What I actually wore #0018

Serial #: 0018
Date: 16/01/2009
Weather: 21.5°
Time Allowed: 5 minutes

This outfit is all about the blouse. I love that word: it is so old-fashioned, but really fits because of the enormous frill cascading down the front. I feel like a flamboyant native parrot, proudly puffing out its chest.

I came across it whilst browsing in Shag one lunchtime. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but that’s when you find the best things, isn’t it? The racks there are bursting with colourful goodies like a lolly shop, but the vivid turquoise – my favourite colour – caught my eye. I tried it on immediately and just as quickly decided I had to own it. Although it is over thirty years old, its puffed and pleated sleeves instantly modernise it, bringing it in line with the volume seen in recent seasons.

I feel like a flamboyant native parrot, proudly puffing out its chest.

Another favourite colour of mine is burnt orange. It isn’t often in fashion so whenever I see it, I snap up an item, such as this silk skirt from Hannii. The plain A-line shape complements the complicated blouse, which, let’s face it, could be something Penelope Keith’s character Margot in The Good Life would wear while swanning about. This dangerous potential for prissiness necessitated an antidote: my stomping black heels. I love a bit of contradiction in life – it keeps one from being predictable.

Items:

Blouse: Edith Hart, vintage
Skirt: Hannii
Shoes: Zoe Wittner
Earrings: vintage
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Rings: Roun

What I actually wore #0017

Serial #: 0017
Date: 13/01/2009
Weather: yet another scorcher… 37°
Time Allowed: 5 minutes

The normally unreliable meteorologists had predicted another sizzler today, but since we’d been having a streak of hot days I knew they would be bang on the money again.

On a hot day a dress is the best option, and since – as per usual – I had not left myself much time to dress in the morning, it took me about two seconds between eyeing this dress and whipping it off the hanger. Although it’s lovely vintage polyester, it’s a loose-fitting shift so I figured it would be cool enough. I found it in the Salvo’s a year or two ago priced at about $10.

The pattern reminds me nostalgically of the Viennetta icecream of my seventies childhood.

Once upon a time I wouldn’t have touched such a dress with a barge pole simply because of its fabric, but I took an immediate liking to it when I saw it on the hanger. The pattern reminds me nostalgically of the Viennetta icecream of my seventies childhood. That’s why I picked the white patent wedges: they’re like a delicious dollop of whipped cream, the finishing touch to an indulgent dessert.

A purely practical accessory today, the umbrella (another vintage find, this time on eBay) nevertheless didn’t create quite enough shade to protect my legs as I walked home after work, when the temperature peaked. I could feel the heat radiating up from the concrete sidewalks. I really love the contrast of colours though: the turquoise a solid block of coolness against the richness of the coffee ripples. Icecream anyone?

Items:
Dress: vintage
Shoes: Scanlan & Theodore
Umbrella: vintage
Sunglasses: Agnès B
Earrings: vintage
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Rings: Roun

What I actually wore #0016

Serial #: 0016
Date: 06/01/2009
Weather: 30°
Time Allowed: 5 minutes

I knew it was really too warm to wear this skirt, but as it was a recent purchase made in Dubai, I was determined to parade it to all and sundry as soon as possible.

On my first shopping foray in a mall of said city, I hit all the better quality chain stores I could afford to shop in – Zara, MNG, French Connection etc. These were all located on the ground floor. I did at one point venture up to the first, but after a peek into a glittering shoe palace where I discovered the prices began at $1000, I insouciantly (“just looking, thanks”) backed away and slunk my way down the nearest escalator, tail tucked between legs.

However, I did wander into a little emporium of the Danish label Staff that reminded me of a Melbourne-style label. A quick circuit, and I had identified two items I was very interested in: this grey taffeta skirt, and a very cute pair of Ali-baba pants with a dropped crotch that would have had me scoffing a few months ago. After scouting the remainder of the prospects in the mall, I returned and happily bought both items. I love the little puckered pleat detailing, and even the noisiness of the fabric.

I love the little puckered pleat detailing, and even the noisiness of the fabric.

