Tag: turquoise

Heels and Bowties

First let me give you a glimpse of my last couple of weeks where I seem to have dropped off the face of the earth or at least the blogging part of it as I just have not written anything in quite some time. It has been quite a strenuous couple of weeks of tests for me with the last one culminating to five tests in one week and I know to the adult world a test is just some joke that doesn’t stand up to actual jobs and paying bills and all those tiring things you keep warning us of but for a tired and emotionally strained 18 year old it can end up being quite stressful and time consuming. Something I battled with was focussing and I didn’t want to even give myself the temptation of writing a blog when I was so far away from completing my studies. Along with this I also went through some (more) personal and emotional issues which rocked me a little more than expected and for the most part I became an empty unenthusiastic and stressed shell of a person and I threw aside my personality not willing to deal with myself and how I felt for the most part.

But after giving myself a weekend to sleep, recuperate and improve my happiness I have finally felt the enthusiasm to once again blog. How exciting!

Before the test season we, my fellow engineering-wannabes and I, had one last bash. It was hosted by the Capetonian in our midst at his house (when your life revolves around residence rooms, their rules and tiny size an actual House is a rare and exciting phenomenon). The theme was formal which posed a slight challenge for me as I had not bought a mass supply on fancy clothing down to Cape Town with me. Plus it was cold. I only had black stockings which didn’t go with my dresses or my shoes so that was a no go. I wanted to wear pants and a smart shirt to almost mimic a man’s typical formal outfit as a joke to my mainly male dominated engineering friends but sadly the fanciest pants I have are jeans and that seemed a bit of a let-down and I wouldn’t have been able to look better than the suit-clad-bowtie-wearing boys, so it would have pointless. So after a frantic call to my friend, and fellow fashionista, I managed to score myself her black midi skirt which comes more to knee length than midi on me as she is tiny but none the less I felt retro and classy. I paired it with a loose formal white button-up shirt leaving my outfit vaguely reminiscent of my previous idea. I wore (the only high heels I had in cape town – so not much of a choice but I love them regardless so it didn’t matter too much) my turquoise wedges which are still my favourite pair of heels and have seen me through many a fancy event. I threw over my new black coat. I bought it at the end of last winter choosing, on a meagre student budget, to look in the end-of-season-sale for the new item in my coat collection. It is a large structured black coat with striking zip detail and a dramatic collar and I always feel like I could walk into my job as a head of a Highstreet clothing brand wearing the thing. I matched my turquoise clutch with the shoes. The clutch never disappoints with its silver hardware and pleather feel and I am always looking for an opportunity to use it. I then added my classic Jemma twist. This time it was adding my favourite necklace. The traditional orange beaded accessory clashed both in colour and style yet bought the outfit together and made it stand out.

Closer view of the coat detail
Close up of my favourite beads (better then any bowtie)
Background part is in full swing

Fifi (the skirt-loaning friend) fittingly and unknowingly also wore black and white with her added piece of African ‘bling’. Her outfit was classy and simple with a straight black dress and classic white heels but with an oversized denim jacket to add some character to the look. You can check out her thought provoking discussion of it and its connections to her role and being as a black woman in fashion and South Africa at http://www.allzuri.blogspot.com/ .

All Zuri

It was a fun evening filled with Champaign (for my friends) and orange juice (for sober me) and the classic formal feast of pizza (the biggest pizza’s I’ve ever seen). Vinyl’s were played (briefly) then other less retro sounds, alcohol infused board games were competed in and for a brief moment we all pretended we didn’t have engineering homework due on the Monday.

I liked having an excuse to dress up and can’t wait for round two.

Mom’s Closet

Hi all,

I know it has been far too long but here I am, back with a short fashion post as usual.

This one is a bit of a throwback from when I had my mid-semester vac in Johannesburg and I had left basically all of my clothes in Cape Town (for optimum bag space) and I delved into my mother’s collection of clothes.

You will probably recognize the jeans as being my own ripped, black, much-loved Mr Price pair and the blue clutch being a bright accessory that yes does belong to me but the rest of the outfit is not mine.

(Okay the sunglasses are mine but I am not mentioning those as they broke during this shoot at the tender age of two months – tut tut Woolworths I am unimpressed)

The top, oh the glorious top that I came very close to smuggling back to Cape Town, is my mothers. I don’t know where she found it but I think its obvious that a good fashion sense is something I inherited from the mama-bear. It is a light and over-sized white cotton shirt which elegantly bridges the gap between formal and casual. I think in the week I was home I wore the shirt three times (yes it is that versatile – perfect for university- wink wink mother).

The shoes, an item which has also been seen before on this blog, are also my mom’s and the only pair of her shoes that I can squeeze my feet into. I paired them with some cute frilly white socks and a confident walk and felt like I could step into the business world there and then and I would have fit in, or I could have been comfortable at a lunch with friends, or a fancy date… and really the list goes on.

It’s about time my mom’s closet got the spotlight as really she is where I got my initial inspiration from… maybe when I get back to Joburg you’ll have to have a whole shoot to yourself Mom!

x J

(oh and how cool is my cover, it is a strong cover for my iPhone 5 – needed as I am always dropping it – but the best part is it has my name on it. It is from a cute little shop called Macaroon in Joburg and is one of the best buys I have ever made http://www.macaroon.co/macaroon/content/en/macaroon/home)

Maxi Skirts, Plaid and a nail polish adventure.

