dog-erisms

Hey all,

Today was unfortunately quite unproductive! However, I did eat my weight in macaroni and cheese, went grocery shopping with my boyfriend, read my magazines, watched four episodes of "How I Met Your Mother," and became totally addicted to this blog, Dolly Rocker Girl- so much fashion inspiration!

I guess that's just what some days are for.

the dirt in your fries

Holy shiz, I am freezing!

It was unexpectedly cold today, and as per usual I under-dressed for the conditions. Fortunately, I managed to combat this by slipping into my boyfriend's tracksuit pants and my favourite socks-and-sandals combo as soon as I got home. And when I say "as soon as I got home" I mean "after I ate a few pieces of chocolate from the fridge." Obviously.

Went out for breakfast this morning and accidentally ordered the mackerel cakes again. Still better than anything I could come up with in the kitchen so I'm not complaining. After breakfast, I spent today mostly in the school library and it was actually a pretty productive time. I wrote a whole article, and got a hefty chunk of a school project out of the way. Drinks are on me! Not! I can't afford to buy you guys DRINKS! Idiots.

Ladies, rejoice. I am here to tell you that it's okay to wear your Explorer socks with sandals. It's cool, really. You only have to look at the below photograph to see how serious I am about this.

trying to study...

...not going so well. I hate myself!

you make me lose my buttons

Hey all,

Last night my boyfriend and I watched "American Pie" whilst simultaneously eating apple pie. It was a stroke of genius, because by the time the infamous pie-masturbation scene began, our own pie was ready from the oven and we were STARVING.

I have just been enjoying my holidays, working on a couple of projects here and there, seeing friends. I went to lunch with Skye yesterday and ate smoked mackerel cakes with beans and beetroot and it was delicious. That meal is in stark contrast to today's lunch, which consisted of a banana and a carton of soymilk. I really need to work on my cooking skills.

Also, my ASOS order landed on my doorstep! I am doing "winter shorts" this season. Wow, I sound like a jerk.

What I'm wearing: shorts- ASOS, hoodie- thrifted, tights- supermarket, boots- thrifted

hold me

Hey, all-my-readers!

Just a quick outfit post today, as I have spent the last couple of days watching DVD's in my underwear (hey- it's the holidays), eating corn nuts by the bag and sleeping, so there's not too much to report (although I did have a really fun time last night catching up with friends and eating my body weight in pizza at a pub).

So basically life's pretty good right now (although my ASOS order could hurry the shit up already. I want my green corduroy shorts!). Spending today hanging out with my boyfriend, who has taken the day off work to be with me. Except I am on the laptop. Whoops.

What I'm wearing today: yellow DM's, thrifted dress, random socks I found on my floor. STYLIN'!

i need a dollar

Hi there,

So in a somewhat distressing turn of events, I just salivated whilst browsing through the shoes on ASOS. As in, I drooled a little from my mouth. I mean sure, it's getting near dinner time, and I might be a bit hungry, but it happened when I looked at a particular shoe.

ITCHY FINGERS but NO COIN!!

Ganni boot $182.27

you're my world

Hey,

So I am on holidays for a couple of weeks! My big plans include working on my school projects (lame), catching up on sleep, eating as much as humanly possible, and perhaps I will even make an appearance at the gym. Perhaps. Don't hold your breath.

Today involved going to school, eating a banana, reading a little, and taking a shower. Maybe I will even have a nap. Then I am heading out to the city to go see Bleeding Knees Club play- should be good! I will be the one dressed like Monica from classic nineties television program "Friends." At the moment I am not listening to Bleeding Knees Club though. I am listening to old-school Justin Timberlake, post-Britney but pre-acting career. It's rad.

I cannot stop eating today. Maybe I have worms.

Yesterday's outfit: skirt- ASOS, jumper- second hand, legs- ALL MY OWN.

food baby

Greetings from the school library,

Skye and I are just hanging out, just got back from breakfast (baked eggs and Welsh rarebit, delicious) and now we have to write a lab report. Needless to say, we are spending most of our time taking dumb photographs with the webcam, and have not started any of our work.

Winning!

Obviously.

light all my lights

Hey everybody,

I am now excitedly post-Chemistry exam!! I celebrated with a soy latte in my favourite cafe, read a pile of Vogues and snorted at the beauty section, and now that I am home, perhaps I will indulge in a little bit of wine. It's past midday after all.

