What I Wore 22.01.10

Hello! Today was one of my very treasured days off, and even better, I actually had the house to myself for a couple of hours. I finally managed to watch The September Issue and did some cleaning.

This is one of the new skirts I picked up this week. I really want to try wearing seperates more often, because I feel like my outfits aren't really worthy of posting if they always just consist of a dress and a pair of shoes. I can't wear pants, and ESPECIALLY not shorts, without looking like a kid trying to play dress up, so skirts are as far as I'm going for now. I have one coming from Modcloth (have you seen their sale yet? It's insane!) and I bought a Wayne by Wayne Cooper mini for less than half the original price. Go me.

♥ Hi There by Karen Walker top - you might have spotted this in a few photos in the past couple of months, I have been wearing it constantly!

♥ Dotti skirt

♥ Mimi Loves Jimi brogues

♥ Sportsgirl nail polish

♥ Frank the Deer brooch by My Girl Gwendoline

And outfit details...

Hello Frank.

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p.s I wanted to say thank you to Boy for taking my outfit photos since I got my new camera, and also because he bought me Lisa Mitchell's album today <3

Surprising Fashion Inspiration: Mad Max

My boyfriend has been obsessed with finding the second Mad Max movie for months now, and by chance he spotted it at our local video store (Galaxy Entertainment, go there now, thank me later). Of course this meant we had to watch it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE even though I had hired out much more scintillating things to watch (like, um, Bridezillas). I'd never seen it before and since it's considered by many to be a seminal Australian film, I thought I would give both Mad Max movies a go.

Mad Max is, as described by Boy, set "in a post-apocalyptic kind of future... I think he had a wife and kid who were killed by some road people... that turned him into a kind of crazy man who basically goes for revenge, so he basically goes on a killing spree... or something" (a better explanation can be found here). However, I was more inspired by the costumes than anything else. I found it interesting that the costume budget for the first film was only $400, three films were made in total and there are rumours of a fourth...

From Rolling Stone Magazine, August 1985:"The dress Moriceau concocted for Entity is an expressionist classic: a seventy-pound soldered amalgam of dog muzzles, coat hangers and chicken wire, the whole overlaid with gleaming chain-mail butcher aprons and accessorized with pendulant auto-spring earrings. The accompanying wig, styled to echo the movie's male plumage, required Tina to shave her head for proper fitting. She offered no protest." (From Mad Max Costumes)

I kind of get a couple-of-seasons-ago Balmain vibe from a few of these pictures. Or maybe even a distinct Rhianna vibe from all these studded leather pieces? I could even see Gaga rocking that quarterback back brace... thing in the last photo. What about you?

Tina Turner (in the fifth and sixth pictures) loved her costume so much she reprised it at a concert in December 2008...

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Photos from Mad Max Costumes, Tina Turner pictures from linked article.

What I Wore 19.01.10

My first outfit post of the year! Unfortunately it's not spectacular; this is what I wore to see Them Crooked Vultures and as I was in a rush I only got one good photo!

♥ Ben Sherman top

♥ Supre skirt

♥ Rubi shoes

I bought Boy tickets for Them Crooked Vultures for his birthday way back in October and I have been so excited about seeing them. I am a massive Dave Grohl fan and of course I love Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age so I was very happy when they announced they were coming to Perth! I hadn't heard a lot of their stuff before tonight, in my opinion it's most heavily influenced by Josh Homme, it had that kind of QOTSA effect where it's like the music runs up behind you and clubs you in the back of the head, it's so intense. But in a good way.

More posts to come this week!

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p.s You may have noticed I dyed my hair - bye bye tiger stripes!

Tara Reviews... Maurice Meade Salon

I love, love, love my usual hairdresser at Toni & Guy but when I saw that Maurice Meade was having a special where you can get a hair consultation, your hair cut and coloured and a bunch of gift vouchers and products for under two hundred bucks, I thought, new year, new hair (as says the ad campaign) - I would give it a try.

The hairdresser was running really late so I had to wait around for about twenty minutes (not cool! I arrived on time!). I ended up having the consultation with the colourist, who pretty much insisted on having caramel streaks in my hair and assured me it wouldn't be "stripey" and streaky as opposed to highlights. The consultation was over in less than ten minutes. I ended up having my hair coloured first, and the assistants were all very lovely and made sure I was OK for coffee and had enough magazines and such. I also have to add that although I felt the consultation was a bit brief the colourist was really sweet.

When it came to washing it out, the assistant said we would have to go to the back basins because one of them wasn't working in the main room, which would have been OK if there were some lights on in there! I also had a lot of leftover dye on my forehead and around my ears that the assistant didn't wipe off and was there until I actually got my hair cut. Also left in my hair were some big clumps of toner, which again, the hairdresser had to go and rinse out. Despite all my concerns the colour came out looking pretty stripey and not at all "natural" - I know nothing about hairdressing but I have a feeling the colour might have been left on too long so they went a bit lighter than they were meant to?

