Jacket Dilemma

I bought this stripey blue and green jacket about six months ago. When ever I go op shopping I am always drawn to bright colours and bold patterns, I own very few solid coloured items, so this jacket immediately had my attention. It doesn't have a label, so I can't work out if it is vintage or brand new or somewhere in between. Either way it's in great condition, it's a great length and I love it. 

Unfortunately when I brought it home, I couldn't work out how to style it. It is such a striking pattern that it is difficult to pair with other colours/prints. The obvious thing is to wear it with all black, but that's just a bit too... obvious.  So I ummed and ahhed and tried it on with almost everything I own and eventually, I gave up. 

So this lovely jacket has been sitting in my cupboard for six months and hasn't been worn. This morning I woke up and randomly pulled together this outfit in about 30 seconds, and I think it works! Why wasn't I able to do that six months ago?! The pattern of my mini skirt has almost the exact same blue in it, so it matches, and the deep purple blouse isn't overpowering the brightness of the jacket (and it's a more exciting colour than black). SUCCESS!

Black tights, jelly sandals and another of my flower brooches are the finishing touches. The purple blouse is 100% silk and from Sportscraft (I bought it for a couple of dollars at my favourite op shop in Mosman Park). I got my skirt from a street market in Amsterdam, it was full length, but after wearing it a few times I decided I'd get more use out of it if it was shorter, so I hemmed it.

Sorry the pictures aren't great, I didn't make it home in time to take photo's while it was still light. Dam winter!

Matchy-Matchy

This is my 5th blog post now, so it's probably too early to tell, but I am very much a dress lover. I very rarely wear pants, I find them too uncomfortable and unflattering on my body. Luckily I live in Perth, where it is sunshine and 30 degrees for most of the year and wearing a dress every day is completely acceptable. When it does get a bit cooler I tend to just layer up my summer dresses with stockings, jackets and scarves. It has to be REALLY COLD for me to succumb to wearing jeans. 

I bought this dress a few years ago at an op shop on the Gold Coast. It is actually a vintage Katies dress (I have a weird amount of old Katies stuff). I really love the large floral print and the bright primary colours make it super easy to match accessories (hello red bag and yellow shoes). I've said before that I love to be matchy, I'll never be one of those effortlessly chic girls with perfectly mis-matched accessories that just seem to fit. Give me a red shoe and red lip any day!

This dress is actually a halter neck with a low back, so to keep warm I wore it with my black ballet wrap that I've had for a million years, it's from Flower. Underneath the skirt is my fantastic crinoline which I bought from a Salvos store a few months ago for $5, I am SO in love with this crinoline, it has completely re-invented all of my outfits, who doesn't love a puffy skirt?! 

The yellow shoes are from Zomp and I have had them for about 10 years. The red bag is my newest purchase, I bought it on Saturday at a Salvos store (the same one the crinoline came from!) for $4, bargain! Possibly my favourite part of this outfit is my flower brooch which I bought in Berlin. I have quite a collection of brooches and pins which I try to wear regularly, but I often forget. 

My New Maxi

I have a fairly gigantic wardrobe and I am constantly buying new (old) things so I try to wear something different every day and not repeat outfits too often. But this is my favourite outfit at the moment and I have been wearing it to death! I bought this vintage dress a few weeks ago from a great op shop in Mosman Park (you can find it here). It cost $12 which is a bit more expensive than the dresses I usually buy, but I love it so much and have worn it so many times since that I have definitely got my moneys worth. 

 I hate wearing pants, so a maxi dress is one of my winter essentials. This one is fantastic because it is lined and it has sleeves so it is actually pretty warm. The fabric is an easy print to pair with different jackets/belts/shoes and I think it will be great in spring as well, I'll just swap my boots for wedges!

I'm wearing it today with a green suede belt and red wool hat, both op-shopped and my green boots (not second hand, but they were a bargain from Myer!). It is crazy windy today as well so I threw on my denim jacket when I went out, but I forgot to take a picture wearing it. Sorry! 

A quick note about my awesome hat. The band is just ribbon I bought from Spotlight, I change it up all the time depending on what I am wearing it with. It is a super easy way to change the whole look of the hat, I even have a feather that I stick in it if I'm feeling particularly outrageous!

Prickly Weather

I live in Western Australia and we are very lucky to have beautiful weather pretty much all year round. But this week has been FREEZING! Not literally freezing of course (this is Perth after all) but cold enough for me to go rummaging through my holiday gear to find my skiing thermals and gloves. That being said, the glacial weather this morning was totally worth it because I got to wear my cactus dress!

I bought this magnificent jumper dress about 7 years ago, it was my first ever eBay purchase, and I still absolutely love it. The only problem being that it is so warm and so cozy that it's only ever cold enough to wear it about 3 days of the year. Well today was one of those days! 

I think my favourite part are the bright red cactus flowers. Every time I wear it I always put on red lippy as well. I know 'fashion people' say you shouldn't match your lipstick to your dress/shoes/bag/whatever, but I do it all the time, I love a bit of matchy matchy! Also, because the rest of the dress is fairly neutral, it's nice to throw in some extra bright colours. 

I took this dress with me when I went to Europe in February, so I got a lot of use out of it then, but I was still so excited to wear it today. Teamed with extra thick stockings, red lipstick (Body Shop Brilliant Red if you are wondering) and my amazing patent Doc Martens, I survived one of Perth's coldest mornings this year.

Round Two

I'm back! Publishing my first blog post this morning was just TOO EXCITING! So here I am with more. This is what I wore to my friend’s baby shower last weekend. Floral maxi dress from an op-shop (It's a home made job and the seams keep splitting so I am constantly having to mend it), op-shopped belt, Anna Chandler headband and jelly sandals which unfortunately aren't in any of the pictures.  

This was my first baby shower invitation and it was awesome! I ate too many cupcakes and sausage rolls and drank too much placenta punch.... this is probably why the seams of my dress keep splitting. 

I was also very happy to get a chance to wear my new flower head band. It is made by Anna Chandler who is a wonderful West Australian designer with gorgeous colourful home wares, jewellery and other fantastic treasures. She has a shop near my work so I go there quite a bit to browse and get inspiration. I had been looking at this flower headband for weeks wondering if I could just make it myself. In the end I decided just to buy hers because it was only $25 and is so lovely. 

 I love wearing flowers in my hair, a lot of people think you need to save them for a special occasion, if at all, but I have quite a large collection of floral hair pins and head bands and I wear them all the time! They are particually good to disguise a bad hair situation (busted!).

Number One

Hello! My name is Hannah, this is my first foray in to blogging and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm an op-shop obsessed admin girl looking to burn off a little creative steam, so here I am, blogging...about myself. EEK!!

I have been thinking about writing a blog for a while now but have always been hesitant. It's a bit vain right? What if no one reads it? What if people do read it and then laugh at me?! That's what has been running through my mind recently. After doing some research and reading through entire archives of personal style and lifestyle blogs I found myself inspired and impressed by the seriously thrifty, interesting, super stylish ladies out there. So that's what I hope to achieve from this blog. I want to encourage every one to give op-shopping a go and to ditch the idea that looking fabulous and, to quote my Aunty Maria, 'trendy' has to come with a triple (or even double!) digit price tag. 

This is me by the way, wearing $5 red skirt from flea markets, sheer sleeved top from H&M, Guess heels (super old!) and hair flowers collected from various op shops.

 

Please excuse the self-timer in my hand in the pictures, I'm still getting the hang of this 'personal style' photography thing!