Foxy fashion

The first night of Fashion Week went off with a bang (or a bark?) at the Fox FM show at the Forum Theatre last night... you can see official photos here - I have to admit I really did not see much of the show at all, but did manage to take some blurry backstage shots in between jamming shoes onto models' feet and straightening headpieces and just generally panicking but having a great time. There were three main parts to the show, swimwear, evening wear, and race wear, with bits by the Fox FM presenters and competition winners in between.

One of the presenters decided she needed a dog to accessorise every look, so one of the most important roles backstage was that of dog minder, which fell to Dawid from Arts Events Australasia... probably not exactly what he signed up for, but he wasn't exactly complaining (note to any men who want to attract fawning supermodels - carry around a chihuahua in a handbag and you'll be beating them off with a stick!)

Here are Kaye, Genevieve and Ivana in some fabulous hats by Kim Fletcher... great inspiration for the Spring Racing Carnival!

I think the listeners who attended the show had a great time - we could hear a fair bit of cheering and screaming, funnily enough whenever the male models walked out, I can't think why!?

Anyone who watched Australia's Next Top Model a few years ago would remember the beautiful Amazonian Alice Burdeu... here she is in all her glory with her dresser, Emma, another gorgeous redhead...

... and with Lulu, another model (der!)

I arrived home after the show to find this little supermodel sleeping in my bed... the most beautiful of them all...

Sneak peek at Melbourne Spring Fashion Week

... so as I mentioned in the last post, Spring Fashion Week is upon us here in Melbourne, and I've been booked solid for the past few days helping stylist Franco Schifilliti with the Fox FM fashion show which is at the Forum tomorrow night. So far we've run around choosing and picking up clothes, had fittings with the Fox FM personalities (including Hamish and Andy, who were gorgeous, hilarious and lovely...), styled and accessorised all the looks and done model fittings. Tomorrow is going to be a long, but fun day!!
Tuesday is a busy one too as I have to return all the looks from the show and then there's a gala dinner and fashion show by The Social Studio which I only found out I was going to yesterday... as it's a bit of a fancy event it's the perfect excuse for a lovely long dress and I would have loved to have made a new red one but I don't have the time or material so have dug out one I bought for 5 Euro at a flea market in Paris... here's a sneak peek... along with a bamboo chair I bought at the Mornington Antique Centre recently.
As well as these two big events, the Green is the New Black exhibition is on all week and I've got some dresses in it, I'd love you to check it out if you're in town! The dresses are also going to be in the fashion show at the cocktail party on Wednesday night... I'm getting dressed up for that too!
Whew, I feel like a very busy Cinderella and the week hasn't even begun yet! It's fabulous to get back into the swing of the fashion thing though!

Spring fling with ex-boyfriend jeans

Can you believe it? It's nearly Spring Fashion Week here in Melbourne! And how do I know that? Because, in true Melbourne style, it's been freezing and pouring with rain for the past week. I happily admit that the pictures in this post are ones I prepared much, much earlier when the shopping centre newsletter I sometimes write for asked me to do a short piece on denim with a cheesy photo to accompany the piece (well they didn't specify that it had to be cheesy, but unfortunately most of my shots turn out that way!). I thought the jeans I wore for the newsletter shots should be fairly generic, but then got the urge to let loose a bit and show you my most reaction-inspiring pair which are these vintage Lee flares which belonged to my ex years back in Tokyo. He likes fiddling with fashion too and unpicked the ENTIRE inside leg seam to insert this gold fringing.

He also had to put a cloth patch (like one of those souvenir ones travellers sew onto their backpacks) on the butt because it's wearing thin, but I forgot to take shots of that so you'll just have to imagine it. The patch I mean, not my butt. At this stage I'm sure you're thinking that he remade these jeans with tender loving care just for me, but you'd be wrong. He made them for himself before we even met. Yes, he wore them, ie we are the same size. In fact some of my jeans were a bit too big for him. Scary, but true. However as soon as he saw how much better these looked on me, he relinquished them, which was, I'm sure you'll agree, the only sensible thing to do.

In these pics I'm trying to stop Kelly jumping all over me as whenever I head outside to take photos she thinks that I want to play or take shots of her... which is what I end up doing.

I'm wearing a $4 batik t-shirt from Savers (yes, more batik), $1 earrings from Bunkaya Zakkaten, heels from an op shop in Japan (that don't go with these jeans at all... I can really see that now!!) and a bag from the Salvos which I had to reconfigure as the strap arrangement was really uncomfortable ... you can see a "before" pic here (more gratuitous cat photos) where the strap fastens to the bottom of the bag and forces you to carry it behind you rather than to your side - I removed it from that metal loop using pliers and now just carry the bag like a bucket with straps.

