Flying to Perth

On Tuesday I'm off on a little adventure!

Charles has gone to Perth for 4 weeks. He has a string of performances at a theatre there. In mid-October, he's flying directly from Perth to Sweden. Unfortunate for me! So I decided to go and visit him during my uni holidays!

On Monday (tomorrow) my parents and I are driving to Beechworth, where my mother's sister lives. Then on Tuesday morning, we'll drive to Melbourne to see my grandfather, and then I'll fly from Melbourne straight to Perth.

I'm a bit worried about flying alone - it'll be my first time. I usually like to squeeze someone's hand during takeoff because I get anxious. I guess I'll have to squeeze my own hand!

New Corset Photoshoot

As promised! Charles was at my house for long enough to take some photos!

For my birthday, my friend who does costumes made me a corset: It is super nice! Here I'm wearing it with my FanPlusFriend giant skirt.

It certainly does make me sit up straight!

Check out all the detail:

Fully laced at the back:

Worn, you can see how much I need to wear it open! I just have too many ribs. Originally it came with a shoelace-type lacing arrangement, but it was too short! I replaced it with some satin ribbon.

And just in case you didn't know how huge this skirt is...

Outfit rundown:

Blouse: Offbrand

Skirt: FanPlusFriend

Corset: Handmade by my amazingly skilled friend :-)

Recycling designs

So it looks like Victorian Maiden is going to recycle their designs once again. I had a look on their Press Room Blog and found this lovely dress, which I think is similar to their very old designs:

As well as a corset. I haven't seen a Victorian Maiden corset for years! So I thought I'd do a post about some of their recycled designs. I found all of these pictures on the Victorian Maiden Press Room blog, and their online shop. The blog is amazing, it goes back years and has some really cute pictures!

Here's a cute thing. Coming soon in 2009: Regimental Stripe series!

And this is from the Press Room blog this month! Coming again, with an identical bag and fabric but new dress and hat:

This is an old dress I found on the blog, from 2007.

This dress is currently for sale on the Victorian Maiden website. The design is almost the same, but the fabric is different.

This dress is from 2007, from Beth. Beth was a sub-brand of Victorian Maiden, which does not exist any more. I think that Beth had sweeter designs while VM stocked more adult, dark clothes. This is just speculation. Now VM has both!

Last year, VM was selling this new version on their website, in new colours.

Here's another one from Beth in 2007: a sailor-type underbust dress.

Here's the new version which just came into stock. It's not quite the same, but the buttons and underbust elements are still there. I prefer the old Beth one because the buttons don't go all the way down the front, BUT I prefer the new A-line cut. Both cute!

Another Beth dress - in a cute grey check fabric. Super puffy sleeves!

And here's the 2009/10 Dorothy Doll Dress. I tried this on in Japan in pink, but didn't have enough money to buy it! The sleeves are less puffy, and it's in solid colours.

There are many more examples!

Some people might think that recycling designs means that the designers have no new ideas. I think that it's more because they want to sell more of their classic designs which were very popular previously. I think it's a good idea because it gives people a second chance to get a dress if they missed out the first time, or get a new one if they loved the first one to bits. It also gives me hope that they'll have a dress again. I really loved the Dorothy Doll Dress and the Diana Dress, and they're gone now. But knowing that they repeat their designs, maybe they'll be back, better than ever! What do you think of design repeating? Do other brands do it too? VM is the only brand I follow obsessively, so I have no idea!

What I Like vs. What I Wear

I admit that I get obsessed with clothes sometimes. When there is a super wonderful item of clothing on the wubs that is in my power to buy, I go a bit crazy. I ask everyone I know, Will this look good on me? What do you think of this? I even ask the Internets.

If I do cave in and buy the item, it's true love for a few days, but after that... sometimes that wonderful dress/blouse/skirt doesn't look all that great on me.

Remember when I went to the Victorian Maiden Press Room? It was so much fun. I bought a lovely blouse and a lovely skirt:

Lovely right? And they go together well. I tried them on at the shop, and I wore them out on the town. I felt frigging beautiful. But then I got back home, into the sweltering heat, and I couldn't wear them any more. Too hot. When Autumn came around, I had trouble coordinating them. It looked too dark. Now I sometimes wear the skirt with a different top, but rarely wear my blouse. Which is a shame because I love it so much. The fabri c is so nice, it fits so well, but it just looks overdone. I need a cream coloured blazer to go with it, I think. I've been looking! I want this one from Mary Magdalene, but it's super out of stock.

