OOTW - Revolution and Revival?

Firstly I must apologise big time for my lack of posting! Well over a week since my last!! Blogging kind of tok a backseat for a while as I had my dissertation synopsis due in, which meant catching up on a lot of reading, and well you know, uni work has to come first. I found the whole thing pretty stressful to be honest, no one said 3rd year would be easy! Speaking of my diss, it's on second-hand/vintage fashion and I have some primary research to conduct, so in the coming weeks I'd very much appreciate your help and feedback. I'll be formulating a quick qestionnaire to email out, so hopefully you could fill it out and pass it on to people etc, I'm sure you all have some great insight considering the subject area!

So, not only did I think you deserved a post, but some pictures were obviously in order to make up for my bad blogger behaviour! Ok so the title is a bit misleading, as denim cut-offs are hardly revolutionary are they? And neither are these rather plain photos against a brick wall! But maybe that’s the point? It’s been getting dark sooo early here, so I seized the moment today when I got in from my 9am lecture, grabbed The Boyf, told him to wrap up warm and marched him outside to make use of the natural light. Never mind what I was wearing, how my hair was sitting today, or the fact that I filled my brows in a bit wonky (not to mention the lurking spot on my chin), you guys were getting some shots!

Jumper - Topman, Scarf - H&M mens (stolen off The Boyf), Levi Cut-offs - Vintage, Belt - Vintage, Brogues - Urban Outfitters, Earings - made by me!! In later photos, Trench - Zara, Gloves - Tu at Sainsburys

I think I must have been the only vintage fashion lover around who didn’t own a pair of denim cut-offs!! I bought this pair of Levi 501’s yesterday for a tenner and am in love. I’m hardly surprised, I had lusted over girlies wondering around in tiny little hand-cut 501s for over a year now, and there really was no excuse for not buying a pair. Although... I have to say maybe a few gals did cause apprehension – larger ladies in a style that really is more knicker than short, not so good. Perhaps I was worried I would look exposed, flabby or larger than life, my thighs are hardly me favourite feature after-all! So in this respect I am however pleasantly surprised, at how comfy and casual they are, yet they make me feel, well, pretty damn sexy. You American girls have been avid lovers of the daisy dukes for years now, why did it take me so long to catch on? Also, I'm so addicted to the fab high-waisted 90’s cut that I’m left gagging for a full length pair!

So why did I bite the bullet and finally nab a pair when its so chilly outside? Well as some of you may have read my parents and little bro recently moved to Australia and I’m going out to visit them for Christmas, I can’t believe I’ll be seeing them in 29 days time! They were visiting family in Sydney (my mum’s Australian) and just arrived in Perth today where they’re hoping to settle down. Earlier I enjoyed a crazy little virtual skype tour around the house they’re renting which is massive and gorgeous and has a swimming pool! It was 39°C there today, and might get hotter by the time I get there, so obviously I needed some super cool summer clothes! To be honest though I don’t think you’re going to see any pictures of me from Oz in much more than my strapless bikini, these cut-offs and the odd vest! I’m not sure if I can be bothered to look fashionable at forty degrees, we’ll see!

And the final 3 pictures? No your eyes are not deceiving you, some of you may recognise these as old brownie culottes! I bought them on ebay last week for 2 quid! Why is it that the Girl Guides were the only ones that could make a good culotte? I mean get it right, you should have seen some of the things people were passing off as the traditional shorts/skirt combo! I myself was a Brownie, and I’m not so sure I fully appreciated the uniform at the time, but I’m fortunate enough to be able to fit into this pair 26” waist, so call it a revival! They arrived in the post this morning and seemed ok with my jumper, so made a quick costume change just to give you a quick peek, I’ll style them differently next week sometime I think! Comfy is not the word for these babies, nice little elasticated waist and oh so roomy, plus the colour is perfect for autumn!

Culottes - Girl Guides Association by way of Ebay!

Anyway I’ll stop jabbering now, turns out when you don’t post for nearly two weeks you have a lot to say! And it is rather nice to finally be able to write something for me rather than uni work!

Hope you’re all ok, in all my procrastination I did manage to keep up with reading a few of your bits and bobs... there’s always time to discover a great new fashion blog and check in on your faves ay?!

Ciao for now, VW x

NB: I tried to post this yesterday when I actually took the photos and wrote the post, but evidently blogger was mad at me for neglecting it and was in a proper mood, haha, sorryyyy, better late than never?!

I knew it would happen one day...

A little impromptue set of outfit photos...


I knew it would happen one day, I've always said it would. Sorry, am I being a bit criptic? You need to understand I am perpetually late, to anything and everything. I mean not always ridiculously late, sometimes just a minute or so, never-the-less it counts; lectures, meeting for coffee with friends, catching the bus, birthday parties, you name it I've been late to it before. But I always say that one of these days I'll be on time, early even, it WILL happen.