The wind had to do it’s bit in the photo
Close up on the plaid shirt
Close up on my hand (please excuse the cat scratches)

This is a fashion post which I will talk about in three parts:

1. Why I love maxi skirts.

2. My view on the plaid trend.

3. The easy-to-do trick I tried on my nails.

 

1. Maxi skirts where a surprising trend which came about a couple of years ago when instead of the idea of wearing as little as possible people suddenly started going the old-fashioned route and covering up. As soon as I was exposed to this I had to try it out and bought the first one that I could find which suited me. I love this skirt It is too big for me as I have lost wait so I can’t wear it without a belt which is slightly annoying but I make do. It is high wasted which is brilliant for my body type. I think anyone who has a maxi skirt will agree with me that waking in it, walking with all this fabric twisting around you is an incredible feeling. Sure sometimes it can get in your way and you have to take careful precautions not to step on the thing but it is still brilliant. Also the thing I love about it is the mystery. You could hide anything under there. I could be walking around with a monkey strapped to my one leg and a string of fireworks to the other and no one  would have a clue about it. Would I want to strap a monkey and some fireworks to my legs? No I think that would end terribly but the idea that I could do it is very exciting. The other thing about maxi skirts is that you always look like a lady. Not in the derogatory sence but you can sit, stand and walk in any way you please and you don’t have to worry about looking ungraceful or flashing anybody (maybe if you intend to hang upside down in one you may have to be careful). When I wear a maxi skirt I also feel connected, connected to the upbeat forward thinking Fashion Gurus of this generation, but also to the society challenging hippies from the 70s and the graceful yet powerful suffragettes. All these woman wore (and wear) long skirts and they were strong. It is just an item of clothing but it makes me feel pretty good in it and like I can do anything. I am not going to start smoking weed, getting tattoos or throwing myself under moving vehicles but I could do those things when in a skirt like that.

 

2. The plaid trend. I love plaid but I barely ever wear it because it has been abused in one of the most over used trends of this year. It has become the most unoriginal fashion ‘do’ I have seen. I now can’t wear red plaid and tie it around my waist. Not because I don’t like it, I actually think that it is quite a nice look but it makes me feel like a clone. The saddest part of fashion is that everyone just follows each other. There are the few and I hope one day I can call myself one of them who are unique. They try new things, push the boundaries and have an out of the box style. Everybody else either don’t care at all and wear things which look just like pajamas or they follow. Fashion has become a sheep like entity where the everyday person has not clinical mind or thought when thinking of clothes. It’s sad how indoctrinating the commercial world has made fashion. Style is a dying art but I hope it can one day be saved. Because of this I find it uncomfortable to wear things that everyone else wears which is why my plaid is purple. I’ve never seen anyone where purple plaid and this gives me a little grin of satisfaction. It also scares the wannabe hipsters at my school because their fashion minds can’t quite grasp this glitch in their overused trend.

 

3. I love my nails. I love to paint them and take care of them and grow them long and beautiful but I’m bored, bored with plain old colours, so I thought try something new. I had painted my nails white but I wanted to give it an extra dimension. I had heard that people use sticky tape to make patterns on their nails so I decided to take the leap and try. I put the sticky tape at angles on each of my nails (I did one hand fully before the other because if it didn’t work the laziness inside of me didn’t want to repaint both hands). I then painted the neat little triangles gold. I was impatient to rip off the sticky tape and see what it looked like but I had to ignore it. I had to pretend that it wasnt there so I couldn’t let my impatience ruin my painting adventure. Eventually I took it off and it looked quite good. I must admit my angles  are not all equal but next time I will pay more attention to this. I ended off by painting clear over it all to prevent chipping and I was left with what I think is a pretty cool result. It was easier than it looked and it made me feel fancier than I look. If you are bored, like me, you should try it. You can do it with any colour you want but just remember to be patient.

 

New Coat for Hard Rock Café

I’m sorry for the distinct lack of blog posts lately. It seems that the only device on which I can access my blog in an iPad and this is an unsatisfactory device on which to type. The soft fleshy thumps my finger make, make them feel fat and I miss the tick of a keyboard (who would have thought right?)

But anyway ’tis the season for 18th birthdays and a couple of days ago I had the pleasure of going to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. It was friends of mine, twins, birthday and they were paying. It was great. It’s the first time I’ve been and although it is extremely overpriced the food is amazing and the atmosphere is brilliant. It really had a unique vibe, well at least unique to what I’m used to, it’s old fashioned American diner meets modern class. The waiter was enthusiastic (maybe slightly too enthusiastic for some people) and the night was enjoyable. I ate a large burger which was probably too big but I finished it anyway. It had some long name with the word hickery and barbecue some where. It was a beef burger and I’m not a big fan of beef but I decided to go for it and was pleasantly surprise, as I said I ate the whole thing. The birthday girls ordered a host of desserts but I was too full to try any but they looked great.

I rarely get to where heels and after a long term of school my friends felt the same so we decided to over dress slightly and make it a semi-formal event. I was so excited. I wore my favourite blue wedges (easier to walk in) and A new dress I got. I wore the heels to a dance I went to so I have the most incredible bag that goes with it which I wore as well. And  the most important piece if the outfit? The coat! I love coats and for my birthday I got money to buy a new one. I like the chunkiness of this one as it compliments my style and I have a soft spot for oversized coats. I was so excited to wear it and I think it went well. The cherry on the top was that my friend gave me a beautiful ring with a black stone that is more formal than most of my other rings. It just bought the whole look together.

Anyone in Joburg who us looking to treat themselves, go to the Hard Rock Café. It’s pricey so only good for a treat but what an amazing treat it will be!