water'll they think of next?

Ok so to start with let me apologise for the title worthy of a joke from my dad- i couldn't resist

Now thats out of the way...

Water is something I obsess about all the time. Mostly because its always an issue here. At the moment we have water restrictions and I am constantly turning off taps and yelling at my friends when they rinse plates and let the water run whilst they turn and pick the next one up! haha I don't think I will ever be able to not be concerned about wasting water- its been drilled into my psyche for all eternity.

The other reason for me posting about water is that it seriously is the cure for any malady under the sun. I don't know how many times a good chug of water has cured a headache or cleared my skin beautifully for an exciting night coming up. It seems like Miss Zoe and I are forever telling our wiener friends with headaches and bad skin and puffy eyes to drink more water and then they can look as radiant as we do but they never pay attention!

Style starts with glossy hair & clear skin and its only a sip away!

A Vent With A Happy Ending

Regular readers may have picked up on this from my usual rantings about various things but I cannot STAND useless people. I am having trouble with an ex-housemate at the moment and I swear I have never met a lazier, more arrogant, useless, irritating, FRUSTRATING person in my life. Why do some people think (despite six normal months of living in the same house) that you are out to get them? And take it hard, and make it their mission to make your life as difficult as possible even though you have done everything to make their lives easy? (Just to make myself feel better, this jerk is also 30 years old, thinks women are there to furnish his house for him, single and going to stay that way forever as no self respecting modern women with HALF a brain would come within 30 feet of him). Deep breath.

I just had to vent. Its one thing after another with this guy and I am so tired of dealing with him.

On a good note, here are

6 Things You Want for This Warm Melbourne Weather!:

1. Big happy sunglasses
2. Sunscreen
3. A dress- long and flowy and possibly very bright OR for the men cuffed shorts just above the knee
   
4. extremely cool sandals of the variety I have on layby or similar; OR havianas in the brightest colour you can find
5. A hat! Just wear it! You'll look awesome and be happy!
6. A big bag to carry your essentials, PLUS all the happy things you'll find out on your warm afternoon walk

Now, who wants a special Melbourne Bloggers Sunny Afternoon where we can meet each other, hang out and play in the sunshine?

Update

Remember my future husband?



Well check him in his city suit!!


I have impressed myself! (pics from The Sartorialist)

YE-ESS!

Finally! An end to these tired trends! This is from style.com Outside Sources blog:

Outside sources

adult education

For those of us tired of the baby doll and the sack dress, the news that the end of that particular fashion moment is near will come as a relief. As Cathy Horyn explains in today's New York Times, fall dressing is much more grown-up. "The clothes are at once elegant and practical, but more, they project an attitude that is above the trendy fray: not a contentment, but certainly a reasonableness." Sounds reasonable to us.

summer is on the horizon

Recently we have had some delightful spring weather in Melbourne and this has led Miss Zoe and I to begin dreaming up our holiday to celebrate that we have both finished our uni degrees this year but more importantly the clothes that we will wear on said holiday! I can't wait to wear a lovely long flowing maxi dress - this one at Topshop looks like a winner (even though topshop is in the UK and not here in Melb).


The other thing I am excited by is American Apparel - a store I was obsessed with when I was in Berlin earlier in the year. Now it is available for the sunburnt country with an Australian online store. favourites include this romper suit- too cute!

As I was saying....

To re-iterate what i've been banging on about lately!! This article is from The Age, saturday 18/8/07. She says it so well!

Be yourself

August 18, 2007

"I LOVE Alber Elbaz; how utterly wrong he looks in a world seething with people trying so-ooo hard to look right."
Photo: AP

Fashion won't work its magic if you're not, writes Janice Breen Burns.

Alber Elbaz is an elegant Tweedledee of a bloke with a smug/naughty smile and pop-eye spectacles that accentuate his slitty, sparkly eyes. He's fond of goofy bow ties, droopy trousers and high-top trainers done up with extra metres of loopy white shoelaces. That's him, pleased as a salon poodle after his spring/summer 2008 collection show in Paris. He is Lanvin's creative director and one of the most influential men in fashion. Isn't he smashing?

I LOVE Alber Elbaz; how utterly "wrong" he looks in a world seething with people trying so-ooo hard to look "right". You know what I mean; fat people lipo-sucked, slim, old people slicing bits off to look young(ish), wrinkly people Botoxed smooth, brown people bleached pale and pale people baked brown. Don't get me started on almond-eyed Asians wanting walnut shaped eyes either, or walnuts wanting almonds.

