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Every six months, Japanese commit koromogae. Unlike harakiri, koromogae does not tend to result in death, unless the person committing it is smothered under a pile of their own clothes. This is actually not hard to imagine in a trend-driven town like Tokyo.
For the uninitiated (or non-Japanese speakers among you), koromogae is a custom involving exchanging the contents of your summer wardrobe for your winter one, or vice versa. In Japan, due either to the inherent lack of space in people's tiny apartments, or thanks to their obsession with shopping, it's just not possible to keep a whole year's worth of outfits in the one cupboard, so half the clothes get stuffed into boxes and shoved to the back of the wardrobe until they are required again in six months' time. While living in Tokyo I acquired this custom and thanks to my obsession with buying crap in op shops, am forced to continue it even though I am now living in Melbourne. So, on a Friday night two weeks ago when I judged the weather to be turning steadily cooler, I committed koromogae to prepare for winter.
Big mistake, as it is every time I do it.
Of course, being Melbourne, the weather started heating up as soon as I'd sealed the lid on all my summer clothes, and I had to make the choice of either cracking open the vault to get at my warm weather gear or sweating in the Indian summer-style temperatures in my winter outfits. Anyway, as of today it looks like we're finally on our way to winter, so I can relax for another six months... maybe.
This is me, saying goodbye to summer...
Dress - $7 from Savers (originall
y with a collar which I removed)
Bangles - malachite ones from Cape Town, resin one from somewhere in India
Earrings - $2 from Savers (they only LOOK like slabs of rock, they are actually resin and very light and comfortable)
Chunky turquoise necklace - generous gift from Nepal
Strands of turquoise - lots of shorter necklaces which I joined together to make a long one, from somewhere in IndiaSad expression - from the knowledge that I'm not going to be able to wear this sort of tropical outfit for half a year.
If you've had enough time on your hands to be idly perusing this blog, then 1), you probably have less of a life than me, and 2), you probably will have noticed a recurring thread, ie I LOVE ETHNIC STUFF. Most of the time, though, I don't like to wear it in its original state, partly because then it would look like I'm playing dress-ups but also because I have the (bad?) habit of NOT BEING ABLE TO LEAVE STUFF ALONE. I got this dress from a friend's friend who couldn't work out what to do with it but knew how much I love fiddling with stuff (she also bought me a silk skirt for $1 which I'm yet to attack). I'm fairly sure it's from somewhere in south-east Asia, like one of the hill tribes in Thailand, as I have a top from there that's fairly similar (and is also waiting to be fiddled with). Anyway, here are the before/after shots - it was originally like a long tunic covered in embroidery and fringing, and I made it shorter, fitted the top section, put a zip in the back and plaited the fringing so that it wouldn't keep getting into my food/eyes/stuck in zips and car doors. The studded belt was from the Salvos for $3 and my heels were 
Lanvin from an op shop in Japan something like a million years ago. Earrings from a very un-PC accessory shop that was closing down, so they were like $1 or something. 
If I could train these little visitors to my garden I would have got them to sit on my shoulder to add colour and make me look like I was in some exotic tropical locale the way Julianne Moore is doing in this amazing Bulgari campaign*, but although they're very happy to stare at me through the window and bash on it to demand food when I'm doing the washing up, they're not so into modelling.*Although I adore this photo, it also cracks me up a bit that these sulphur crested cockatoos are meant to be exotic, because we have up to 20 of them flying around outside or 
chewing up the pergola nearly every day!!
Back in the day when I was working in the fashion industry in Tokyo, it was nothing unusual for me to be wined and dined while enjoying exclusive entertainment such as THE Grace Jones in song at a Louis Vuitton party, Phoenix performing at a Dior Homme event that guests were bussed to in special charter vehicles and Dita Von Teese teasing us all with a burlesque routine at a lingerie launch. But having come crashing back to earth on my move back to Melbourne, evening entertainment is more likely to entail a DVD and a cuddle with my cat. Nevertheless, the other night I did venture out to mingle with the cool folk at the launch of No Studio, a space for up and coming artists, hidden away in Melbourne Central. Foolishly, I forgot to record this rare event, but fortunately there's some pictures I prepared earlier for your viewing pleasure, snapped when I was shown around the studio earlier in the week by the lovely Jeremy Ley. I was writing an article for the Living Melbourne magazine and the associated blog, 
which I'll link to once it's up. I'm not up on what's happening in the art world ex
actly, but I did like the work by Cat Rabbit and Eveline.