So yesterday The Boyf and I took a little trip to Chiquitos for dinner (they're doing 25% off with an NUS student card, so get your bums down there for some DELICIOUS mexican food!), then to the cinema (orange wednesday, ohh yea). Well of all the random useless times to be early, 50 minutes early to be exact. It was pretty damn boring I can tell you.

Blazer - Urban Outfitters, Hoody - American Apparel, Shirt - Topshop, Shorts/Culottes - River Island, Tights - Asda, Socks - Primark, Trainers - Reebok, Scarf - Vintage, Necklaces - Urban Outfitters & Accessorize.

This is where we took the opportunity to take a few snaps of my outfit in the empty coridor, which explains the bored looks! I was actually quite glad for this opportunity in the end, because I kinda like this 'thrown together to stay warm and dry' look i was 'working', but it got dark so early yesterday I didn't get a chance to take outside photos and the red walls and carpet look pretty funky don't ya think?


Geeky urban street style? I've wanted to show you my absolute fave shoes for a while, my 'reeboks with the straps' to Flo Rida, reebok freestyle hi-tops to you and me! I got them back in my orange loving days as an 18th birthday present from my grandad (no my 80 year old gramps did not rock up to foot locker and purchase these off his own back, this is just what I spent my £50 on!), and still adore them today, sooo comfy and I love that you never see anyone else wearing them, or at least not very often, I have seen the purple and white versions a few times though! They are the closest I come to 'sensible shoes' and they're neon orange haha. They're sometimes hard to accessories though, so yesterday I just went with the ghetto vibe and slung on my chunky necklaces!

Apologies that you've already seen this shirt though, I just love it so much!

Oh and we saw The Kids are Alright (eventually!), I really enjoyed it, although it wasn't what I expected, if you think its all comedy you'll be a bit dissapointed as theres definatly some heavier stuff in there. Also be prepared for some rather full on sex scenes, some with Yaya a winner from ANTM a few seasons back! I friggin love Annette Benning and Julianne Moore so much, so it was really cute seeing them as a couple!

Anyone else take advantage of Orange Wednesday yesterday, what did you see? We saw the trailer for The Kings Speech and I really want to see it when its out, Helena Bonham-Carter looked fab!

VW x

OOTW - An Autumnal All-Round Experiment

Hi guys, I still can’t believe there’s a whole 5 of you following me that I don’t know in real life (9 total)! Thanks for reading my lovers, sorry for the HUGE post.

Today’s OOTW is what I’d call an experiment, all in the name of self improvement I might add, so please comment on what you like and don’t like etc! In an effort to improve my blog I’ve been scouring your fashion blogs (yes you!) and sussing out what I like and don’t like, and well there’s not much I don’t like and a whole lot I do! So taking ‘inspiration’ from you lovely ladies I present my very autumnal OOTW.

Scarf - Vintage, Coat - Zara, Shirt - Vintage, Jumper - Topman, Necklace - DIY (see Eagerly Awaiting the Postman), Shorts - New Look?, Socks - Marks and Spencer?, Brogues -Urban Outfitters.

1. You will notice this post is very picture heavy compared with my previous endeavours, this is mainly because I couldn’t choose which pictures to show you from my ‘shoot’ and after spending hours ‘researching’ I decided it’s nice to have a lot to look at to go along with my constant ramblings!



2. Yes you clever little thing, it’s outside. You’re all doing it, and the out doorsy pictures look so much prettier than my dreary blank wall/door backdrops, so I gathered up the courage to venture into the ‘garden’ of our flat block on the way home from lunch yesterday and tried not to think about all the residents looking out their kitchen windows with puzzled/bemused looks.

3. This coat was screaming to be pictured amongst the autumn foliage don’t you think? That was a bit of an experiment too, wearing the coat itself, it’s from the Zara sale in January 2006. I bought it way back in the day because I was obsessed with orange (ok so I still do love it as a colour, just not generally to wear), my room was orange, my mobile was orange, any present anyone ever bought me was a little orange, I think for a while there my hair was even orange, ok you get the picture?! So when I saw it for £40 I begged my mother, ‘but its ORANGE mum, pleeeaasse, it’ll be really warm tooooo!!’ I lovingly wore this coat almost every blustery day that year (I even wore it on my very first date with The Boyf), well until October that is, when I traded it in for a blue one from Next, hey every girl gets a new winter coat for school don’t they? And they’ve been vying for attention ever since...