The world has gone nuts, but Elbaz is still Elbaz, the metaphorical tip of a thrilling, lovely iceberg, the epitome of NOT WANTING. Not pining, not craving, not wishing. Just arrogantly, confidently, narcissistically being, revelling in who he is. This is the key to good fashion. Jot it down. This is how you unlock fashion's power.

Self-acceptance like that is a miraculous accessory for striking, carefully picked clothes. It is uncommonly chic and particularly popular on fashion's loftiest echelon where Alber "Tweedledee" Elbaz, John "Ain't no oil painting" Galliano, Jean Paul "Me neither" Gaultier, Vivienne "Who gives a toss" Westwood and Donna "Rhinoplasty? Don't be a clod!" Karan, among many, many technically unattractive others, direct the seasonal looks that trickle down and eventually seduce us all. Aren't they smashing? Ugly/beautiful/evocative/powerful/enviable/fashionable/fabulous. Smashing.

For a ridiculous number of years I have preached the power of a good frock, a nice suit, a new hat - the self-concept of Decoration before Alteration - but apparently, it isn't enough any more. In the past three or four years particularly, the stream of pleas from sad little poppets wishing they were someone else has thickened through my inbox: "I'm short - how can I look taller?", "I'm chubby, how can I look slimmer?". "I'm thin." "I'm florid." "I'm in a wheelchair." "I'm ugly." There are the nearly-but-never-quite-lovelies, too, who can't seem to envision their own worth, let alone potential beauty: "I want hair like Jennifer Aniston's." "That dress like Rhianna's." "Mischa Barton's jeans." "Cameron Diaz's bikini." Go on, I think; you might as well say it: "I hate myself."

While I have been banging on about the power of fashion to unlock who we are, a generation has been marinating in a culture that reveres model looks above all. They genuinely believe anything different can be solved - should be solved - by the right surgery, or the right frocks. Wishing for one painfully narrow definition of beauty is a lifestyle, scheming to achieve it - one way or another - a life project. Self-acceptance; what's that?

Good grief.

Time to revisit the basics. And so I give you the lovely Alber Elbaz. And, come to that, Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Valentino Garavani, Miuccia Prada, Karl Lagerfeld. A thousand others. They are fashion's marvellously, technically "unbeautiful" people who use clothes unselfconsciously to express who they are, and who, incidentally, wield more power in the world than most technically beautiful people ever will.

It's time to switch allegiances and goals or, at least, expand them a bit. What do you want to be? Powerful, or pretty?

daydreaming....

If I had this dress..... ( and this hair, come to mention it) ......

I would ask this man out........

sigh.
(pics from style.com and sartorialist)

powerwomen

I am about to join a breed of women commonly refered to as 'powerwomen'.
The powerwoman is primarily found in the Melbourne CBD. Her dress is typified by her 'powersuit'and sheer black stockings. The main point of interest, however, lies in her footwear to and from work. While at work she maybe wearing some unassuming pumps or cute ballet flats, she changes these in favour of white ankle socks and runners for the commute in and out of the city. The stockings being worn underneath is, in my opinion, the worst part!
So why am I joining this breed you ask? I blame daylight saving! It is getting lighter when I leave work therefore the dangers associated with walking home are lifting and it really hurts to walk for 40 mins in 'cute shoes'. This is the first time in quite a while where fashion has lost out to practicality. I draw the line at ankle socks though!

P.S.

Did anyone read the M magazine bit in Sundays Age? With the Kath and Kim Couture article? I loved loved loved it cos I sort of never consciously realised that by dressing Kath or Kim in a certain brand of clothing they were giving masses of negative publicity to that brand. The best part of the article is this bit

"And then there are the trends in evening wear, which any watcher of the Logies or the Brownlow would recognise, a sort of bare-all look that can only be described as Zoo magazine chic. "There's a shop I love, because it's so nude," Stuckey laughs. "I can't use it. I can't put those clothes on Gina. Who's not 22. And needs to wear a bra. But I love to look. It's a shop called Gasp. And every time you look at their window display, you understand why it's called that."

lololololololololololololololololol. Zoo magazine chic. There is SO much of that around! And its heaven is Gasp.

I am so pleased that there are other more important people around who are enjoying making fun of these people even more than I am!

Us Vs. Them

I've been looking at a LOT of streetstyle blogs and been very inspired and intrigued by what I've found out there- look out for an update in our links list!

By far the 2 most interesting things I've found are this article titled "Are These Clothes For Real Australians", ( http://yoursay.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=285003 )about the catwalk shows for Myer and if these clothes are in touch with what "real" australians want to wear, and Hel Looks, a Helsinki street style blog.