Many months ago fate was kind to me at one of my favourite op shops. Just as I was about to leave empty handed, one of the staff started bringing stuff out from the back room to be hung on racks around the store... and that's when I, like an eagle with a sixth sense for traditional costumes, swooped... it must have been "clean out your wardrobe" week in various multicultural communities, as I found an Indian top with embroidery and sequins all over the front and lacing up the back (which I removed before thinking of taking this photo and was too lazy to put back in) as well as a red embroidered dress which I think is Afghan and will definitely be appearing in a later post, once I fix it... and they were both only something like $7 (which, admittedly is a bit expensive by my standards, but I'm a sucker for embroidery and beading work and anything ethnic-ky). It's taken me ages to finally get around to altering the Indian top but after a lot of seam-shifting (no cutting involved) and trying to get the sleeves to look right, I came up with this. Not my bes
t photo, but you get the vague idea hopefully... I would never normally consider wearing this colour but could not resist all the decoration on the front of the top, so just had to grit my teeth and go for it... I'm wearing it with earrings that cost about $1 from Bunkaya Zakkaten in Tokyo (to which I will have to devote a post some other time) and my $1 Amco pants which I have been loving during this crazy warm weather (climate change naysayers, when was the last time it got to 27 degrees in the middle of April?! Hello??!) and wondering how I ever managed without. Definitely $1 well spent.
It's such lovely weather this week but instead of fiddling around with my camera outside I'm stuck indoors thanks to scoring a translating job that has to be done by June. It's 128 pages long and I've done maybe 30 pages?? Plus I have an interview that I have to write up for Peppermint. So of course what am I doing? Blogging. Despite the fact that I don't have much to say, or a huge fanbase who must be sated regularly. Meh. Actually I do have a fair bit I want to post about but I really do need to stop faffing about, so today I'm just putting up a picture of some objets (a fancy French word for "stuff that doesn't actually have a function but looks pretty") on my sewing table. The cats were from a flea market in Japan, I had to buy both of them as I didn't want them to be lonely (yah, they're porcelain but who's to say they don't have feelings?). They're sitting on the base of a basket that I made myself at a basket weaving class where I discovered that weaving a basket takes a really long time and anyway, it looks good as a placematty thing for the cats, so it's staying that way. Behind them is the lid of a tin that I bought at Camberwell market on the Easter weekend. Even I am a bit mystified as to why anyone would buy just the lid of a tin, but it was 50c and I love the picture. The woman selling it reckoned it was really old and had been in her family for ages and the tin itself had rusted away to nothing. I said it was beautiful and she agreed and said she loved it. So I have no idea why she was selling it but hey, her loss.
Anyway it looks good behind the cats, and they seem happy, but I'll have to be careful next time I use my overlocker as the vibration always makes the cats jiggle around - one minute they're all friendly with each other and the next they're back to back as if they're about to have a fight like in a western movie - so who knows what could happen once this lid is added in to the equation. Potentially a formula for smashed porcelain cats.
A short but sweet post... here's yet another beautiful distraction, thanks to Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing... you'll have to click through to see what I'm talking about as I don't have the time for putting up pics, and wouldn't be able to decide which to use as they are all gorgeous, no doubt, but I promise it's worth it! Go on, I promise it's not dodgy porn!!
It's not often that I happen to be wandering around in the garden first thing in the morning, but on this dewy day in early autumn it was fascinating to see all the little changes taking place as nature gets ready for the big chill. Some animals and insects need to store up body fat so that they can make it through the winter, for instance. Look what I found feasting on the geraniums! Alright... so it's actually a Givenchy earring that just happens to look like a snail... just like these other earrings which are like a bigger, fancier snail...
And then, above a huge outcrop of orange fungus, there's this rare variety of fern with beautiful red berries like currants dangling from it... otherwise known as "
earrings that were a birthday present from Nicole".
There's so much amazing fungus growing in the backyard at the moment. In fact, I shouldn't be complaining about being single when there's fungi just outside my door. OK, so bad puns aside, this really was a beautiful little landscape just begging to be photographed. It looks like a fungi version of a rockpool... and these golden leaves with sapphire-esque jewels in the centre have just fallen in there, because of course there's a tree next to the roc
kpool which grows these leaves. In my fantasies, at least. In reality, these earrings are also from Nicole, who does actually do things apart from buy jewellery for me, it just doesn't look like it! ...Getting back to the earring tree idea though... how fabulous would it be if you could just walk into your garden and just pluck a beautiful pair of earrings from a tree like a plum? Until those smartypants get around to inventing such botanical necessities though, I'll just have to keep on rummaging through the op shops and markets... and keep being friends with Nicole!!
Aah, the internet. Don't you love how one minute you can be deep in serious research for an article you're meant to be writing and the next your blood pressure is sky-high as you frantically search eBay for boots which you never even knew 
existed until you stumbled on them by following (completely unrelated) links. Yes, thanks to the internet I'm now obsessed with these valenki boots which I had never heard of until yesterday when I was researching something for the next issue of Peppermint. They're made of felt and as far as I can tell, you can wear them around the house without the rubber galoshes part, like a Russian version of Ugg boots, or slip on the rubber covering for when you have to go out. Crafty people like to decorate them too, which is sometimes good, sometimes .. not so good. I think I'll stick with the fairly plain ones, although even that decision's tough, and there's only black or brown to choose from. I love the way the brown pair look sort of like little goat legs, but it's not every day you want to look like a goat, eve
n a really cute goat. So maybe the black? And as if to illustrate my point about the internet feeding my ADD and taking up my time, I've just spent 10 minutes looking for goat pictures and am now dreaming of creating a whole outfit inspired by these cute kids. They look like little supermodels with their perky tails and high heels!!
