Chain of fools

Like anyone interested in fashion I'm a fan of Garance Dore's blog and her amazing photography. Recently I saw this post and fell in love with this bracelet ... which is not available yet and which will be out of my price range when it is, seeing as the most I usually spend on accessories (or anything) is about $10. So I thought I'd have a go at crocheting one instead. What do you think? And do you like the gratuitous use of Suki as a backdrop? The bracelet was a bit of trial and error so I'm not going to try to give the instructions in detail, but it wasn't exactly tricky. I used fairly fine cotton (from the Salvos of course!) and started off by making a ring that would fit around my middle finger out of chain stitch. I did a few rows of double crochet around that, then made the bit that joins the ring and the bracelet by doing rows and rows of double crochet (about 5 stitches across) before making another ring of chain stitches to fit around my wrist and doing rows of double crochet around that too... and that's it! It had been ages since I'd crocheted but it's so light and portable that I'll be doing it again soon, especially as this black bracelet was really just a practice run and I want to make one out of a metallic thread ... if I can find that in an op shop! Meanwhile, I thought I was doing pretty well until I saw this... which I'd love to make, but I think I'd better brush up on my skills a bit. I'll have to make sure I don't end up heading in this direction and use the craft for questionable purposes.....

19 steps to frustration

So the kimono book translation is over and the checking begins. The last chapter was probably the trickiest as it was the chapter on how to actually wear the kimono, as in, how to put one on. It's all broken up into steps illustrated by a smiling Japanese woman who has obviously done this sort of thing before, because otherwise she'd be bent over the instruction booklet with her eyes crossed like I've been doing while trying to work out what on earth the instructions mean and why anyone would even wear a garment that requires NINETEEN steps to put it on. And that's just for the kimono.
There are ten steps required (at least) to get the undergarments on, then the 19 for the kimono, then of course an obi is needed (TWENTY FIVE STEPS to tie a BASIC bow!?)... and this is not counting the footwear, hair styling and all those other bits and pieces that would go to creating the perfect Japanese outfit. I'm wondering whether the wearer then checks themselves into some sort of 12-step program (Kimono Lovers Anonymous?), because if I managed to get through all that I think even I would need a drink, and the most I usually order at a bar is cranberry juice!!
It's hardly surprising then that I choose to chop up kimono and obi and turn them into things that have ZIPS in them and require maybe only two steps to wear... by the way, the blue skirt is another version of the first skirt shown on this post... I put it up because Meghan said she likes peacock patterns and here at Fourth Daughter we aim to please! Or ..um.. *I* aim to please. Anyway, they were both made from obi but I think they were not traditional material, it's more likely they were made into obi to use for some sort of flashy costume and the material is therefore just western stuff, but I loved the pattern anyway. The other pictures are from Peppermint magazine... the black dress with yellow and orange flowers was one of the ones I jazzed up for the Dubai order (even though personally I think she was quite pretty enough without the extra bling!)

It's not my birthday...

...but this week I seem to be getting the presents. I got home the other day to find a little cardboard box waiting for me* with some fabulous printed African fabric in it (at least I assume it's African, even though it's Mount Fuji brand?? And apparently "superier quality". Not superiOr, superiEr). My friend Helen is in the UK but she's packing up her house so she's getting rid of a lot of stuff, and she knows I love STUFF, especially when it's ethnicky stuff, so we both win. Why is she packing up her house? The usual reason... to go flying across Europe with her boyfriend... in a plane that they are building themselves. As you do. **

Then on Tuesday I went shopping with another friend and we finally exchanged Christmas presents, so she scored a formfitting red See by Chloe top with beads that looks crap on someone lacking in rack (ie me) and I got a green ethnicky looking Zimmerman top that will be fabulous in the summer (I admit it was somewhat of an effort to take pics of it, as it was something like 10 degrees this morning, but I did have help from Suki and Kelly. And I was still wearing my pyjama pants so my legs didn't freeze). I piled on the jewellery ... do you like? I think the bronzey earrings were handmade as they're uneven, they sort of look like shells or some sort of metal won tons.... mmm won tons...
The necklaces are hard to see but they are from Morocco (red beads), Malaysia (animals) and the Salvos (silver and dark resin). Kelly's collar is red with little silver bones on it from a pet shop somewhere and Suki is her usual splendidly naked self, which is a real bonus as I never have to credit Gucci or Prada or whatever when I write about her.

On a less tangible but none the less valuable note, after realising that most of my jackets are various shades of blue, I got some amazing colour advice from someone who I don't even know but read me like a book anyway. Apparently the reason I have not been able to get a thing done creative-wise is because I wear too much blue and not enough red. However I think you should read the actual comment because it is crazily insightful and really resonated with me and therefore I am going to have to start making red stuff ASAP. I've never really been that into reading colours/auras etc (even though a close relative once tried a diet where she lay naked under a red lightbulb for hours and could only eat white food) but this made me think there might be something to it. Yeah, strange that the lightbulb incident didn't convince me, I know.