As the skirt is grey, I immediately decided it needed to be paired with something loud, and took this acid yellow top out on its first outing. (I found it in a dodgy op-shop not renowned for its good-quality items. It is Veronika Maine, one of my favourite labels, and was marked $10… I pounced immediately.) I liked that the pleats at the neckline echoed the same features in the skirt.

For additional ’tude I stomped into my fierce heeled sandals. They are high on the ankle, making them a daring coupling with this skirt, and its dangerous length.

But I decided to chance it. Fashion is not without its risks, after all.

Items:

Top: Veronika Maine
Skirt: Staff
Shoes: Zoe Wittner
Sunglasses: Agnès B
Earrings: Baku
Rings: Roun
Watch: Kenneth Cole

What I actually wore #0015

Serial #: 0015
Date: 26/12/2008
Weather: Irrelevant
Time Allowed: 5 minutes

Boxing Day. Dubai. House party. At last, an occasion to which I could wear the skimpiest of the party dresses I had brought with me! And I just managed to do it by the skin of my teeth, as this was the last full day of my holiday. I had wanted to wear this dress on Christmas Day, as it was so festive, but it was deemed too low-cut to wear out in public.

My other option for this evening’s Christmas-party-for-orphans was my belly-dancing outfit but that is even skimpier, and transparent to boot. A friend of mine was willing to wear a traditional Indian sari if I wore my black and silver jingle-bells outfit, but I had to disappoint her once I tried it on in the privacy of my room and realised just how revealing it was.

Boxing Day. Dubai. House party. At last, an occasion to which I could wear the skimpiest of the party dresses I had brought with me!

I wrapped a silver sequin scarf (a classic stand-by I have owned for years) around my neck and decided that not only my hair had to be up, but earrings were out of the question. I was shiny enough as it was. Ditto for the silver sandals I’d worn the day before, so I wrapped my feet in black heels. Slightly more bondage (or ballet if you want to be nice) than the gladiator styles in this summer.

Made of very soft leather, the evening sandals were a fabulous find in Myer during the sales years ago. It was one of those occasions that one wanders through a department store not looking for anything in particular … which is exactly when one lucks upon some brilliant find. The original price of these was at least $200. They were already reduced to $100 and then had a further 25% slashed off the top. I’ll take those, thank you very much!

There was one last seasonal addition: the cutest Santa hat covered in red sequins and flashing red stars. Just so the other guests wouldn’t miss me.

Items

Dress: Country Road
Scarf: Sportsgirl
Shoes: Urban Soul
Rings: Roun
Santa hat: Géant (not pictured)

What I actually wore #0014

Serial #: 0014
Date: 25/12/2008
Weather: Warm
Time Allowed: 15 minutes

It was Christmas Day, and we were going to brunch at the Shangri-La Hotel. I wanted – not unnaturally – to wear something a little festive, and I had plenty of party dresses to choose from. However, it transpired too many of them were too revealing.

I modelled the silver for X, and we agreed that this dress was better left for a house party. While he disappeared to iron his shirt, I slipped into this diagonally striped dress. I’d bought this dress on eBay a while back, but deemed it too pretty and frilly for my city persona. X was much more approving of it though. It was demure, he said, yet still sexy. But my shoulders were bare.

“Perhaps you should cover them until we’re in the hotel,” he suggested.

My options were limited, and this time the chocolate Zara jacket did not make the grade; it looked totally wrong. Instead, I flung this black and silver Lurex shawl around my shoulders, going ‘pattern on pattern’ as fashion editors are forever encouraging their readership to do. Of course, they always say if you stick to the same colour palette, it works. In my case the tenuous connection were my silver sandals, but it meant I could get away with carrying my new black bag.

I had already decided that my other new bag of silver satin did not match the dress, so that left the hard alligator-stamped clutch from Aldo. This evening bag shopping frenzy had been brought on by my forgetting to bring one with me to Dubai; it was this genuine Glomesh bag that I had meant to pack. I had bought it for $12 at the Camberwell Market years ago from a lovely older woman. A brilliant vintage find for me, to her it was an old, unused bag from her youth.

My earrings were found in a shop in Muttrah Souq in Oman, and this was their first outing.

Items:
Dress: Veronika Maine
Shawl: Zara
Bag: Aldo
Shoes: Zoe Wittner
Earrings: Muttrah Souq
Rings: Roun