And the news just gets better! The leggings and giant t-shirts I ordered online arrived on my doorstep this morning, and I successfully baked kale chips last night after reading about them forever on a multitude of vegan cooking websites. I am not vegan btw, just obsessed with food.

For my exam day I chose saggy denim shorts, my boyfriend's singlet that I found on the floor, an old black cardigan and Doc Marten boots. Boot-lickingly good.

Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?

scary face

I am SO hungover. Goals for today include:

(1) Eating my muesli without regurgitating it later. I think the key here is to take it slow

(2) Create a variety of interesting playlists on iTunes for times such as "doing the dishes" or "can't sleep again" or "washing the dog"

(3) Drink a green smoothie with kale in it. Without regurgitating it later

(4) Try not to be rude to my boyfriend or my dog just because I poisoned myself with alcomahol last night and I feel sick. Trying to refrain from being an asshole is HARD

all the other kids with the pumped up kicks

So sleepy today!

Got up early this morning to go get breakfast and faux-study with Skye at A Bite To Eat. I ate some delicious fruit sourdough toast and scrambled eggs, alongside two big mugs of soy latte- didn't sleep last night!

After breakfast I went to the fresh food markets with my homeboy, bought a shitload of fresh fruits/vegetables/meats/cheeses, and ate a whole breadstick. I wore my thrifted bird print playsuit with some stompy yellow DM's because it's really sunny outside. I think those days are numbered as we are creeping closer to winter.

Now I am just kicking back watching "30 Rock" and getting some snuggles on the couch. Tina Fey is a genius (but we all knew that already!). Need to save my energy, as I am going out to the city with my brother later tonight, twin-style and on a strict budget...should be interesting.

fashion and feelings

Over the past year or so I have been slowly rediscovering my love of fashion, and in the process, finding out just how much it is linked to my self-esteem and confidence. Last year I was staying home a lot, wearing a lot of food-stained tracksuits, and feeling a little shitty about the world in general. As a result, I completely lost my fashion mojo, and my sense of identity. And I missed it. So this year I have been putting a bit more effort into styling myself, and am actually amazed at how much of a difference it has made to how I feel.

It is crazy to think how far the notion of "fashion" has evolved since the first caveman slipped into his mammoth skin loincloth and realised that his delicate, dangly genitals won't get hit with flying ash embers any more when he prods the fire with a stick. What began as a simple necessity to protect against the wind and cold has somehow spawned into Lady Gaga's gravity-defying Noritaka Tatehana heelless shoes, those stupid sunglasses Kanye West wore in the "Harder Better Faster Stronger" video clip that almost completely obstruct your vision, diamond teeth implants (just for funsies!) and...a dress made entirely out of dried yak nipples! Oh my God, that is disgusting. I sincerely apologise, it just came up during a Google search, and I got curious, and....gross. Moving on.

Now that fashion has evolved this far, it has become deeply ingrained in our personal sense of self. The clothes you wear are now a form of self-expression. You have a "style." The clothing you have selected can now categorise you socially, flatter your perceived "best parts," or even support a cause. Fashion is now quite a powerful thing.

For some of us, including myself, it has the power to alter mood and confidence levels. If I am wearing something that I feel is awesome, and reflects a personal style I have spent time cultivating and am proud of, it tends to show in my face/strut/sassy jokes. Alternatively, if I have just gone out to pick up some milk in the tracksuit pants with the saggy bottom that makes me look like I have accidentally pooped in my adult diaper, I will not feel as confident about myself, and will probably just get the milk, keep my head down and go home to put a fresh diaper on. 

Obviously some people do not share these feelings; fashion can also just be completely simple and functional, and there are obviously a lot of ways to express yourself that won't rely on what you're wearing at all. But for me, a self-confessed fashion nut, it can definitely affect how I feel about myself.

For me, I usually feel the most confident in a huge jumper teamed with leggings/skinny jeans and big boots (or these pointy brown lace-up granny boots that I have, which I have worn so much they are falling apart). It is generally my go-to outfit, and is the outfit I will go to school in, go out for a soy latte, wear to a go see a band, and wear at home when I am just kicking back with my eReader. This outfit represents me and makes me feel like I look okay. Other girls I see out in the city seem to feel their best in a skin-tight coral dress with pin-thin stilettos and a patchy fake tan. Each to their own.