And .. to top things off.. my dad just said that sitting here talking to me was worth a million dollars. But I think he's slightly biased. He also said it would be worth a million dollars if he were able to get to the toilet unassisted, so I'll leave the inevitable comparisons to you.
Here I am at Buddha Day celebrations in Federation Square last week after writing a wish for his health on a green plastic leaf which apparently gets blessed by the nuns at the temple he used to go to. I'm not Buddhist (or anything actually) but he is so I thought he might like me to do it. I'm wearing the Akha jacket that I added silk lapels to, a leather skirt I chopped off to make into a mini (from the Salvos of course), a bag from an op shop and jewellery from Laos... as well as more op shop stuff... and Tshirt was something like $1 in India, it's what the men wear there as underwear and is probably totally unethical as well as being full of chemicals. Boo hiss.

*OK so it was not waiting for me all opened and in the middle of the garden, but hey, I'm allowed a bit of poetic licence!
** If anyone has suggestions for what Helen should take with her on this little jaunt, ie the most compact travel wardrobe ever, please drop by her blog and leave a comment.

Dark days

It seems to be a while since I did a fashiony sort of post, but after reading the post on Colette Patterns about sewing and wearing black outfits, I started thinking about the black garments I've made over the years. Strangely though, I found only one photo where I really am wearing all black. I made this very body-con dress about five years ago (time flies!) out of a pattern that I adapted from a jacket pattern that my ex made for me (I'll have to do a separate post about the different jackets I've made from this pattern later.. remind me if I forget!). In this pic I'm in my hotel room at fashion week in Stockholm, having just come back after a whirlwind op shopping tour (the necklaces are the spoils of victory). It's bizarre that I have so few photos where I'm wearing only black, because I am from MELBOURNE which is like the black-outfit capital of Australia and I do have many black things in my wardrobe. But I think it might be because I usually try to avoid dressing all in black as I think of it as a bit of a cop-out and I don't want to look like a typical Melburnian.
As you can see, even when I am wearing black (well, actually navy, but you can't tell) I like to jazz it up a bit... this was taken in a beautiful convent in Moscow where I went for fashion week in 2005, and was lucky enough to have a driver and interpreter at my disposal AND hang out with the indisputable queen of black, Diane Pernet (Tavi's post the other day reminded me that I had this pic and it fitted well with this post). It was somewhat surreal to be walking through a convent in the middle of winter and then come across Diane who happened to be there too... looking like a very stylish noir-loving nun!!

Kitty wrestling

Still at work on the translation... while checking out people's blogs, of course (I really need to focus!). My mind is so much in Japan recently what with reading all about kimono and other Japanese stuff, so just thought I'd put up this pic ... only in Japan would you see a grown man wheeling a Hello Kitty suitcase and wearing a Hello Kitty tshirt... on which is written "All Japan Pro-wrestling". At the gym I went to there were often huge wrestlers grunting away, lifting huge dumbbells and sweating everywhere... wearing Hello Kitty tshirts. Strangely I was never game enough to get a photo of them in action, but I snapped this guy on the street in Shibuya, probably on his way to a wrestling match!

The final chapter

I'm into the sixth week of a translating job and amazingly am on schedule... in fact today I got up to the final chapter. Yay! As it's a book about kimono I thought I'd just put up some old pictures of lovely kimono and obi fabric that I still have not used ... but will hopefully incorporate into some projects soon - once the book is out of the way! Suki was again very helpful while I was taking these pictures as she knows it's very important to secure any material that I'm photographing firmly to the ground. She also knows that I need constant supervision or I'm likely to go off and do something wild and zany, like work on a translation until midnight. Yep, wackiness is my middle name!

Pool hair

Not being able to run is doing my head in.* It's also doing my hair in, because I'm having to go swimming instead**, and as if I don't already have crap enough hair that is so fine I can't do anything with it, the chlorine and my can't-do attitude towards hair styling now combine to make it even more unmanageable. I had it cut on the weekend but it made little difference. Being half Asian, you'd think I'd have a thick, glossy, mane in a lustrous black, but no, I don't seem to have inherited THAT at all. Straight, shiny locks, anyone? "No thanks," said my cells. "We'd prefer slightly but not consistently wavy hair that frizzes out at the slightest hint of moisture but also somehow manages to cling limply to your skull."
So today's pose is somewhat of a display of multi-tasking... it hides my horrible hair while it also shows off this cute blouse by old-lady brand Dolina that I found for $7 at the op shop last week while I was waiting for my car tyres to be changed. Seeing as that operation took two hours I had time to kill and was forced*** to go through the op shop (THOUGHTFULLY LOCATED IN THE SAME SHOPPING CENTRE) for most of that time... and conveniently they had a huge $1 sale, so I also scored two dresses and some army pants. But this blouse was the most photogenic... it has red ruffles! And long cords at the neck that you can tie or leave dangling! And TASSELS!!! *swoon* My bracelets are also from op shops and were 50c each I think.

