Cranberry

 

 

Beret - Knitted by my grandmother

Ralph Lauren shirt - Jumble sale

Black jeans - Uni qlo

Satchel - Cambridge satchel company (gift)

Dr Martens Velvet brogues - jumble sale

~ Listening to  - Florence + the machine - Shake it out ~

I have to agree with everyone else out there and say I'm happy Autumn has finally turned up. So my favourite season since it involves all the following; Halloween, beautiful colours, bonfire night, my birthday and awesome flavours in coffee shops. I find I do a complete 180 with my clothing tastes as soon as the nights start getting darker. In summer I want light colours and flowing skirts and in winter I want clean lines and rich colours. At the moment I feel quite like dressing in a 1970s/1990s college student kind of way. Also it being back to school season means it's time to bring out the satchel. I've also been reading Tomboy style religiously and was really inspired by this post particularly, which may explain why I've been looking for an A line mini dress recently. And also why I took The Empty page: Fiction inspired by Sonic Youth out the library last week, it's pretty good so far. I was really happy to go on some seriously jumble sale thrifting at the weekend, where I picked up this Ralph Lauren mustard shirt for a bargain of 30p. The shoes are from a previous jumble, they are a bit ruined and a bit too big but I love the rich cranberry velvet of them.

A tourist in the waking world

 

Headband - Knitted by me grandmother

Top - Vintage, Etsy

Skirt - Jumble sale

Wool socks - Gift

Boots - Jumble sale

Cambridge satchel - Christmas gift

 ~ Listening to Florence + the machine - Blinding ~

Happy 2011! I hope everyone had a wonderful new years. I always think NYE is a bit overrated but I had a good time this year, with much wine and catching up with old (and not so old) friends. I didn't mean for these photos to look quite so ghostly, but i had the camera on pinhole so there we go. I really wanted to wear something involving my two new favourite things, the top and the satchel. I absolutely love this little sailor top. I've been trying to be frugal with buying myself clothes for a while, but I just have to have it. It's made of thick tan jersey, with toggles and a sailor collar, it's form the 1950's and the label is narnina, which naturally makes me think of Narnia and love it even more. As for this bag, well... I've been after a cambridge satchel for nearly a year, but I never felt I could justify the price of one to myself. Then a certain someone sneakily got my one for christmas. It even has my initials! I couldn't chose between brown and navy, so now I have both colours in one.  I sort of want to dress like a 1960s collage student at the moment, however in my mass clearing out I found this H.M.S Victory pin, and thought it kind of went with the sailor top. Now it's back to clearing out my wardrobe, I'll be adding some things to the Etsy store soon too.

Dress Envy

Dress - Handmade

Shoes - Charity shop

Bag - Charity shop

Hat - Grandmother's

 So I have to admit to something... I suffer from serious dress envy. You know when you see a girl in the street wearing a perfect vintage dress and wish it was yours, or just miss buying something on Etsy or Ebay? Well when I saw this lovely dress on Jess of the Cat's Pajamas I suffered quite a bit of dress envy. Since it was a vintage handmade dress there was no chance of purchasing one. However I thought I could always make one. It looked like a fairly straight forward dress and I have plenty of chambray lying around (because I love chambray) plus some scraps of checked fabric from my grandmother. I used and altered a juniors dress pattern. I chose age 13 but it turned out huge, much larger than a misses pattern for some reason, so I took it in a bit and voila! It's not exactly the same, I decided on a more Peter Pan style collar and the checks are different. I hope it's not too strange a thing to do,  I suppose imitation is the greatest form of flattery?

As for the rest, the bag is the same brand as the one I had in the last outfit post. A brand called Marc Chantal. Both bags have the same style of clasp, of which I am fond.  There is something very satisfying about the way it works. The whole outfit reminds me slightly of a school uniform and the Madeline books so I thought the hat and satchel would go well. I also have a thing for bird books, I just love the colour plates. This one was published in 1929.