Actually that’s a lie because this year I’ve lived in my trench and last year I wore my oversized hounds-tooth blazer almost day in day out, so I probably haven’t worn this coat for 2 years! So why did it get relegated to the back of my closet if I loved it so much? Boredom I guess, and maybe for a while there I was quite afraid to wear winter brights, thought I might stand out like a lit up Christmas tree; but you know what...? This A/W if there’s one thing I love more than the neutrals, camel, brown, grey, black: it’s bright, bright, bright! What better way to clear up a tad of ‘Seasonal Affected Depression’ than by injecting a splash of summer colour into your snugly warm wardrobe! Dear Orange Coat, Welcome back old friend.



4. Outfit experiment in general. More than just rediscovering the coat, I put the whole look together yesterday morning as a bit of a trial run. The blouse/shirt is new to me, I picked it up last week for £6 and this is the first time I’ve had a chance to wear it, but it was so chilly looking outside that I layered the jumper for extra warmth, which was great as it allowed me to still show off the funky collar. Then I’ve noticed everyone’s been rocking the winter shorts recently and thought they’d look great with my long grey socks, but I hadn’t worn these yet this year because I kind of hate my legs/knees and realised the socks might emphasise and further my body-part hatred. After seeing these photo though I’m quite happy; I’m usually looking down on my legs you see, and have over analysed the bowing of my calves and swell of my knee on many occasions, but you guys never see me from that rather strange angle so I don’t know why I worried?

The whole outfit pulled together quite well in the end didn’t it?

5. A’la naturelle. I didn’t edit any of these photos. The Mr took them as always, and we are only working with a ‘point and shoot’ digital camera (Casio Exilim to be exact), so normally a few tweaks are a must but I don’t have photoshop etc on my laptop so the quality isn’t great anyway. This week shooting outside was fab, the natural light really worked it’s magic and for the pictures with a greater colour intensity we actually let the camera do all the work and put it on ‘Autumn leaves’ mode, quite apt don’t you think? Anyway, I’m a bit of a technophobe at heart and can’t get to grips with all the free photo editing software I’ve seen recommended, so from now on I’ll stick to a bit of natural light and the camera’s built in genius, and if all else fails hello Windows Photo Gallery ‘Fix’ to hoik up the brightness and contrast! I suppose I could drag my lazy ass off to uni and use Corel Photopaint etc... one day, maybe.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Loves VW x



J'adore Accessories

My friends (all 8 of you, woo!) I have been suffering from a bad case of the flu for the past 5 days, and though I had intended to wear some beautiful outfits over the weekend to use in an OOTW post, I have in fact been living in my pyjamas. Now as fabulous as my multi-coloured stripy Old Navy pyjamas are, I don't think they're worth a picture, and my un-washed hair and greasy skin certainly isn’t!

So instead my lovelies treat your eyes to this feast of accessories! I took these photos a while ago, for no reason other than that I am in love with my new jewellery box (from my amazing trip to Marrakesh in the summer), and wanted to document it in all its glory.

Orange Jewellery Box - Casablanca Souk, Assorted Necklaces and Brooches - My Grandma's and Charity Shop Finds, Sunglasses - Primark, Fascinator - Afflecks Palace, Shoes - KG by Kurt Geiger, Pink Clutch - Jimmy Choo for H&M, Brown Handbag - Vintage, Gold Purse - Vintage 'Glomesh', Green Hat - Vintage, Perfume - Princess by Vera Wang, Clock Necklace - Accessorize, Chunky Gold Chain - Urban Outfitters, Cinderella Jewellery Box - Disney World, Eyeshadows & Lipstip - Barry M

My boyfriend and I moved into a new flat in September for 3^rd year and whilst unpacking I started to re-discover bits and pieces that had been buried in a box or suitcase all summer and placed them delicately around the empty shell of a room. I thought my jewellery boxes looked cute on this little drawer unit as it has a glass shelf which reflects the light in the room, and usually always keep my black fascinator and fave pair of sunnies on ‘Vivienne’ my little wig dummy, from there I just started to dress the picture. I used most of my favourite bits and pieces in these photos, and I love how exciting and colourful the outcome is. I’ve just made a little collage of the pictures in ‘Polaroid frames’ to make it a bit more of an interesting post while I’m wrapped up in my duvet with a mug of Lemsip, but they've come out all horrid and grainy, so here are a few nice big digitals..



Hope you like the pics in this little impromptu filler post! Do have some favourite accessories that are just so beautiful they’re like works of art? I barely ever wear my KG’s but I could look at them all day. And how do you store your jewellery, various jumbled boxes, or a more sumptuous display? My best friend hangs her necklaces and earrings in an old bird cage, gorgeous.

Loves VW x

OOTW - A Dash of Geek Chic

The Manchester Arndale were having their 'big student giveaway' last week (discounts of up to 20% in most stores), but due to lack of funds I couldn't go crazy.

With a huge amount of self-constraint I came away with a dash of geek chic...