Just last week I was swanning around in shorts, but the weather today makes me want to dive back under the doona. It's not always practical to carry your doona around with you, so last year I (or my alter-ego in Peppermint magazine, Little Miss Sew'nSew) came up with this super-cute solution to winter style woes. It's a hood made out of an old jumper, with bonus arm-warmers! And note the pom poms which I made out of the leftover bits of wool unravelled from the jumper. The hood in itself is sweet, but the Peppermint team never fail to impress me with their gorgeous layouts which make my creations look even better (yes, hard to believe they could look better, I know, but somehow Peppermint manage this challenge!)
The taste of freedom was one to savour on my first Sunday away from the office for months over the Easter break. What was I to do with an entire selfish day to enjoy? There are those who would have slept in until midday, but knowing there were bargains out there calling my name*, I could not rest, and made the trek to Camberwell market with a wallet full of coins just waiting to be exchanged for MORE STUFF. I have to say my haul was minimal and I purchased one item which I now regret, but at $10 it's not something that is going to cause me sleepless nights. (It was a grey bag that I thought was leather, but turned out to be vinyl. Such a disappointment, but the psychological scars are healing. Slowly). Anyway I was happy to find this turban headdress which probably was made for some sort of Indonesian performance, as it's a batik material. It's quite possibly sacrilege for a female to wear it as I'm guessing it's male headgear, but for my purposes (ie, displaying alongside other gloriously ethnic artefacts and using it to add styling interest to outfits which will probably never be worn outside my own backyard) 
it's not a problem. I'm wearing it with tigereye and turquoise necklaces, a cuff I bought in Turkey but which is probably from one of the Stan countries (as in Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, or the less well-known Aberglenistan) and a bracelet (actually probably a shirtsleeve thingy like what bankers wear in old movies) which is stretchy but instead of using elastic, employs ingenious engineering with tiny springs inside each separate "bead". Also earrings from Laos - well the bulky silver ball part is anyway. As I don't have my ears pierced I had to loop them through clip-on earrings which were a lucky present from the fabulous Nicole who is the source of many of my most prized accessories. I'm going to do a post just about all the amazing stuff she's given me over the years, although the sheer volume nearly warrants a separate blog. And the clothes? The grey singlet is from a Balenciaga collection ages ago and was a generous gift from the lovely Avi when he grew out of it. And underneath it, a navy Esprit singlet from about a billion years ago when I was still in high school!! Which makes it vintage, no?
*Also known as "crap that no one else would ever even consider actually paying money for".
So I know you're all dying to know what happened to the pants I bought for $1. I'd firstly like to say, if you ARE dying to find out about them, you seriously need to get a life. But it's hardly for me to tell you to get a life, seeing as I spent about an hour fiddling around in the garden trying to get a decent shot of them. It's a bit hard to see, but basically I tapered the legs and took them up to a few centimetres above the ankle. I wore this outfit (minus the turban) to dinner the other night and a total stranger (unfortunately not the young, hot, available variety - think more along the lines of a kindly middle-aged American tourist) came up and complimented me on my use of colour. In a city which loves its black, I suppose I did stand out a little bit.
Here's a close up of my top 
half for anyone who's still reading... I love to mix stuff up, as you can see...
Indian tie-dyed scarf worn as a turban from Savers, chunky turquoise necklace from Nepal, red bead necklace with pink tassels - I made it from beads bought in India for about $1 all up I think, and pink wool bought at an op shop. Blue jacket was about $8 from Salvos and I think it was probably made as the top half of an Asian-style suit (think Singapore airlines) as the pattern on the fabric seems Thai to me, but I love that it's so fitted and sort of looks a bit African too (in my imagination anyway. Apologies to any Africans, or indeed persons of any nationality who are reading this and thinking "say what!").
Bangles are from India and Laos. Silver ring with a cat's eye stone in it is from India, prescribed to me by a fortune teller who said it would bring me motivation. This is yet to happen, unless you count being motivated to write a blog about the contents of my wardrobe instead of doing some serious work, in which case the ring is extremely effective. Other ring which you can't see has a bamboo sort of pattern and is from Turkey. Pants, of course from the Brotherhood of St Laurence. Did I mention they were ONE DOLLAR? Shoes for $10, by Gap.
Don't you love it when something you see every day is cast in a new light? This happened in a very literal sense the other day when I noticed this beautiful shadow against my wall. I'm not usually home in the afternoon so it was a treat to see the subtle patterns working as a backdrop to my beloved collection of jewellery boxes and Japanese chests. The print of a woman with magnificent eyebrows and a white cat (obscured by the big round box) is by Junichi Nakahara. There is a tiny shop in Hiro-o in Tokyo selling his prints which I used to have to make a big effort to circumvent every time I went to yoga ... so much gorgeously kitsch stuff. The other print is of a cat admiring a peony which is ridiculously out of proportion, but I love it. I think it's from an old calendar. The theme colour here is overwhelmingly burnt orange, a shade which I used to hate but which I came to love while I was in Japan as it is so often used for laquerware there.
y with a collar which I removed)
