Saturday 31 August 2013

Dress to Donate

Today is the last day of Winter and the last day of Restyle! The past 30 days have been really fun! I have blogged every single day for a month and I'm pretty impressed with myself, although I honestly didn't realise how hard blogging every day was. Tonight I have a major work event, which I have been working on for a while, so I'm going to take a few days break from the blog to recover and then dive straight back in to business next week (which is also my birthday week!!).



The very last prompt for Restyle 2013 is 'an outfit to donate back', so I'm wearing this purple jumper dress I bought from Good Sammies in Fremantle at the beginning of winter. Winter is now over and today is the first day I've worn it, so tomorrow it's going back to Good Sammies and hopefully someone else will give it a good home. 



Getting in to the habit of regularly donating clothes is a good one, especially for an op shopper. I go through my wardrobe every few months and cull the clothes that I haven't worn over the season, don't love any more or don't fit me any more. This helps me keep track of all my clothes and it means that I only keep things that I really love. This purple dress is awesome, which is why I bought it, but it's not my style and it's doesn't look that great on me (I took 78 pictures to get these 5 which are only OK).



It's a pretty wild dress, so I thought I'd just go all out and throw on my highest wedge sandals (Carvela from Asos) and a few layers of necklaces, the spikey one is from Diva and the coral one is from Anna Chandler. This isn't my usual style but it was fun getting dressed up out of my comfort zone for a few hours. Tomorrow I'm heading to the donation bins with a garbage full of goodies, I hope someone else finds and loves them like I love all my op shopped stuff!


Friday 30 August 2013

Jungle Fever

Today I'm essentially wearing glorified pyjamas. Which is exactly how I like it! I've got a busy day at work, setting up for a huge event that is happening on Saturday. I'm going to be running around like a headless chook moving furniture and setting up decorations all day, so I wanted to wear something super comfortable and easy to move in. 


The style prompt for today is jungle fever, which is a bit of a shame, because it's such a fun theme, I would have liked to be able to get a bit more dressed up (did some one say animal print?!). But today it's comfort over style, so I'm wearing loose cotton pants, a black t-shirt, ballet flats and, to jungle-fy my outfit, I threw on my green safari jacket.



I've had this jacket for a couple of years, it was op shopped for $5 (I remember that because the price is written on the tag). Looking at these pictures, the jacket actually seems more military than safari, but never mind! I'm going to claim it and move on. 



My t-shirt is from Portmans and my pants are from K-Mart. I think my printed pants look pretty wild as well, so they fit with the theme. I definitely think I will give a Jungle Fever outfit another crack later on when I'm not required to move 35 outdoor heaters!




Thursday 29 August 2013

Cuffed

Day 29 for Restyle 2013 is cuffed and, lucky for me, my most used item of clothing just happens to involve a cuff! My denim jacket! I bought this jacket at an op shop in Alice Springs for $4 back in 2009. It sat in my wardrobe for about a year before I actually wore it for the first time, and now it is my most prized possession. 


Seriously, for a girl who owns so many clothes I could wear a different outfit every day for a year (years even), this denim jacket is on constant repeat. I love it. The light colour and the fit are perfect for me and it dresses down any outfit, which is also perfect for me because I have a tendency to over dress for every occasion (just wait until you see what I'm wearing this Saturday night!).



I always have the sleeves cuffed when I wear this jacket. I'm not really sure why, I guess it just helps with the shape of it, plus it's never really cold enough in Perth to warrant un-cuffing the sleeves. Today I'm wearing an op shopped spotty sleeveless dress, op shopped red belt and my Rachel Antonoff brogues (another thing on high rotation in my wardrobe!)



I included the above picture because you can just see my petty coat sticking out from underneath my dress. Because I wear alot of vintage polyester and nylon dresses, I got my act together and invested* in some proper petty coats. As old fashioned as it sounds, they are actually awesome. I have 3 (white, black and skin colour) and they stop my synthetic fibre dresses sticking to my legs and allow the clothes to fall nicely. I wear one under almost every outfit! 

* when I say I 'invested', I mean I found 3 brand new petty coats in my size at South Street Vinnies and b0ught them excitedly for $3 each.