The haircut itself is OK (and by OK I mean... salvageable), again, the hairdresser had very definite ideas of what he wanted to do with my hair and I didn't really feel like he listened to what I wanted. I was very clear about what I wanted but he apparently disregarded all that and then cut it however the damn hell he pleased! I was really not happy with the end result. I felt like I looked like an 80's porn star, yuck! All in all I felt a bit ripped off.

Gin in a Teacup rating: ♥ / ♥♥♥♥♥

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Star Wars Goes Sexy

These pictures were taken by Shannon Cottrell at the Bordello club in LA, which was transformed into Mos Eisley Cantina for the night. I couldn't decide whether it was insanely cool or a little bit weird, what do you think? I'm leaning towards the former. Although where was the sexy Chewbacca?

I didn't want to OVERLOAD YOUR BRAIN WITH AWESOME so to check out the rest of the photos, go here. You might be interested to know that they also did a "Video Game Girls" burlesque show, which you can see here. I would love to see the performances which go with the costumes!

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Southbound

Unfortunately my festival camera broke at Soutbound (and all hopes of a resurrection were ruined when my water bottle exploded in my bag) so I will just have to share my favourite acts via the magic of Youtube! Please check them out if you haven't already, I couldn't recommend them highly enough!

Lisa Mitchell - Coin Laundry
Such a cute song (kind of a creepy video but in an adorable quirky way!) and she was so sweet onstage. It's hard to believe she was an Australian Idol contestant, my boyfriend at the time loved her. Actually, so does my boyfriend now. If you can get your hands on it, check out her cover of Dire Straits' Romeo and Juliet.

Seasick Steve - Thunderbird
Apparently Seasick Steve lived on the streets before he was 14, had a stepfather who abused him and his younger brother, was in and out of prison and then started recording music. He was awesome. He drank from a whiskey bottle while playing a guitar, got a girl up on stage to sing to her, and was just generally amazing/slightly crazy. Very bluesy andd good for foot-stompy kind of dancing.

The View - Same Jeans
I was so excited because I was front and centre for The View, although I was disappointed because not all of the crowd was getting into it (unlike the crowd in the video) and I was the only one jumping around like a crazy person. Despite thinking I had eye contact with the lead singer for a second ("Eye contact? I hope you were using protection") he failed to invite me to marry him immediately and tour with his band and have babies with Scottish accents. Fail.

Art vs Science - Parlez Vouz Francais?

This is my guilty pleasure song because I don't usually go for dance music. The day after they played their Southbound set we saw them at the John Steele Singers set, they were super nice and posed for about a million photos with shrieking 16-year-olds (I can honestly say that I didn't see one person with an over-18 wristband approach them) and then get staked out by all the kids too shy to ask for a photo. I thought that was really nice of them so they get a place on the list. Plus the video reminds me of an Ed Byrne sketch that I have spent ages trying to find and can't, which barely warrants a mention but if you happen to know Ed Byrne you will get it.

Hope you enjoy!

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Etsy Love: Osier

You might remember that I mentioned Osier in my post about the Unwrapped markets - I bought a little black pistol brooch. I recently looked up her Etsy shop and it's all so cute, like it was custom designed specifically to Gin in a Teacup taste! Here's my picks.

In case you couldn't tell by the recent giveaway, I'm kind of digging bird jewellery at the moment (although I am TERRIFIED of birds in their real form!). This gorgeous dove necklace, made from the casing of a vintage charm, is so detailed and I like the unexpectedness of the red.

How cute is this little bunny ring? For some reason it makes me think of Em from Lick My Cupcakes, maybe because she and this ring are both adorable? I would wear it with a Chanel-inspired mint green manicure, a white lace dress and tan heels.

One of my favourite books is Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield, and as a child of the 90's I feel very nostalgic about cassettes. To be honest the first mix tape I ever made was for Boy when we started dating and that was well out of the 90's, but rest assured, many mix tapes have been made in honour of unreciprocated crushes. I have a metal mix tape necklace but I've never seen one made out of an actual cassette before... this one is definitely the coolest I've seen!

As I think I've mentioned before, my dad collects owl figurines and it has definitely influenced my sartorial choices. So it seems strange that this brooch shares the same name as him (and Boy, incidentally!). As you may have picked up on, I have been seriously into brooches recently, after years of buying them and then never finding anything that they looked good with - I think all my years of wearing pinback badges as a tween scarred me for life (not literally, although those pins do hurt). Anyway, if you are so owl-y inclined, you can purchase Christopher the Owl as a brooch, ring or a number of other formats.

So if you get a chance check out the Osier Etsy store. I was lucky to talk to the designer for a bit at the markets and not only is she super sweet, but she also has her own blog!

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And the winner is...

picture via My Girl Gwendoline blog

Janiece (comment #7)! Congratulations! Janiece, please email your details to gininateacup@gmail.com so I can send off your prize ASAP!

Thank you all so much for entering and hopefully there will be many more giveaways for Gin in a Teacup in the year ahead. And also, many, many thanks to Renee at My Girl Gwendoline!

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