvet riding habits, ruffles, stiff taffeta petticoats, emerald green Parisian bonnets, diamond 'ear-bobs', lace-covered black mourning dresses with long sleeves, buttoned up to the neck.

Vivien Leigh, the classic Southern Belle who was ironically British, played Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 four-hour epic blockbuster Gone With The Wind. I am yet to see this but have a copy in my hands and can't wait to sit down for a viewing!

Here are some beautiful stills of Leigh (one featuring her with Clark Gable as Rhett Butler) from the film. I found these on this website, "Doctor Macro's High Quality Movie Stills", where one can look through galleries of Golden Age Hollywood actors and actresses captured in their prime. The genuis costume designer for Gone With The Wind was Walter Plunkett. IT'S LOVE! ♥











I am struggling to get over these beautiful costumes, I feel a new obsession coming on! To fuel this, I will hopefully put together a post of Victorian American pre- and post-war fashion sometime in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

- C x

7TH MARCH, 2011 ♥

Academy Awards.

My Top Six! (for my own strange reasons).

6. Halle Berry in Marchesa.

Because she looks like a fairy queen and her skin is delicious like coffee.



5. Hilary Swank in Gucci Premiere Couture.

Because everyone should be allowed to wear Gucci Premiere Couture, not just "celebrity clients". Not that I'm jealous at all.



4. Hailee Steinfeld in Marchesa

Because she looks like a prom queen who would give everyone a piece of her crappy plastic tiara. Oh yes, and because she's fourteen and doesn't dress like a baby prostitute! Hallelujah!





3. Mila Kunis in Elie Saab Couture Spring/Summer '11.

Because it's Elie Saab, not because it's Mila Kunis. This man is a G-E-N-I-U-S, there are many more creations where this beautiful lilac delight sprung from.



2. Florence Welch in Valentino Couture Spring/Summer '11.

Florence. Valentino. Kill me.
I must applaud her stylist, everything about this is incredible and I have nothing more to say. Oh, apart from this: HAIR, DRESS, SKIN, RED CARPET BACKDROP. Florence has this vintage, sparkling, firey, delicate yet untouchable allure and this Valentino was made for her.



1. Cate Blanchett in Givenchy Couture Spring/Summer '11.

Because she's the most stylish woman alive? The most classy? The most filled with a shining, old glamour that hardly anyone possesses anymore? The most gracious? Because she glides? There's a reason she played Queen Elizabeth. She's Cate Blanchett, she is wearing Givenchy, and the two together make her a goddess of pastels and perfection.





Look at this detailing!



I would love to own something as pristine as this Givenchy - I would dress up in it every night and my humble abode would become a femininely futuristic castle!

- C x

26TH FEBRUARY, 2011 ♥

Nothing rhymes with 'orange'.

So. I've neglected my blog for two months, well done me! All I can say to that really is "oops", and move on. It's hard to start fresh after such a long (and unplanned) hiatus, but it's a new year and new concepts have been fancied by my heart.

Also, it is summer, and I have an orange dress. I obtained it from ASOS ages ago, and stumbled across these photos just now.
That is all ;)

- C x

4TH DECEMBER 2010 ♥

Adelaide Fashion Festival.

Shock horror, I haven't posted here in almost a month! For this heinous crime I use the excuse "I was busy finishing my degree!" Boo-yah, I am now a certified Media Artist, (if that's the qualification one obtains from a Bachelor of Media Arts...) or at least I will be when I graduate next April.

In more exciting news, in the middle of November I volunteered at the Adelaide Fashion Festival! This year, the event had expanded to nine separate events held in different areas of the city, and was a huge success according to crowds and critics. I had never done anything like this before, but as I had experience working in theatre productions, I put myself down for a back-of-house role. This meant my job was to dress models backstage, which was the raddest job in the world! Here is some pictorial evidence of me in my very fashionable AFF T-shirt:



I worked at two parades, the first being the "Norwood Parades on the Parade" (an outdoor public fashion event), and the second being the "Chambord Emerging Designers Showcase". This event was the grand finale of the festival, so anyone who's anyone in Adelaide fashion was going to be in the audience that night. My role entailed choosing a model and her designated rack of clothes, familiarising myself with the beautiful items and the best and fastest methods to put them on, taping the shoes so they don't slip on the runway, and basically sending the model out in time to avoid a big gap on the catwalk!

It was a huge challenge to keep up with the fast pace, but the atmosphere back stage was amazing. I forgot I was a mere volunteer, feeling like an awesome stylist in NYC, or something similarly glamorous. The only thing I regret was not having a million hours to just stand there and absorb the fashion in that room. Alexis George, George Gross + Harry Who, Liza Emanuele and Oscar The Third were a few of the fashion heavyweights we were graced with in the form of gowns that night, not to mention the Mary Kyri shoes (oh and Mary herself, in the form of an endlessly-legged fireball!).

My model was Hannah, she was completely beautiful, sweet and about twenty feet tall. We worked together to pull off the following gorgeous ensembles.

Emerging Designers Parade:


Designer: Hayley Kate


Designer: Sainte Lucie


Designer: Yvonne Faye
Photograph by Caughtcouture.


Designer: Julie White
Photograph by Caughtcouture.

This outfit was one of my favourites, especially the gorgeous headpiece! I will always die for anything tulle. However this was the fastest change of the night - we had literally thirty seconds before Hannah's name was being yelled by the back-of-house manager, and she still wasn't dressed! This was in rehearsal, so we practised again and made the change a bit faster - luckily it went smoothly on the night. We didn't even have time to fasten the headpiece to her hair, so it had to balance as she walked!

Established Designers Parade:


Designer: Alexis George

This incredible gown was such a challenge to put on, it weighed a tonne and we weren't sure how to fix up the back! But it looked absolutely stunning on Hannah, purple headpiece and all. Hannah wore these white Mary Kyri shoes throughout the Established Designers parade, pretty sure they were about $5000! But despite their price tag, they were a little too small for her feet so we had to use extra strength to do up the buttons at the side, and her feet were dying by the end.

That Alexis George image was the only decent one I found of Hannah in the Established Designers parade, which is disappointing because I fell completely in love with a pair of Cameo dress shorts she wore on the night! They were gold, beaded, sequined and actually affordable, so I might have to somehow track them down.


Emerging Designer Winner:

Jaimie Sortino took out the Emerging Designer award for the night, which he was so deserving of! Jaimie is such a lovely guy, he was backstage the whole day with a needle and thread, sewing last minute touches onto his lavish tulle designs! His dresses were so beautiful in a kind of modern fairytale kind of way; they were such incredible, artfully detailed ballgowns. I also loved Jaimie's personal style, check out his shredded threads!


Photograph by Caughtcouture.


Photograph by Caughtcouture.


- C x