There were a few comments on the ninemsn article which STUNNED me. Such as this, from sunumabridge, Adelaide-

"An interest in fashion is one of the the primary signs of an immature brain. Fashion is an artificial construct whose main purpose is to extract money from weak-minded people. The fact that fashion continues to exists shows that our society is not yet mature enough to act in a rational, adult manner."

Most other commenters had fairly generic things to say ie sick of muffin tops, design for larger sized women, most women arent size 8 etc etc, or they are negative ie fashion too expensive, no one wants real designers etc, and it came as a massive contrast to what I found on Hel Looks.

There I found that the same words kept popping up- Second-Hand, Innovative, Individual, Colour and Creative! How exciting are they! My 2 favourite quotes are

"You must wear high heels when you go out" from a girl in GREAT shoes, and

"Outcase people are interesting and inspiring" from a guy in green tights and a crazy cardigan.

I wish the people commenting on ninemsn had seen or read that blog. It seems to me a lot of these people dont see Australian fashion the way I do. Where is their sense of adventure? Where is the call for innovation and interesting styles? Are they all happy to wear generic boring things they can buy at Chadstone or Highpoint, do they not appreciate our more adventurous designers putting effort into making individual clothes?

Of course I know not everyone is like that. And maybe I havent done enough research, but there are a LOT more people out there wearing polar fleece and "smart" black pants to work in the morning than there are people wearing fascinating, beautiful, carefully put together outfits.

What do you think? Is the majority of our society content with the chain-store glum offerings? Do they not have a want or need for anything more? Are they even aware this stuff exists? Or are we really a culture of black wearing people who cant afford the more exciting stuff?

Public Service Announcement

Dear men of the world,

Why must you insist on wearing so much cologne? Yes I'm talking to you! (not you you're fine) ok ok so I might not mean every single one of you but some of you- wifffy! I mean the fact that I posted my letters when YOU did I can still smell your cologne 20 mins later that is saying something. you almost knocked me out!
tell me why you do it guys... are you masking heinous BO that not even extra strength deoderant can cover? I meet you in queues, on public transport and in cafes and I don't know how to tell you without hurting your feelings.
please help me out by wearing some so you smell yummy but don't leave me gagging in your wake.

Love Maudrey xxx

MMSFW

Zoe and I are Melbourne girls. So as good Melbourne girls we are trying to get into volunteering at fashion week coming up in September (as you might have already read in previous posts).
So far the whole thing has been relatively painless. We had to fax a form in ( still unsure why they asked us for our sizes on it!) and then we also had an interview yesterday. The deliberation about what to wear to a fashion interview had us at our wits end! Too good and outfit and we seem desperate and too crap we seem like we haven't got a clue about how to dress ourselves but really we needn't have bothered because everyone there was just normally dressed really. We were secretly fearing that there would be floaty-babydress-permatan-blondies as far as the eye could see but the 2 girls i saw were very pleasant looking and the interviewer girl herself was casually dressed in jeans and tshirt.
It also seems like front of house is the way to go rather than behind the scenes which we orginally thought would be better. We thought backstage would be cool cos you get to see all of the designers and clothes first hand but you are actually assigned a model that you personally are in charge of to dress etc! not for me! Front of house is more the showbag people directing smiling kinda thing which is great!
So now we wait to see if we are in!

A tight fit...

So I am in the new house, and its super teeny but super cute. All of a sudden I live with no less than 7 guitars, as well as about 300 CDs.

The house is very small, right, to the point where currently the main bedroom consists of: bed, drawers, wardrobe, and 2 clothes rails. And nothing else will fit, except my desk, which I have relinquished to his computer. Add to this the fact that we haven't unpacked any clothes, so they are all over the floor as well as the spare room, and its a small disaster zone.

We had an argument over what to do with all the clothes which didn't go well for me. He suggested first off that perhaps I didnt need quite so many and could I ebay some of the ones I never wear? (Remembering dear readers, that I already HAVE ebayed everything I dont wear.) I tried to kind of skirt this issue by suggesting railing-arrangements to suit us both, with full wardrobe intact, and he then suggested we share the wardrobe* space and half the rail space.....

*My wardrobe is a hot pink ikea kids wardrobe that looks like the one out of Beauty and the Beast. Its not huge. My clothes take up the entire thing, drawer included, plus one extra clothes rail, and several boxes.