Wednesday 28 August 2013

Belt (Suit) Up

In my Denim Darling post I wrote a little bit about my op shop wish list. It's not a list I have written down any where (except I guess on the blog), it's just something I keep at the back of my mind when I'm shopping. Op shops can be very overwhelming. They are usually huge, stuffed full of a random assortment of clothes and dirt cheap. 



It's the cheap bit that gets me every time. You can quickly rack up a gigantic collection of mediocre clothes if you take home every op shop item you 'kind of like'. I got sucked in to this a few years a go and all I ended up with was huge amounts of clothes that I didn't really like/want to wear but I bought them because they cost less then a take-away coffee. 



Now whenever I go op shopping I have a few strategies in place to stop me bringing home the entire shop. Number one strategy is to have a wish list of items I'm on the look out for. This also helps me from being overwhelmed by the vast quantity of clothes most op shops house. For the longest time the top of my wish list has been a matching patterned suit and on Saturday I ticked it off my list!


This suit is by Mondi, which is a German designer who made clothes for Princess Diana (I Googled)! IT IS AMAZING! The print, the fit, the cut of the jacket, the buttons. I am seriously in love! The set cost me $15 from Good Sammies in Fremantle. It's the best $15 I've spent in a long time. The style prompt today is belt... so I threaded on this little pink leather belt I picked up a few years ago at an op shop. The belt isn't really the feature, I was just so desperate to wear this suit!

My purple ballet flats are from Myer and my black knit top is from Flower. 


Cheap Tuesday

I have to apologise, I didn't get a chance to post anything yesterday, I left my camera at work so I couldn't get any of my pictures. Life has been super hectic recently with moving house, work stuff, volleyball finals and trying to squeeze in quality time with my friends and boyfriend PLUS attempting to blog every day. It's certainly keeping things interesting! 


The style prompt for yesterday was 'under $5'. Keen op shoppers will know that finding something for $5 or less isn't too difficult. Op shop prices have gone up slightly over the last few years (which is only to be expected), but almost every shop I walk in to has a discount rack with items costing around $1 or $2 each. That's where I found this little tangerine button up top! It was jammed between some crappy polar fleece jumpers on the $2 rack at the Salvos on South Street. 



I have paired my $2 top with a maxi skirt I bought in Paris at a thrift store for 4 euros. 4 euros probably equates to more than $5, but I still think it counts. This skirt is made out of the best fabric, I love the floral print and all the different colours. The fabric is actually quite heavy (it's lined too!) so it's great to wear when it's a bit cooler outside.


You can't see my black ballet flats in these pictures, which is OK because they aren't very exciting, I wasn't in a wild shoe mood yesterday. My pineapple necklace is a cheapy from Diva and my giant orange ring is from New York.


Monday 26 August 2013

Denim Darling

The style prompt for today is denim, pretty easy right? Well I'm not a jeans kind of girl. Actually I hate wearing pants, I try to avoid them at all costs. I don't feel comfortable wearing jeans and I don't think they look very nice on me. That doesn't mean I don't love denim though! I have a denim jacket that I pretty much wear every single day during autumn and winter. Today I had to work so I thought I'd wear my new denim skirt, which is a darker denim and some how seems a little more 'work friendly'.


I have been on the look out for a button up A-line denim skirt for quite a while. Whenever I go op shopping I have a little wish-list of items at the back of my mind that I'm on the look out for. My list currently consists of a plain coloured sleeveless mini dress I can wear with my cute blouses, a denim pinafore, high waisted red pencil skirt and some brown men's brogues/loafers. For the longest time an A-line button up denim skirt was on that list.




I found this skirt at the Salvos in Fremantle for $6. It's the perfect colour denim I was looking for and it fits! I think it is a tad too long, so I'll probably hem it a little bit shorter. But until then, I'm happy with it.



I'm wearing my denim with a little red stripey button up top I got a few months ago from Freo Salvos for $3 (half price tag!) and an op shopped red cardigan I've had for a few years. I always wear these two tops together, they look like a perfect set! You'd never know I bought them years apart at separate op shops. My white flower pin is from Berlin and the yellow one is a home made femo creation. My shoes are from Asos.