The point is, everyone is different, and that's why fashion is awesome- it caters for everyone, and you can choose how to express yourself (and at the very least, provides a warm, waterproof covering for your skin- or a handy and delicious meal when the day is done, if you are wearing the Lady Gaga raw steak dress).

The audience is BEHIND YOU, Kanye! You're looking THE WRONG WAY!

bambi bashing (the model, not the cartoon deer, and just a verbal bashing, not a physical one)

There is an Australian model and her star is on the rise (or rather, it has already risen, she has done a million trillion editorials and magazine covers, and has continuing popularity). Her name is Bambi Norwood-Blyth, she weighs approximately 37 kilograms and she has been the darling of the fashion world since her rise to fame in early 2010.

I first laid eyes on an editorial featuring Bambi (real name: Stephanie- nowhere near as catchy, dah-ling!) over breakfast sometime last year while I was idly flicking through a Cosmopolitan, or a Madison, or some other average Australian publication. My first thought was "Wow, those eyebrows are amazing. I quite like me a pair o' big bushy eyebrows" but then I took a second glance and was all "WHERE DID HER BODY GO??!!" I just about choked on my sourdough!

She is literally JUST A HEAD. Okay, well not literally. She has a body.

The body in question is very small and brown and withered, and my pet Chihuahua has bigger hips. I am all for loving all shapes and all sizes and everyone is beautiful blah blah blah, but it admittedly scares me a little that her body is the current fashion ideal. I really thought anorexic-chic was on the way out, what with the whole "plus-size" craze, and sending larger models out on the runways, and all that Robyn Lawley-love going around like genital herpes at a swinger's club on a Wednesday evening. And I am disappointed.

I don't mean to suggest that one size is any better than another, and for all I know Bambi could be stuffing her face with McDonald's cheeseburgers between shoots, but I highly doubt it. I am a supporter of healthy eating and healthy body image, and while I am aware that some bodies are just naturally thin, I think that Bambi's body looks unhealthy and unachievable for the regular Joe (or Joanne). But the pressure is still there for women to conform to the ideal.

I don't think that much good can come out of plastering the image of Bambi's twig arms, sunken cheeks and jutting hipbones all over the Miss Shop section in Myer. Fifteen year-old girls already have enough stuff to worry about without the pressure of trying to wear the current trends like the model on the poster, who is around an Australian size 4.

One blogger on a popular fashion blog commented on a post featuring Bambi declaring her "the perfect woman!" The truth is that Bambi actually has the figure of an eight year-old boy- not very womanly at all. I don't want my fifteen year-old sister to look down at her own perky DD's and think that she is anything less than perfect, even if it is not the shape reflected in the magazines. I don't want to look down at my (not as perky) DD's and feel like I need to starve myself down to become some kind of Lolita-ish woman-child.

Yes, she has a beautiful face. But for the greater good, I think it's time the fashion magazines jumped off the Bambi bandwagon and stopped idealising an unattainable, and unhealthy, size and shape.

The perfect woman?

got snapped...

Listening to the dreamy pop sounds of Snakadaktal at Transit Bar earlier in the month.

where have all the real girls gone?

I have been an avid reader of fashion blogs on the interwebs since I was fifteen years old (and now I am ancient, so it has been quite a while) and have spent countless hours pouring over these blogs, admiring the personal style and lusting after the clothes of these very stylish women.

So I have a bit of a problem with the way things in the fashion blog world are going at the moment. It's making me uncomfortable. And giving me an inferiority complex (or at least making the existing one worse). My problem is the disappearance of "real" on these blogs.

In the last few years or so, I have begun to notice some subtle changes taking place over these blogs that I once so adored. The photographs look clear and sharp. Stores and designers are name-dropped every second sentence. The blogger's whole body is in the shot (including their shoes! HOW?) and everything just looks so. Goddamn. Polished.

Gone are the dodgy MySpace-style self-portraits with the arm clearly visible, the grainy webcam shots of girls contorted into awkward positions to ensure their whole outfit makes the cut and the off-centre self-timer photographs where the camera has clearly been balanced on a slightly-too-tall bookshelf.

Introduced in their place: perfect, clear, in-focus, colour-corrected glamour shots of the bloggers in their $12,325 Isabel Marant jacket and $5,867 Alexander Wang heels. These girls appear to have full-time photographers constantly on the scene to capture their perfectly spontaneous, chic moments (oh what? You're just standing around in the street with your DSLR? This is such a coincidence! Hey, I guess you may as well take a quick snap of my outfit while we're both here). I'm looking at you, Rumi Neely!

