New Year, New You?

Happy new year!

Tis the season to be punishing and unrealistic with the best intentions. Time to scream at your self in the mirror 'your disgusting!'. By New Years Eve I'm so looking forward to stripping away the sticky sweetness of the Yuletide season. I see New Years Eve as one more opportunity to have a massive blowout, big hair, bold make up, and jagerbombs, jagerbombs, jagerbombs!

I have a long list of things New Years Resolutions that I really want to implement this year. 

First of all I really want to learn to

***Shut The Hell Up***

because....

1. Don't talk more than other people participating in conversations.
2. Awkwardness, if you can't think of anything interesting to say- DON'T!
3. When angry belt up or walk away before you say something awful.

'Oops, accidentally mortally wounded our friendship, my bad!'

There's a New Years Resolution that a lot of people make or secretly hope for that everyone can probably sympathise with. 

*** I Will Find Love****

Umm...no you won't. Love will find you on it's own terms. When and where it feels like it. The time you look for it, you are least likely to find it. 

***Diet Riot***

Okay first of all...Eww!

I love food too much to turn it into an enemy. 

But I want to change my relationship with food like I want to change my relationship with shopping. I don't want it to be a comfort blanket for when I feel like throwing myself off of something high and onto something pointy. That's a dangerous habit and one of my worst. 

Also while I'm here. 

***Dress like it's my last day every day***

I guess overall, my new years resolution is to be the best I can be, a little bit better than last year. 

To live life as vigorously and optimistically as I can.

And

***When life gives me lemons- make margaritas! ***

All the best for 2013.

Visual Merchandising

When I was in my early teens I always used to enjoy using online doll-makers like Elouai.com and Dollzmania.com. I loved being inspired by music and creating a character who I felt encapsulated it. Almost a decade later and nothing has changed. Sometimes the loser in me misses doll-makers, piecing together clothing to create a narrative; an attitude; a persona.

Luckily for me I'm still able to express this when I dress myself. Even though I can play with ways to reinvent myself, I cannot be satisfied. No matter how loved a canvas I am, or how much I adore  my wardrobe it will always have it's limits. Recently I even asked for visual merchandising training at work. If I can have a creative input in the company, I will start enjoying work like I did when I first started. But even that has it's limits.

That's when I discovered polyvore.com. Okay, okay, I know I wam so late, just like I was with lookbook.nu. I know it existed but I never imagined it would be so simple. Lookbook.nu is a wonderful sight but I don't have the equipment to be successful on it- or indeed remotely successful.

I've started putting together sets inspired by music. One of my favourite sets is called 'Camomile Tea'. It uses pastel pink and mint green and was inspire by a song by Perfume called 'Communication'- very bouncy and sweet.

Camomile Tea by tasha-dujifou-dujon featuring knee socks

Dorothy Perkins mint shirt
$45 - dorothyperkins.com

Knee socks
$8.50 - nordstrom.com

Mini skirt
£12 - desireclothing.co.uk

Cotton socks
$6 - topshop.com

Cocktail shoes
£25 - desireclothing.co.uk

Leather shoulder handbag
$495 - jildorshoes.com

Marc by Marc Jacobs oversized jewelry
$184 - mytheresa.com

Sterling silver jewelry
$30 - etsy.com

Vintage Hydrangea Silk Flower Arrangement
$205 - silkflowers.net

This collection was inspired by the song 'Henrietta' by the Fratelli's. I love rockabilly/vintage and try to emulate it quite a lot.

Henrietta Cookie Dough by tasha-dujifou-dujon featuring hair pins accessories

Swing dress
75 AUD - inspiredinsanity.com.au

Charlotte Russe high heel pumps
$33 - charlotterusse.com

Chanel leather handbag
£1,950 - farfetch.com

Yves Saint Laurent chain jewelry
$348 - net-a-porter.com

Hair pins accessory
$10 - etsy.com

J.Crew plastic sunglasses
$98 - jcrew.com

Lip gloss
$21 - redstripeclothing.com

Kelly Brook has a beautiful collection exclusive to New Look that uses a lot of 1950's pin up glamour. That's why I included her as the model


One of the most fun sets to create was based on the main character from Park Chan Wook's 'Sympathy for Lady Vengeance' called Lee Geum Ja.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (spring) by tasha-dujifou-dujon featuring leather shoulder handbags

Ellison slimming dress
$120 - coast-stores.com

Burberry double breasted trench coat
£995 - net-a-porter.com

Christian louboutin pumps
$845 - christianlouboutin.com

Proenza Schouler leather shoulder handbag
$1,695 - kirnazabete.com

Flower earrings
$17 - shopruche.com

SELECTED wool scarve
€20 - bestseller.com

Crystal Garden Wish Flower
$14 - urbanoutfitters.com

Areaware Bull Box
$49 - yliving.com

She's so apathetic and aloof. While I'm at it I suggest you check that out too. Be prepared to cry!