Sunday 25 August 2013

All Tied Up

I didn't feel like getting dressed up today, it's Sunday, I've got dirty hair and bad skin. But I'm determined to finish this Restyle challenge! So here I am, make up on, hair done, wearing clothes, good work Hannah! To entice me in to dressing up I thought I would put on one of my favourite dresses. The style prompt for today is bows, and luckily, this dress has one!


I've noticed that almost every outfit I post about I say that it's my favourite. My favourite dress, my favourite hat, my favourite skirt. I love everything! At first I thought this was a bad thing as I shouldn't be so flippant with labelling things my favourite. But now I think it's a great thing. I love everything in my wardrobe and I regularly cull the items I'm not crazy about any more. It's great that at any one time I am wearing something that I genuinely think is amazing and in turn makes me feel awesome. So this yellow dress is my favourite!




Both my lovely dress and red leather sandals came from the Melville markets, I bought them for $5 each from the same stall. How lucky is that? I adore the bright colour of the dress and the big spots, it was the ultimate Sunday morning find (not this Sunday morning though). The bow tie on the neck line is just the icing on the yellow spotty cake.  


My black belt has been featured quite a bit on the blog already, it's op shopped too. To disguise my dirty hair I put it in to Heidi braids. I'm notoriously lazy when it comes to washing my hair (I just have so much of it, it takes too long!), so I've come up with many ingenious hair styles which let me get away with another day of not-so-clean hair. Heidi braids are currently in high rotation because they are so easy to do and I think they look pretty great.


Saturday 24 August 2013

Shoes Shoes Shoes

Today is Saturday, the sun is shining and it's finally warm enough to get away with wearing just skirts, t-shirts and sandals! Spring is next week and I can feel it already, how exciting! 



The style prompt for today is shoes. I don't normally buy many shoes in op shops, for two reasons: a) I have big feet and I can never really find shoes I like in my size and b) as I've got a little older I've started to realise the worth in well made shoes. After years of limping around in sky high plastic heels and then eventually taking them off half way through the night, I have come to realise that spending money on shoes is OK, good even! 



Not that you can't find good quality shoes in an op shop, I see them from time to time, but they generally aren't in my size (rats!). Just 2 days ago I saw an amazing pair of  gold Beverly Feldman pointy flats in Vinnies Claremont for $10! They normally retail for hundreds of dollars! They were size 9, someone should go and buy them! 



The pair of shoes I'm wearing today I bought a few weeks ago at the Portcare op shop in Fremantle for $4. They are leather sandals with a wooden sole and they are so comfortable (although this is the first time I've worn them). When I Googled the brand the website that came up was Spanish, so I couldn't find out much about the brand. They sure feel lovely to wear, so I'll see how I go today.

The rest of my outfit consists of op shopped skirt, Target t-shirt and straw fedora from the Eumundi markets in Queensland. 

Friday 23 August 2013

Gold Rush

Day 23 is all about metallics! I was a little worried about metallic day, I didn't really know what I was going to wear because I honestly don't have many shiny things in my wardrobe (something I need to amend immediately!). I just moved house last weekend and as I was unpacking boxes last night I came across this skirt which I totally forgot I owned! AND IT'S GOLD! How perfect! 


I got this skirt about a year ago from my favourite op shop in Mosman Park. It was in a pile of clothes to be altered, which is why I completely forgot about it. It's amazing fabric, but a bit of a weird length. I think it looks a bit matronly so I have been meaning to hem it shorter. I didn't get a chance to do that last night so I just wore it as is and tried to toughen it up a bit with my $7 leather jacket.



I've accessorised my metallic skirt with a green suede belt (op shopped) and silk Reiss t-shirt which I bought recently at the Melville markets for $3! I've mentioned it before, but I love finding things in op shops and at flea markets that are 100% silk or wool or cotton. Those natural fabrics feel so luxurious to wear. This forest green top is just a basic t-shirt style, but because it's silk it feels so lovely and special. 



To up the metallic stakes I dusted off my super dooper gilt gold clutch which I got from a vintage store in Seattle. If that's not metallic enough for you then I don't know what is! My necklace is from my Grandma. My shoes are the only non second hand thing I'm wearing, they are Burberry flats from America. 

Happy Friday!