*I ran 15k recently for the first time in ages and my calf muscle decided that was just being too enthusiastic, so it went on strike. It's becoming good friends with Miss Physio.
**I have to work off stress somehow! Would be so much easier to take up drinking or smoking, but exercise is cheaper. The tightarse gene is also from the Asian side of the family.
***I made a beeline there as soon as I'd handed over my keys to Mr Beaurepaires.

Maternity mystery

I bet that's got your attention. However, no, I do not have any news to announce (in fact, if I did have news of that nature, it would REALLY be a mystery, especially to me ... I won't go into any more details but refer to the post where I mentioned that at the moment my cat - and only my cat - shares my bed). So getting back to the point... a few months ago, I was foraging in an op shop (nothing unusual there) and found this sewing pattern, which is for a skirt. But not just any skirt. The back of the packet says that it's for "ladies in waiting", which in today's elegant language translates as "being up the duff". I love all retro patterns including this one which looks to be from the 50s, but I can't for the life of me understand how it works. If it was made as a skirt to wear over something else, it would be weird, because you'd have a hole showing off your lump and highlighting what would have in those days been called your "condition". I think it's intended as an undergarment, from the pictures, but I can't really see the point if a normal skirt just gets worn over the top. Can anyone enlighten me on this one?

Bagging a bargain

I've been showing off my dresses a lot lately, so here's a break for anyone whose eyes are sick of the sight of me prancing around in the backyard! As part of a recent haul at the Salvos, I found these lovely leather handbags, one very obviously used, one still as new. They were $10 each which is a bit pricey for me, but as they were real leather, and as I'd seen this tooled leather one at the Camberwell market only recently for more like $50, I couldn't say no. I love the 70s feel of the tooled leather one, and the graduated tone of the other bag had me mystified as I thought someone must have left it sitting in the sun, resulting in part of the bag fading while the rest stayed a dark glossy brown - until my sister pointed out that the inside flap is the same. So that means this gradation was all planned... but it's a strange feature of this conservatively-shaped bag - I can't imagine an 80s businesswoman carrying this around to board meetings, plus, it would hardly have held a Filofax. Not that I can poke fun at people who carry too much crap around. As much as I love these bags, I doubt I'll get much use out of them, because it's a rare occasion when I don't need to haul my wallet, bottle of water, umbrella (it's Melbourne!!), sunglasses, book etc etc around, and they're unfortunately too small to handle all that. The perfect bag for all occasions that can fit all that crap in it and not cost a crazy amount of cash continues to elude me. I'll have to put up some more bag posts because while in Japan I nabbed some amazing ones that are meant to be used when wearing kimono and they are so beautiful!
I actually took these shots a few weeks ago... you might recognise the ferns and fungus ...

Vicarious cocktail hour

It's cocktail hour, but I don't drink, and I'm at home slaving away at my translation anyway, or I would be if I weren't writing a blog post. Woops! Anyway, for those of you lucky enough to be living it up out on the town, here's something you might like to wear... I made this ages ago out of an obi but didn't have a picture of it until now. It's very short 1) because I like mini-things and 2) because I had made another skirt and a dress to begin with and this little number was made from the leftover parts. Funnily enough, looking at the skirt that I made first, it looks the same length as the mini one that I've got on, but that's just because the model's legs are so long!
I used bits of other kimono as well for the dress to make the ruffles on the side and the skirt part - it's the bodice that was originally the main section of the obi.
When I was looking for the pictures I found some others from the shoot - yes, I actually got the lovely Gen Kay to shoot a few of my pieces while I was still living in Tokyo. Here's Gen snapping Rie around the corner from Nicole's apartment - Nicole lent us her lounge room so Rie, the model, could change.
I love this shot of Nicole being a bit bossy and telling us where to shoot. She's in her Yves Saint Laurent cape and carrying her Prada bag just scouting locations around the neighbourhood.... such a fashionista and the only person I know who has worn a YSL cape to go mountain climbing. Gen, Nicole and I used to hang out all the time in Tokyo when Gen was over for work... in fact I think I saw her more there than I do even though we're both living in Melbourne now!