I'm backdating this post - and probably some to come in the next few days - as suddenly there's a lot on my social calendar and otherwise I won't be able to fit it all in!! How about you, what does spring bring to your schedule?

Jewellery heaven

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm in love with ethnic jewellery. So it was not exactly a hardship for me to attend Alafia gallery (121 Ormond Road, Elwood, Victoria) last night to celebrate the arrival in store of jewellery by Ousmane Macina - a Fulani artisan from Mali whose family has been jewellery makers for generations - thanks to an invitation from the Moral Fairground team.

This is Ousmane, obligingly showing off some of his fabulous earrings, but thanks to my poor photography you can't really see them so well...sorry Ousmane!!
One of the lovely staff at the gallery was wearing some too...

...and then there's this photo. This very cool lady was unfortunately not present - I found this picture from a random site .

There weren't any earrings quite this big at the launch, although the same design is offered in smaller versions in both gold and silver (plus I think you get these little bags in amazing prints to keep them in!).

According to Ousmane, on special occasions the women poke these earrings through the holes in their ears and then wrap lots of red thread around the posts, I think to stop them falling out or maybe just as decoration... you can see what I mean in these photos which are from a book that was at the gallery and which I would love to own (although not as much as I'd love to own the earrings!)... stupidly I did not write down the title of the book!

I am in love with this look but unfortunately my accessories budget does not stretch quite far enough to afford anything from the range at this stage* - and my earlobes would have to stretch too if I were to wear earrings like these!
I started off my jewellery-wearing days vowing to avoid getting my ears pierced, partly because I'm a wuss but also because if they were pierced, I would be tempted to buy lots of earrings. Unfortunately this logic has not got me very far, as despite intact ears, I possess upwards of 80 pairs of clip-ons, including some which cost only $1 and earnt me lots of compliments at the gallery, including from this beautiful lady - of course I immediately complimented her right back, how could I not when she is wearing such a fabulous necklace (again, sorry for the crappy photo!)!

Anyway, back to the gallery... these are some of the other beautiful things that Ousmane and his workshop staff have made.

Pendant heads in silver.

A bangle made from pearls.

A filligree bangle, hair barrettes in wood with inlaid silver, and a great big silver cowrie shell, as cowrie shells were once used as currency in Mali...


All the jewellery was made using traditional techniques which were fascinating to hear about - these latticey earrings were made by wrapping silver around carved bits of wood and then burning the wood until it turns to ash and only the earring is left.

Rather time consuming, but such a beautiful result (although of course I would love them more if they were about 10 times bigger!).

Alafia is really worth a look, there's some gorgeous stuff there - if you manage to make it past Ousmane's work check out the galleries at the back and upstairs, with fantastic textiles, homewares and art like these pieces.




*Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that the jewellery was expensive, most things I liked were around the $600 mark, but given the work and materials involved, that's probably still a bargain!

Show and tell time

When even your tiny little geriatric cat can't find her way under your bed due to all the crap under there, you know it's time to clean up. Although admittedly sometimes I like to "clean up" just so I can dig out some of the stuff I've kept since I was little or acquired at flea markets, op shops and so on and admire it again, sort of like my own personal stocktake. I like the juxtaposition of junk from every period in my life, and now you get to look at it too! Could you BE any luckier!?

This is an old chipped lacquered bento box from a flea market in Tokyo that I now use as a jewellery box for some of my earrings.

The little ladies with bobbly heads are from.. um.. who knows, I've had them ever since I can remember.

And here are two old cats... Suki's 18 and Sam must be about 33 as I've had him since I was a toddler. I hugged him so much that his whiskers are all squashed all over his nose. I'd do the same to Suki but she has only just started to tolerate cuddles. She's either a bit of a late bloomer, or is just getting too old to be bothered wriggling.

Some Chinese picture books from when my dad thought he could teach me Chinese. I love the graphics, even though they're probably direct rip offs of Dick Bruna.

Retro-kitschy red porcelain cats from an op shop with a Japanese Vogue beauty supplement as the backdrop.

More kitsch-cute graphics on a bead kit from China that I've had since I was 8 or so and still haven't used... what do you mean, I'm a procrastinator!?

And this has nothing to do with anything, but I seem to have lost a follower.. Clare from Lucky Mia, where are you? You and your blog seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth and I'm worried!

Vogue patterns model.. or Australia's PM??

Is it just me or does the model for this pattern bear a striking resemblance to Julia Gillard!?

This pattern has been sitting around on my shelf for ages... I just hope I'm not going to dig up any patterns with Tony Abbott on the cover because we all know what he would be modelling...

Cheapest dress EVER

OK people, place your bets, how low do you think I can go? 100 yen - about $1AUD - sound about right to you? That's how much I paid for this dress at my local op shop when I was living in Tokyo a few years ago. Admittedly I did have to fiddle with it a bit - we'd just shot some Russian fashion feature at work and had some ribbon left over which I promptly purloined (great word!) and used as a trim around the hem and to decorate the yoke.