Everyone looks perfect. And unblemished. And they stink of money. I just stink, because I was kind of in a hurry this morning and forgot to put on deoderant. But I digress.

I don't actually want to look at perfect pictures of size zero Barbie girls wearing clothes that I could never afford, even in my wildest, wettest dreams (hello clunky Miu Miu heels- nice to see you again). I am BORED WITH THIS NOW.

I want to see real girls, dirty girls with unbrushed hair, wearing their own clothes (not weird wet-look gold leggings that have been mailed to them by American Apparel that they would probably never choose themselves). What's so wrong with photographs of girls that are real, girls who don't have the time (or frankly, the inclination) to edit out every perceived imperfection on Photoshop before they post? What's wrong with having a freckle on your cheek, or an abnormally large gap between your eyebrows (just me?)? What's wrong with just being real?

Now, I am not saying that I hate these blogs. I still read them for the fashion eye candy, and I guess vague ideas for potential outfits. But I just think they have been done to death.

So from one dirty, unbrushed girl to (hopefully) a few others; I say bring back the dodgy webcam shots. If I wanted to look at a proper fashion shoot, I would pick up a Vogue (and I do!).

EXHIBIT A: CLEAN

"Oh, hi! I didn't see you there! Oh my God, I am SO embarrassed to be caught out in my camilla and marc jacket and pants, Life with Bird t shirt, Alexander Wang handbag (borrowed from Zanita), Zara heels, Michael Kors watch, Pink Lou Lou rings, Jacquie Aiche ring, and Gorjana necklace."

EXHIBIT B: DIRTY

"Oh, hi! Fancy seeing you here, camera with self-timer! I totally just lie on my floor in a pile of dirty clothes and a random cardboard box like this all the time! So seductive right now!"

she's hearing voices

Hey there,

So it seems as though I am having a small almost-quarter life crisis- namely, what am I doing with my life? And also, why are all the Vivienne Westwood booties on asos.com sold out in my size?

Currently I am studying a Diploma of Animal Technology, which directly aligns with my childhood dreams of becoming a vet nurse (yes, that's right- even as a child I probably sensed that I couldn't commit to the six plus years of study to become an actual veterinarian). I love animals; it all makes sense...except that it doesn't, because I am hating it.

Fantasizing about marrying a billionaire nonogenarian and ditching the idea of paid employment forever.

(Except I am pretty sure my current future husband wouldn't want to share me, and we would no longer be able to peruse markets and go on cutie picnics together with cheese and pickle sandwiches and purchase hot apple cider with lots of sediment from a dodgy-looking semi-stoned old guy in a hemp shirt).

The view from the picnic yesterday.

used to be one of the rotten ones and i liked you for that

Well,

At least if I'm going to binge eat, it's on quinoa and broccoli. I went nuts and ate the entire saucepan-full!

Things could be worse I suppose.

air

Hey readers,

So the gig was good last night- cute band, busy crowd, tasty beer, and more sweet, dirty little hipsters than you could poke a stick at. I was feeling quite tired because sleep has been kind of an issue lately, so I just kind of stood with my boyfriend, dangled my beer between my fingers and let everything wash over me. 

I spent today sleeping, reading, eating (smoked salmon bagel for breakfast), drinking coffee and trying on my own shoes. Achievements include washing my hair for the first time in four days, and, um, that's it.

Must study tonight. NON-NEGOTIABLE.

get a chinese and watch tv

Hey there,

Well, it's hump day, and I am going to spend it munching my way through a plate of baked sweet potato, with a blueberry and almond milk smoothie to wash it down. Carbohydrates might perk me up a little, so I can actually get some study done.

I have to really knuckle down tonight as I will be out tomorrow night enjoying a gig in the city with my boyfriend- I am pretty fucking excited for it because the band (Snakadactal) sound great and they are pretty much just a bunch of kids! Perhaps I will even manage to sink a couple of vodka Red Bulls and hit the d-floor.

I just want to get retarded and forget about real life for a little minute!

Just hanging out with my purple blueberry tongue.

Hey readers,

Today I woke up grumpy, drank some homemade coffee with rice milk, dissected some sheep organs in class, ate some lentils, bought a bottle of Diet Coke, completed a couple of school assignments, downloaded some music, and kissed my dog.

Overall an alright day.

Now all I want to do is go and walk around the grocery store with my boyfriend. I like doing that.