Yay for yukata

Although I haven't had time to make any new pieces for my label for ages, I've been thinking a lot about kimono lately - mainly because I'm in the process of translating a book about kimono for a Japanese publishing company. Today, in between checking out completely unrelated blogs (dammit all you stylish ladies who like to sew! you're so distracting! you know who you are!) I managed to translate EIGHT WHOLE PAGES (*thunderous applause*) about yukata, or summer kimono. Despite living in Tokyo for nine years, I only ever wore a kimono once for a photo and nearly died as they are so restrictive - the Japanese version of an extremely tight corset, basically. I wore a yukata maybe twice in all that time - and once was only for a ridiculous party we had at work... every year the editor in chief's birthday was an excuse to dress up to a theme which was always ever so slightly tipped in a fetish direction (well, a Japanese fetish anyway as I doubt many western guys fantasise about women in yukata). Air hostesses, nurses, schoolgirls, and yukata were just some of the themes that I remember. Anyway, in celebration of my effort today, here are some very bad pictures from that party several years ago! I turned the obi that I was wearing into this skirt, which was too small to fit on my mannequin, hence the horrible picture and the fact that it remains unsold in my linen cupboard! You might be able to tell that cherries are woven into the material, which is a deep pinky orange colour... so beautiful. I did also manage to wear it in a picture for a local newspaper, along with a top I made even longer ago, but it's not easy to see in that shot either, especially at such low res!

Dresses for Dubai

Late last year a friend from Tokyo asked me to whip up some dresses for a new store he was helping with in Dubai, Valleydez. Of course it happened to be the busiest time of year at the office where I work on a casual basis, so I was working something like six days a week AND trying to get the dresses ready for shipping. They were something of a challenge as apparently the ladies in Dubai are obsessed with bling. Ironically, much of the time people say that my creations are a little bit too colourful for them (Melburnians especially, seeing as they've grown up on a diet of black, black and more black), so it was a novel experience having to actually add MORE colour and sparkle rather than trying to restrain myself. To be honest, the whole thing was a little overwhelming as I had to create/modify something like 12 pieces in a month, and I had to make them in sizes a lot larger than I usually do which meant I couldn't try them on myself and parade around in front of the mirror to see how they looked. Plus, I didn't have that much kimono or obi fabric just lying around so I had to launch a massive unpicking operation before I could start... (everything for my label, Fourth Daughter, is made from vintage kimono and obi)... just remembering it is bringing on a headache as I prefer to work more organically (artistic euphemism for being a slacker). As a result, the photos I took of the pieces before frantically wrapping them up for their long voyage don't do them justice, but here they are anyway! Thanks must go to Suki, who offered handy sewing and styling tips as I worked and helpfully acted as a paperweight by sitting on the patterns to .. um.. prevent them being blown away by the tornado-like winds that regularly whip through my lounge room. I just hope the girls in Dubai don't mind a bit of cat fur on their party outfits! It's an accessory that I am never without (not always by choice though)!

Fourth Daughter retrospective

Talking myself up is something I am extremely bad at, as I was reminded today when I was asked to prepare for a little informal presentation to the Social Studio at the end of June. I'm going to be talking about working at Vogue Nippon in Tokyo, the Fair Trade project I did with People Tree, kimono and my label Fourth Daughter, sustainable fashion and generally a whole lot of other stuff which I realise I have not mentioned at all on this blog yet ... and which is too much to cover in one post.
This is the sort of stuff I'm actually trying to get organised to put up on my website, which is currently under construction (read: am still scanning stuff from Vogue etc to upload in a half-arsed fashion when I have five minutes in between writing articles, translating books and playing with my cat... hmm, which of those is most important? I'll leave that up to you to guess).
Anyway, I had to send some pictures of my dresses to the moderator of the talk so that it can be promoted to all those people out there who want to listen to me crap on for about half an hour, and found a few shots that I thought I'd share... really need to get on to making dresses again but the deadline for my translation is looming so I'll have to blatantly flog my talents at a later date. The magazine shots are of a model and Mischa Barton in my label, and the other two shots are (extremely obviously) not a model, as they are ME.
I wore the green dress to the Cox Plate last year and I could have won a bet if I'd ignored the horses and instead put my money on the fact that I had the least expensive and greenest outfit on the field in both senses of the word...
Dress - made from recycled kimono which cost maybe $5 in Tokyo and is HAND DYED in the shibori technique... felt like a criminal cutting it up, but otherwise I would have had to go to the races naked, and I think that would have been more of a crime. Hat and belt - I made both myself from a straw hat from the Salvos, $3, handbag was $1 from an op shop in Tokyo and I coloured it in myself with fabric textas, earrings also from an op shop, gloves $7 or so from the Salvos, and shoes from Nicole when she was having a crazy spring clean (probably to make way for new Balenciaga heels or something equally fancy!)... so that's a grand total of about ... well under $20 anyway!! It comes close to being my cheapest outfit, probably. What's the least you've ever spent on a whole outfit, I'd be interested to know...