I pointed out that my stuff needs almost three times the amount of space he was suggesting, and THEN he said that maybe I should start packing away the out-of-season stuff. This isn't necessarily the worst idea.... I guess.... but how can you categorise your clothes into things you DEFINITELY WONT WEAR for the whole of winter, or summer, or whenever? To keep him quiet I agreed to put away bathers now and heavy coats in summer. This, mind you, only involves about 6 items.

Can anyone help? Currently I am in charge of unpacking clothes so I have control over what goes where.... but in fairness I guess I should look into ways of storing some things better..... I cant really sell anything else I am pretty much down the winners and everyday-ers. eeeeeee!

I will keep you updated. Please comment with any space-saving ideas you have- any at all!

Random Post

Today I am moving house, but right now I'm at work. My fabulous family are moving house for me, which is so nice of them cos its a crap job and something you shouldnt have to do for other people but still. My stupid work didnt seem to realise that maybe I'd need a day off right now BUT ANYWAY.

The point of this is that my brain is in 8 places at once, trying to deal with oldhouse/newhouse, housemates, moving, boxes, work, bills, bonds, etc etc, and maud and I have fashion week volunteer interviews on Wednesday and my whole wardrobe is packed into a giant red check bag, a GIANT box, 3 smaller boxes, one suitcase and so far 2 green bags. All I have out is filthy track pants, a matching jumper, a tshirt, and slippers. Bit depressing.

I really want to pick up my laybys but I just dont have time! And I'm hoping that cos most of my awesome wardrobe stuff (ie the stuff I dont wear that often cos its "special") will become new again when I unpack it after being packed for soooo long (one week tomorrow, haha), thus giving me a new perspective on the clothes I already own. Theres nothing better than seeing something in a new light. I bought that Supre cartoon tshirt too, and then took it home, and packed it in a box. So there is one small very brightly coloured light at the end of the moving house tunnel.

Bring on old-wardrobe-new-inspiration!! And now I go to immerse myself in unpacking, and re-arranging. Back soon.....

jean-ie in a bottle

recently miss zoe helped me finally get my room into some kind of working order! its great now all my clothes are hung up instead of being strewn across the floor and i chucked out loads of crap i didn't want/need/like. now i have less clothes and everything else that goes in a bedroom. i was amazed how many pairs of ankle socks i chucked out and also just how many clothes i was holding on to that don't fit or have something intrinsically wrong with them so although they are on the right brainwave - i will NEVER wear them cos they are NOT RIGHT.

this all led me to a sad realisation... i wear my black skinny jeans almost everyday! i love them dearly but that can't be good for me or the jeans. so yesterday i ventured out to get some other options to wear on my bottom half. basically tho i wanted another pair of jeans. i found the most perfect pair of back skinny jeans but in the spirit of shaking things up a bit i moved on from them. sigh in hindsight shopping for jeans should be done whilst wearing some kind of loose dress or skirt or something so as time wears on you can just hoik it up and try them on underneath- i do NOT recommend going through this process with skinny jeans ( i think i pulled them off and on like thirty times yesterday)

i was getting tired of of my own efforts so i went into a shop that sells jeans (i don't want to promote any particular one here lets just say it WAS NOT (!!!) justjeans eew)and in the end surrendered to the slightly annoying sales girl who in the end just brought me all the styles they had in the shop and i tried them all on. i am relatively happy with my choice - blue denim wider leg etc and i will wear them after all the pairs i tried on. if anything this whole experience has shown me that i really really like skinny leg jeans but too much of a good thing can't be that great so i will wear these other ones but my heart belongs to skinny back home.

Musings....

Hi Guys. Mind is wandering today so bear with me and the subject changes.

A few things have caught my attention today. My bank balance firstly, which may allow me to pay off my MJ shoes layby! And my Alice Euphemia layby! And that cartoon tshirt at Supre!

The elle.com Biker Chic slideshow, which is cool. I love my leather jacket and I am now considering some biker boots as well.... its a very cool genre of dressing- sexy, strong, independant and almost a little bit androgynous. I think its a look a lot of Melburnian women and men could incorporate into everyday outfits and it would give them a slightly tougher, chicer edge to all the black layers (which by the way I love and am very into).

Then, the trend watch thingy on style.com with the "Detail Operation" section. I love all these for the same reason, they are interesting. Unusual. Different. Stunning. Go and have a look at all the others too, they are well worth it.

Alberta Ferretti:Rue du Mail:

Lanvin
Giambattista Valli:I think the Lanvin is my favourite. Nothing like a bit of unsuspected back detail. It would be fabulous on a curvy bottom, dont you think?