This beautiful light grey shirt from Topshop - £25 (instead of £32)

The frilly socks I'd been eyeing up in the American Apparel window display - £6.80 (instead of £8)

And a little black skirt from H&M - £2.99 (ok so no money off there, but come on, 3 quid! So handy.)



 

Worn with, Trench Coat - Zara
Brogues - Urban Outfitters
Bag - Vintage
Scarf - Oxfam
Necklace - a gift from China :-)
Glasses - Specsavers



My new OOTW carried me through my Friday 9am-1pm lectures, then later I ditched the glasses, swapped my brogues for some black heels, added a slick more eyeliner and my brown mock-croc handbag and I was ready for quiet drinks with a pal in Fallowfield (which ended in dancing 'til 3am and being horribly hungover when my parents arrived the next day, oops!)

I may have also made some new beauty purchases - American Apparel Nail Lacquer which I'd been dieing to try out. Factory Grey = Perfection. Lovely strong matt colour in two coats and dries super fast! A bit pricey at £7 a bottle, but I nabbed it at the 15% off night!

You may have noticed I love a strong, dark brow, and for a few years now have been enhancing my naturally bushy brows with powder (I much prefer it to the harsh shaping a pencil gives). I must admit until now I was only filling in with a chocolate brown maybelline eyeshadow of all things! But it was cheap, easy and effective, that is until it cracked, leaving powder all over my makeup bag and me with a naked brow! A quick stop in Selfidges and I came away with Benefit's Browzings in Medium, a cute little eyebrow shaping kit of wax, powder, tweezers and 2 mini brushes! A friend of mine has always used Benefit products, but until now I've always seen them as a bit pricey. Ok so the Browzings was £22.50, but definatly an investmentwhen you think about how I use it every day and will last a good 2 years! Converted.

Coffee & Charity in Cambridge

The Perfect Day.

This week I spent a day in Cambridge with my best bud (check out her blog - wandering-the-dream-space.blogspot.com); the day was so chilled out, just the two of us having a natter over various coffee drinks and wondering around the shops.

As we walked down Burleigh Street I was reluctantly persuaded by the dull grey skies and smattering of rain that autumn was truly upon us.  Eight charity shops later we were ready for another coffee and I had two great vintage finds nestled in my bag to kick start my autumn/winter wardrobe!

What I'll be wearing this Autumn!
Blouse & Scarf - Oxfam
Denim Shirt - Dorothy Perkins
Skirt - American Apparel
Brogues - Urban Outfitters

I picked up both these beautiful bargains in Oxfam - This sheer black blouse with white polka-dots is by a label called ‘Precis Petite’ and has the cutest bow shaped collar - £2.99

The silk scarf is in the most beautiful autumnal colours and looks awesome tied as a bow in my hair (which has faded to a very sensible dark brown – after the harsh black bowl cut with shaved sides which I’d been sporting since May!) - £1.99

The outfit I wore to Cambridge (including my boy's hoody for extra warmth) & wearing my new blouse!

I hope the blog's looking good so far? More posts to come, via the wonderful free wifi of Weatherspoons Manchester, haha.

Loves, VW x x x



Fancy French Florals

The Mr’s parents have a house in the Loire region of France where we stay most summers and this year we visited Chateau Chaumont for the day, where they hold an annual garden show, this year’s theme was “Body & Soul”.

Now don’t ask me what most of the designs had to do with the brief, as my French is appalling, but I found one particularly inspiring (and thankfully was in English) ‘Tea Revives You’.





Garden No.16 "Bon thé, bon genre" Which roughly translates as good tea, manners/good way of life - By George Richardson and Jules Arthur. See http://www.domaine-chaumont.fr. The festival is on until 17th October.

This ‘garden’ captures perfectly one of my summer fashion fetishes, florals! The tea party is a quintessentially English tradition and by looking at the cups and saucers on display you can easily see how china patterns have been influenced by the British garden, delicate roses and pretty pastel colours galore. I love that in the middle of France, at an 15th Century chateau you can still see how people are influenced by a good English cup of tea (I personally am a coffee girl, but I can see the appeal).

Now, I have quite a few floral pieces that I’ve picked up on the highstreet over the years (don’t we all?!), but funnily enough my all time favourite is this 80’s Laura Ashley style dress which I picked up from a vintage shop in Paris back in February (for only €8) – I just can’t get enough of it!



Dress - Vintage,
Brogues - Urban Outfitters,
Bag & Sunglasses - Primark
Socks - Topshop

I wear with white lacy ankle socks, two-tone brogues and of course my huge sunnies for a garden party or picnic in the park with friends.


Or team with gold lame shorts and my trusty fluoro reeboks for a quirky 80’s revival! (picture to come)

Come winter this dress isn’t going to get lost at the back of the wardrobe either, I’ll wear it with thick black tights, a slouchy chunky knit cardi and brogues!

Loves VW x x x