Fashion Worlds

Bird Band

Fashionworlds is definitely winding down, kind of organically - I had an unintentional break for a few weeks.
In other news, I bought this Charm School Design headband on Etsy this week. I added the flowers either side to the bird to give it some oomph...

SUPER SAMPLE SALE - friedrich gray et al.

Oh, to live in Sydney....

 

Sass & Bide Warehouse Sale

Shopping expedition

Last week I was riding home from dinner in town with girls, meandering through the streets on my bike. I was going past the building that is my secret fantasy studio ( I don't want to say exactly which one) when I saw a couple of tucked away little stores I'd never seen before. It was about 10pm, I couldn't stop to investigate so a couple of days later I went back at a more reasonable hour to take a peek. What I found was two very cute shops and a divine-looking restaurant. On the ground floor we had Miss Mouse, a little clothing store carrying labels like Cohen et Sabine, Peep Toe shoes, what looked to be some great vintage pieces scattered throughout and a fantastic array of scented candles and fragrances. The space itself was lovely, old stripped wood floors and some very cute displays. Upstairs from Miss Mouse is Nesting Bird interiors, where in the light-filled rooms I fell in love with everything and treated myself to some entirely unnecessary but divine treats- yummy smelling 'Billie Goat' soap and a...taxidermied butterfly in bell jar (?) made by a local guy..

 

The restaurant was fully booked so we couldn't stop there, but I think it is called Pearl. I am not 100% sure of the addresses but I'm guessing if you go to...oh let's say around 20 Logan Rd Brisbane, you won't be far off the mark.

Melbourne adventures....

In the whirlwind of arriving home and freaking out over beginning production I completely forgot about posting about my trip in general. I have a love/hate relationship with travel, or more specifically, being somewhere other than home. After a while, I just want to be back in my normal life, especially when said trip is involving organising something exciting that I can't wait to get back and begin...

Those close to me know I am a hoarder/packrat, whatever you want to call it. I'm not as bad as some, but you wouldn't call me low maintenence when it comes to how much I own (or come house-moving time). I have what I call a 'wardrobe archive', which is what I call the bags and bags of clothes I'm not wearing right now that are stored around the house because I got sick of berating myself for getting rid of them. Inevitably, a few years down the track I would be SO ANNOYED I'd thrown out that item and have to acquire another one. Someday I hope to have a closet the size of a small aircraft hangar to accommodate what in a few years time may be a massive amount of clothing. For now I just have to content myself with the wardrobe in my dressing room (and the one in the bedroom, and the one in the bf's study....).
So yeah, I have a bit of stuff. In my workroom, I have rolls of fabric, boxes of threads, zips, ribbons and tapes, rolls of paper, drawers of fabric sample cards, look books, textbooks and tubes of paint. An overflowing bookcase two books deep.
So where that leads me is to say I'm very comfortable in my home (where my studio is). If I had my way, I would always work at home (though I have come to find that a large amount of isolation is not good for my brain - when I get around people again I tend to have a hard time getting out of myself without the aid of a dark pair of sunglasses).
However - my trip to Melbourne was hugely enjoyable. I got to see my best friend for the first time since she had moved down there and spend time with her and her bf in my favourite city.
We did the usual shopping (Camberwell markets was the highlight-I needed an extra piece of luggage for the trip home), as well as a bit of art (more on this coming up) and a bit of ....adventuring...involving a derelict house.

Matt, Jazzy and China

My new do

 Skull Power- Horn Ring from Camberwell Markets

 Graffiti Bunny (spray painted and etched) in Katoomba Hotel Room

 Entrance to Scary House

Back of Scary House

 

Scary House Backyard

 Scary Backyard Chair

So I don't incriminate anyone else, I won't say who came with me into Scary House, but the story goes like this:I have a radar for empty houses. I don't mean a house where no-one is home. I mean a house where no-one lives, and no-one is planning on living. If you look closely, it's pretty obvious. I guess in the first place you have to find that kind of thing interesting (exploring said houses), which I do. When we walked past this house the first time I noticed a couple of things:

1. It was a large, beautiful old house with rubbish in the front yard (an old fridge, books, plastic bags).
2. The garage door (at the front of the house) was open a crack.
3. The yard was unkempt.
These elements combined made it pretty obvious that no-one lives there and no-one is taking care of the house. Walking past on our way home from dinner we decided to investigate.
I was the ringleader of the adventure, luckily I was with two other people, one of which was a guy with as flexible morals as I possess so I had a partner in crime. One of us stayed on the street. She was scared to come in.
We snuck around the side of the house. It was really dark and my heart was pounding like crazy (I've recently been on a horror-movie-watching binge, so I was waiting for a zombie to come snarling out of the dark). We wandered in the backyard for a bit (see photos) before trying some doors and windows.

My friend (I'll call him Steve) found an unlocked window. He pushed it open and climbed in. The window opened into the kitchen and he perched on the sill, overlooking the kitchen bench. He paused there, listening. "What is it?" "There's a light on..." Fuck. There was a light coming from within the house, very dim but quite close to where we were. Steve said into the dark "Hello. Anyone home...". I giggled, more from terror than finding humour in the situation-though he did look funny crouching in the window.
Finally he jumped down into the kitchen and I followed. We headed for the light. It shone from an open door, looking in we saw steps going down into a tiny wine cellar, only a few feet from floor to ceiling. Dusty bottles of wine sat on the floor and on shelves but apart from that the cellar was empty. Steve went down and scrounged around while I panicked in the doorway. He came back up and we continued on our way.