This is an R-Series blouse that I bought from Qutieland a couple of years ago. Quite nice, right? I thought so too, for a few months. The fabric is an interesting texture which I like, ribbon and lace collar is cute, the buttons are nice, and it's a good fit. However! It's really short! Observe how the shirt curves up over the hips of the mannequin. This means that you can only really wear this with a high-waisted skirt. I like wearing jeans sometimes, and this looks really good with jeans, except you have to wear another top to cover the gap between top of jeans and bottom of blouse. The other problem is that it looks kind of schoolgirl-ish. I'm 23, and I don't want to look like a schoolgirl. Changing the ribbon might help.

We all know about this blouse - pretending to be off white in this photo! It's a Mary Magdalene replica. It's really good quality, and not short on me. But! IT'S TOO FRILLY FOR ME. I can't handle it. The cuffs are SO frilly - they really puff out and make it hard to wear a cardigan. And maybe because I'm quite fair - it's hard for me to pull off having a white high neck blouse.

Next there are two items I bought from FanPlusFriend. On the mannequins, they look so lovely! I think I was going through a pirate kick when I bought these.

This blouse is made of satiny clingy fabric that would probably melt if I ironed it, and the creases won't fall out. It has corset lacing so it does fit well, but the arms are really long. And who wears a jabot?

This skirt was one of my obsessions for a while. I was amazed at the drop pleats! They are pretty cool. But when it arrived, I noticed that it was GIANT. It is TOO LONG for me. I can't walk in it without tripping. It's just very voluminous. But pretty rad still. The fabric is super soft and lovely. I plan on selling my two F+F items soon, if at all possible.

Time for some success stories! Yes, I have some! I'm just going to share my three favourite pieces.

Firstly, my gorgeous Adele Bustier Dress. I think I can safely say that this is my favourite dress ever. It is so choice. I highly recommend picking one up.

It cost me a LOT to get this. I used a shipping service, Gosurori Order, who bought the dress for me in Japan and mailed it out. That cost me a fee, and the AUD wasn't so good at the time either. It was super expensive. But since I adore this dress so much, it was totally worth it. I wear it all the time, usually with the next piece I'll show you.

This is another R-Series blouse I bought from Qutieland. This blouse is practically perfect in every way, plus it was a lot cheaper than brand. The fabric is a light polyester (I guess) that feels gorgeous against my skin. The blouse has corset lacing so I always fit well. I adore the buttons - little faux pearls - and the details. I'm considering buying myself another one while they are still for sale. Mine has been loved almost to death! The buttonholes are fraying and the pearl paint is coming off the buttons. It's getting a little pilly. But it's still so beautiful. I wear this with the above dress and it's lovely.

Lastly, my most recent purchase. I got this high-waisted skirt off the sales comm about a month ago. It's VM, it was cheap, I thought why not. It had a little damage. Since it arrived, I've probably worn it more than ten times. It is nice enough that I can wear it to somewhere posh, but I can also dress it down to wear to uni. It's A-line, which makes it easier to wear casually. Not a great photo I know, but this is a super lovely skirt! Top marks! I do plan to take photos of myself wearing all this stuff, but who knows when that will happen.

SO NICE.

Well that's the end of my rant, for today. I omitted some of my other clothes, because they're Summer clothes and I haven't worn them in ages! Who knows whether I still like them or not?

Is there a lesson to be learned from this? I think the lessons are: Don't Buy Dumb Colours, You Look Silly In White Blouses, Don't Buy Something You Have Nothing To Wear With, Don't Buy Extreme Things, and It Helps To Try It On.

I'd welcome advice about what to wear with my neglected clothes. I'd love to wear my old VM skirt and blouse more often...

Recent Events

So a bunch of stuff has happened recently. Here are some photos that I just took off my camera.

July 30th: I went to see Bill Bailey at the National Convention Centre. This is what I wore:

Beret: some shop in Japan. It has a bow!

Cardigan: SES

Scarf: A lady knitted it for me

Brooch: My nana's.

Skirt: Handmade

Tights: Target

Then at the end of August we went to a Percussion gathering in Brisbane. It was nice and warm, and the concerts and masterclasses were fun. Charles and I went for a walk along this cool bridge:

Here's the Brisbane Gallery where we saw the Valentino exhibition. Seen from the cool bridge. We had macaroons there.

Then it was my mum's birthday. I made a cake:
It is hard to decorate cakes. Hard hard hard. But I made an effort.

It's been raining a lot here. While I was driving to work I noticed that Scrivener Dam was overflowing. It must be like a billion litres per second. That's a bridge where cars go.
My pa is sick, so dad and I flew to Melbourne yesterday to visit him. I brought my book of Irving Berlin music to show him. He liked looking through it. I don't want to talk about it.

To get to the nursing home, Dad and I took the shuttle bus to the city, and then a train, and then walked. Here's Spencer Street Station:

Curvy!