I also added the red cord ties at the neckline, which you can see a bit better here, along with the brooch I attached to a chain to wear as a necklace and some earrings that cost $2 in Turkey.
Oh, and I'm also wearing the dress back to front, having shortened it a bit, and removed the shoulder pads. Hmm, in fact quite a bit of fiddling. But fiddling and I get on like a house on fire.
The bangles? The big fat one (that's not rude to the bangle, it IS big and fat!) was 50 yen at a flea market, the chain and baubly one in the middle was given to me by the now editor in chief at Vogue Nippon as she was tired of it (her loss!) and the red ones are made of glass and were a present from a lovely friend. I really just did this close up shot to show off the beautiful camellias.


Notice the way my dog perfectly matches this outfit... I'm all about my pets not clashing with my clothes!

So what's the cheapest garment you've ever bought? I've asked a similar question before and I'll no doubt ask it again because I'm just so kechi! (that's tight-arse in Japanese!)
And anyway, who doesn't like showing off to others about how little they spent on something fabulous??

Leaf love

Just a short one today - aren't these earrings gorgeous? I found them at Savers for the princely (or princessly) sum of $4.99. Normally I'd think "$4.99 for earrings! They've got to be joking", but seeing as I had a birthday voucher to use, I didn't worry so much. I think they're meant to be tiny acorns with diamonds* but the leaves are not oak leaves, so hmm.. maybe some sort of berry? Anyway, despite botanical inaccuracy, they are very sweet, wouldn't you agree?
(More jewellery-and-nature shots here)

*OK, probably NOT real diamonds. But who can tell!?

Stud-ying punk style

Now I'd hardly call myself a label snob - as a hardened op shopper it's not like I can refuse to wear things just because they're not from Gucci or Prada. If that were the case, I'd be walking around naked (probably not an image you really want over breakfast). But that doesn't mean I don't have a bit of label pride.


Recently I found these black leather boots for about $9 at the Salvos, which was pretty exciting, except that they have "WILD LOON" embossed on their sides.
Complete with a picture of a waterbird, to show that they are in fact talking about a BIRD called a loon, and not just some crazy person who has gone wild.



I could see potential in these boots as they were comfy to walk in, plus I like an excuse to fiddle with things, so even though WILD LOON was hardly the glamorous image I wanted to project, I went ahead and bought them. They have been sitting around waiting for me to work my magic on them for some time (since May, in fact, as I bought them at the same time as I bought these bags... aggh that's THREE MONTHS AGO), but I can now present to you the result of my brainstorming.
You may recall I bought a few offcuts of leather for a jacket recently... well, apart from buying purple scraps, I also bought black, and cut them into strips which I wrapped around the boots in a random sort of fashion (as long as they covered the loon logo, I was happy!), joining pieces using metal studs that I simply poked through the layers of leather as I was going for a bit of a punk effect. The studs have two flat prongs which I bent flat at the back of the leather (yes, I realise I should probably have taken a picture of this as it's hard to understand. I was actually told to cut slits in the leather using a scalpel to poke the prongs through, but in true punk spirit I ignored this advice. Anarchy, YEAH).


Of course I used studs as decoration too, not just to join the strips.
Part of the reason it took me so long to do anything about these boots was that I couldn't find studs ANYWHERE (and I am talking about the metal decorative kind, not the male variety which are even more elusive and are definitely NOT available at Lincraft). Finally my sister suggested a scary basement store selling heavy metal gear, bongs, and other such items of which I would normally never have any need... and lo and behold, they sold studs galore. $9 later (the studs I bought were 15c each) I had my stash and completed my punk project while watching TV over a few nights. And then I was ready to fight the system, take on the world, sock it to the man and all that stuff that punks do. But first I had a trivia night to wear them to. Could I BE any more punk?? Next thing you know I'll be rocking a mohawk at the local bowls club.

Boy oh boy

While I sometimes bemoan my lack of feminine charms I will admit that sometimes it is handy not to have much going on in the bust or a butt area. I was reminded of this as I finished my shower after a long swimming session yesterday and went to dry myself, only to remember that I had left my towel in the laundry ... ie it was not in my swimming bag. At all. Now if my cups had runneth over, this would have presented something of a problem, but as I'm a cup-not-even-a quarter-full kind of gal, I simply got out my handkerchief and dried my entire self with that. And let me tell you, the hanky wasn't even very big. Sigh.

Oh, and another good thing about having the body of a 12-year-old boy is that I can wear 12-year-old boy jackets that I find at op shops for $2.50.
Like this one, which has a Sears label on it indicating it is for boys of age 12. Not for women in their 30s. But if you don't tell them, I won't either.