We wandered from room to room. In almost every one rubbish was strewn around the floor, papers, broken pens, old clothing. Occasionally we came across 'treasures', a notebook which seemed to be a diary, an old Dior wallet, a Harpers Bazaar Annual. In one room was a polystyrene Esky filled with water and...a clock. This completely freaked me out, until I noticed the gaping hole in the roof above it. That kind of explained the water-filled esky....
One of the front rooms was the emptiest room in the house containing just a lounge, and a note. The note said something like this:
The previous owner of this house was ********* ******. If anyone should need to contact him I am his daughter ******* *****. My address is etc etc. It was dated 2003. Five years ago.
We headed back through the house after examining all the rooms. Back through the kitchen. The fridge was on! (empty). Why?
Why was the electricity on? Someone must have been there in the daytime down in the cellar to leave the light on. You wouldn't leave just that light on if you were going in and out in the dark, surely. Anyway, we left finally. The adrenalin rush was so crazy. The whole time we expected a neighbour or the police to come and investigate the occaisional light turning on (all we had for light was a Bic). We walked home quickly, hearts pounding and babbling. It was so fun!
There is an empty house round the corner from my home....

Over and ...

As you will know if you've visited here lately, I am starting my label proper. This has been a long time coming, I'm finally in a place in my life where I can survive financially and start my own business. And not only that but I had a successful round of showings and orders so that I can happily continue into the following season with a healthy budget for sampling, travel, PR etc. I have what I consider the 2 best stores in Brisbane and among the top few in NSW stocking the Summer range. So people like my stuff. They actually kind of love it. I'm pretty happy with where things are at.
What all this is leading to is that now that I'm starting out on this trail I've come to realise that maybe fashionworlds can't last. Things have begun a pretty major flip from when I begun the blog - final year fashion student living on an absolute shoestring budget with a major shopping/thrifting addiction and some time to kill via procrastination to spend researching, photographing my dress-ups exploits etc, to beginning production on the Summer range of my label and a lot of scary/cool responsibility in the role of Designer/CEO of my business.
Plus, I think this blog allows people to see a part of my life and mind I don't necessarily want everyone to be privy to and connecting it to the label. This really has been a kind of diary, even when I've been researching things to share with others.
This is not the last post I will ever write. I'm not even sure I want to finish up at all. I love writing. This is the only time I do it properly (sorry diary).

Cycle mania

I bought a bicycle last week. I'd been thinking about it for a while.
I always envied LLGs freewheeling anecdotes of riding around NYC on her bike, then when I was in Melbourne I saw this girl on a bike, dressed all in black (jeans etc) and I thought 'I could SO do a bike too'. I don't run around in heels everywhere the way I used to, and I can always carry around a backpack with a change of clothes in it.
So I took myself off to a department store and got myself a black bike, black helmet, black bike chain and little silver bike light that doubles as a torch. It's been a while since I've done much exercise, so it's been a little punishing, but I'm pleased to say I've been riding everywhere every day since I've had the bike, including going to and from work (50-60 mins). My thighs are hurting - but I feel GREAT. There's nothing much like the sensation of flying downhill on a bicycle (blocking out the thought of getting back up the other side). It takes me back to childhood, to being completely present in the moment and worry free (except for possibly 'please don't run me over mr bus driver').
I'm still getting the hang of transporting objects other than myself on the bike. I've yet to come up with a solution to the age-old question 'where does one strap a roll of pattern-paper on the bike', but I did a pretty good job today of getting home with 10m of calico and two bags of groceries.
The one drag is, I (have now realised that I) live at the top of a big hill. Or to be more precise, the top of the last of a series of hills, each a little higher than the last. NOW I get why my suburb is called Greenslopes. Perhaps they could have called it thigh-burning-lungbuster-slopes. Not quite the same ring to it I guess.
Great views here though, when you do get to the top.

Back from outer space

I'm back! I've been away for showings, but I'm pleased to say I'm home and settling back into my routine. For about 3 days, then the craziness starts. I have 4 stores for SS08/09. There are a lot of garments to make. It's going to involve ORGANISATION, TIME MANAGEMENT and being Virgoan in general. Which you'd think I could manage being a Virgo and all, but I have some glitch whereby all the superpowers like that were left out of my brain and what was left was a daydreaming/hedonistic mess. I do work hard under pressure though.

Black on Black

There's no doubt black is huge at the moment coming in to winter, as anyone who went to the latest RAFW could attest. It was black, black and more black riding the backs of all those who were there (goodness knows how any actual buying gets done when everyone's sitting in show after show and milling around generally looking fabulous ;).
I did promise some more outfit post and here they are (not a full outfit I admit but I was having a fat day).
I am all about black on black, with some more black, of late. Different shades and textures come into play here.
Shakuhachi T-shirt, Cotton-on Singlet, Target Shiny jeans with Pyramid studs.

Shakuhachi T-shirt, ebay necklace.

Here are the pear and licorice cupcakes too. Too all the haters-they were delicious!

Trip the Blog Fantastic

There's so much bloggy goodness out there, and lately I have been unearthing treats by way of other bloggers suggestions. One such delight was Belle De Jour, for which I was so far behind by now it seems I missed the boat. Though there was plenty to catch up on, and I immediately procured and watched the whole first season of SDoaCG in a day. I won't waffle with all the latest as I'm sure I would've mentioned them all in recent posts but todays 'find' (can't really call it that I suppose) was That Other Bad Girl by way of a LibertyLondonGirl post. LLG has been my source for many sublime reading experiences, including BDJ and also the hilarious Definitely stopping at Two. I have spent the morning reading old posts on TOBG and was inspired to do some cake baking. On the menu are  Pear and Licorice Cupcakes, which my housemate has scoffed at but I think will be divine (If not a little odd, but if the shoe fits....).