I feel I've segued enough for one day.

Until next time...

In need of a shot of Shabby Chic!

I believe everything should be pretty...

That was a line from one of my favourite films, Park Chan Wook’s ‘Sympathy for Lady Vengeance’. I think that film is beautiful, touching, profound but this isn’t about that film. This is about something that’s been bothering me for ages!

I’m so sick of my room being so very full of potential but still being bland as hell. There is no color scheme, no decor theme. I think a girl’s room should be her sanctuary; her own personal paradise. Mine is my own personal preferred space. That’s okay I suppose but I’m not proud of it. By having a clean room, it improves my mood. If I had pretty room as well, that would improve my mood tenfold.

I have images of Cath Kidson prints, shabby chic motifs and Laura Ashley flying all over my dreams, taunting me, enticing me. I really want a pretty girly room. This craving began way, way back when I was watching ‘It Started With a Kiss’ a Taiwanese Drama. Xiang Qin walked into this dream room that Mrs Jiang prepares for her and it’s a dream world of Chiffon and floral print. It hit me like a wall. Since when do I like this kind of stuff? My last room was blood red with kanji on the walls and a massive Shakugan no Shana wall scroll I’d bought from the London Expo.

I decorated it when I was 16 and at the height of my borderline weeaboo phase. I can’t be blamed. I was young. I was reckless. And I maintain it looked more distinctive than my new room. The last room bares the last remnants of this effort to capture the anime side of me. Like the dregs of tea in an abandoned cup, the gunk remains. I need to breathe some life into this room.

It has a lovely fireplace, high ceilings and crème wall paper which makes it a blank canvas. It shouldn’t be too expensive either.

What I know I want now is bedspreads like this...

I think this is adorable. It reminds me of a Doris Day film. I don’t know why.

I want one of these

I want some of these

I want to do the wall art myself so I guess I’ll decide that when I get there...

I hope this works.

Beautiful?

How fascinating the concept of beauty is. I noticed this as I perused through my sisters cast off ASOS magazine which I snatched up like a magpie as soon as she was done with it. In this magazine there were a lot of models all of whom were striking in there own way. A lot of whom were so striking that they couldn't be called pretty in the conventional sense of the word. These women had large dome like foreheads, large gaps in their teeth and sharp, prominent cheek bones.

Being the possessor of a rather large forehead, I was glad of this. I like these odd looking amazons with their stark, awkward grace. They show me that funny looking women can be muses in high fashion. The only down side to this that they are all very slim. I hate the term skinny like I hate the term fat. When someone calls me skinny it brings forth unwanted images like this....

Although to be fair Skeletor is quite ripped, who am I to insult his chisled masculinity?

Nevertheless I can sympathise with the frustration of women who find that the fashion world doesn't really offer them models who they can relate to shape wise. Most of the bodies that saunter down  the runway are of proportions I wouldn't dream of (mostly because my dreams are currently overrun with pastry). A friend and I was discussing the body shape of women, her being a size 18 and me a 8/10. What was interesting is that we were trying to come to terms with what 'normal' women were. Normal is a vague word, what quantifies normal. I suppose the average size of a female in this country would be the obvious answer. That's a size fourteen apparantly.

It would be nice to see rounder bums and softer lines in magazines and on the runway. Whose to say it wouldn't be a nice change. We should still have thin sexy ladies for other thin sexy ladies. We should just have rounder sexy ladies for the other rounder sexy ladies to look up to. There's a particularly repulsive person who seems to be against this.

Now, this is old news but this man upsets me even if his dresses are quite pretty. It's this type of person that makes us, both women and men hate ourselves. Sure, we should be strong enough to say  'screw you' and ignore the negative words of this one, essentially insignificant individual. However, this man has power and influence over models and designers alike. He gets in whatever way to decide what is beautiful and what is ugly.
If someone is a judge on Australia's Next Top Model, they are in a position of power and, no matter how harsh the reality of the fashion world actually is, their messages filter down into the rest of society. Women might feel they need to live up to certain standards.

I know women aren't stupid and they know it isn't their job to look a certain way or way less than a certain amount. But when we are constantly bombarded with images to the contrary, these messages seep in no matter how watertight we think our minds are. To have someone like this man, insulting these amazons so callously could leave the average woman feeling a bit angry.

There's a criticism and then there's just being a prick.

I know the difference, do you?