American Apparel's halloween costumes on the blog have become somewhat of a tradition. So here's my favorites from this years, or the best photos anyway. Feeling the group shots this time round & if my outfit wasn't all sewn up already I would be right now this minute trying to scrape together the money & convincing 3 friends to dress up as vegetables with me. I love how embarrassed they all look too, exactly what your halloween costume should make you feel like! Although there weren't too many scary one's this year... The clowns are pretty horrific & uhr, the highschool zombies. Anyway you can find what makes up the Bizarro Clowns, Vegetables & 90's Girl Power Group *ahem* by clicking on the words. And the rest of the costumes are here on the AA website. Much love.

What are you 

dressing as?

Rihanna I fucking love you. This video is amazing. & yes it's appropriating culture that doesn't belong to it, & glossing over shit like mad as well as lifting style from Corinne Day; but it's beautiful! The male model guy she's with is beautiful, the clothes she wears are beautiful & the portrayal of love turned to passion turned to hate is fucking beautiful too. Highlights are when she storms off & has to hook her skirt down, lighting 20 cigarettes at once, the Trainspotting drugs sequence, the fake tattooing & her vomiting up ribbons.

Plus I'm in Belfast so it's vaguely appropriate having been filmed on uhr... the same island. I'm here visiting the half of my family I didn't see last weekend. I am a little fam'd out, but at least I won't have to do it for a while afterwards. Anything amazing in Belfast I should do?

We found Dove in a 
soapless place.

I'd been promising myself some time to look at my clothes & try stuff out to prepare for winter.  Does anyone else do that? J treated me like I was clinically insane... but then there aren't many variations on black jeans, black band t-shirt. After some jumper/dress combos that may be marginally successful, I landed on this dress. I got it in Berlin from a pretty good vintage shop, it reminded me of the central Beyond Retro but the stock was like 100 times better & less static inducing (Alex's vintage I think, near Cash that one that eveyone recommends but was shit).

The hottish weather has meant I've overlooked this lovely crimplene dress because it's just so damn thick. But it's cold enough to get away with & if I take off the tights for work (where it's pretty hot) then it's slightly practical too, yay! Minus the belly inducing waist belt... haha. I love crimplene because (as you can see from the gif) it doesn't move! You lean one way & it stays where it is. I can't count the number of times I've put something on, thought I was prepared for the weather & then realised that in the slightest wind it wants to expose my underwear to the world. Not this bad boy.

In other news I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself having finally made it to a Doctors appointment yesterday & I also had Cat turn my hair into an afro so I'm abducting her to reproduce it for halloween. I'm really looking forward to it! A little pissed about probably missing Friday night at the lanes because I get back from Belfast pretty late, but Saturday & Monday should make up for it. What are you guys doing? Is anyone else appalled at the lack of stamina shown for people doing Halloween stuff on Monday night?

Just me?

By way of some semblance of an apology for my absence here is some beauty for your screen. The work of Andreas Loszlo Konrath has embarrassingly only just come to my attention via the New York magazine that my sister brought back with her last weekend from America. The article on the "lost generation" that I am a cliche of was actually really interesting too, with Konrath's photographs of hipsters with tape scrawled with things like "STUCK" & "Everyone default on your loans" etc, etc illustrating the piece wonderfully enough to catch my attention. Actually, kudos all round for New York magazine, even their joke dissection of a zombie brain is presented beautifully.

Anyway, yes, where have I been? Well no where really. I've been at work. Went to London for a family reunion last weekend. Got pretty ill and slept/relaxed it off between bursts of stress as work. It pisses me off that when people hear I work in a bookshop they assume I sit there all day reading proofs, when actually I've spent the last month dealing with some of the worst human beings known to planet Bristol: Bristol Students. I actively hate and resent them. I'm sorry if you turned up as one of the rare nice people amongst the upper class scum. But honestly I despair for needing a lawyer, doctor or um... French speaker in the future when these clowns are running around. Enough of that.

Basically mostly I've just been really fucking happy at the moment. Life is pretty good despite not really going anywhere. But I have missed finding lovely stuff, thinking about what clothes to wear & writing. & you guys! Of course. First & foremost I've really missed you guys. So I have the day off tomorrow & between doctors appointments & getting ready to go to Belfast I promise to think about & schedule some posts.

How are you?!

Sometimes the main reason I started this blog is because I have a story that goes with every single piece of clothing I own & in "real" life no one asks me about it. Probably the fact that most of my friends are male adds to this, but anyway. Today was one of those days when wearing this dress in the surprisingly sunny & slightly windy day turned a couple of heads, got a fair few looks. But no one went "I love your dress, where did you get it from?" Is it just me that asks this to strangers because I fear that far too few people do it at all.

So the story is: a paid way more for this dress than I wanted too just because the silk it's made of is extraordinary, the print gets a different identity every time I (or anyone else) looks at it (I think it resembles a flapper girl in profile) & I don't actually own anything pink. I got it in Berlin on Surezstrasse which has loads of vintage & antique shops on it. The shop this was in was my second favorite, after Tony Durante's where I unfortunately didn't buy anything & felt very guilty. But it was full of gorgeous silk & cotton slips and bedclothes, with lots of edwardian underwear & menswear as well. But it was the row of stunning dresses that of course, stole my heart. I have their card somewhere... but if anyone goes to Berlin, even if you don't want to buy anything I beg you to go there & see what vintage shopping should always be like!

Plus blue nail varnish because

I'm missing Mr Jesus Rogers!

So this is going to sound really stupid, but basically I saw almost this exact print on someone somewhere to do with the Spring 2012 shows that I've been avidly picking over. But now I can't find which one it was. Maybe it was my warped takeaway from the Dolce & Gabbana show whilst everyone else was looking at the pasta earrings. Or perhaps it was my interpretation of the Dries Van Noten lanscape black and white prints. Anyway, if anyone could help me out & prove that I am not completely mad that would be lovely.

Whatever the inspiration I am very happy I pressed bid on eBay & this shirt found it's way to me at almost the exact moment I discovered trousers, & just 10 months after creepers entered my life. Now I can dress like a very fashion conscious mod. Or Audrey Hepburn (the trousers) or a painter with the sickest painting shirt ever. Something about these black trousers makes me want to dress up as other people. Like when I tried them on wearing a black t-shirt, in my head I looked like Christina Ricci in Pan Am, all beatnik & monochrome. Maybe it's just trying to get away from the black trousers of mandatory school uniform...