Fakewell, Amsterdam Edition

Top: Fat Face: Bandada: Vintage, Skirt: Lindex (in Norway), Boots: Timberland

These photos are oooolllld. Like way old. We took them last year when we went to Amsterdam, at the Museum Van Loon, a house decked out with gorgeous wallpaper and some seriously creepy portraits. I'd just come from Norway, where my mum suffered me to look after her while she recovered from knee replacement surgery - talk about keeping a tiger in a cage, hah! And it was freezing, hence the snowboots. I decided this look could be kind of a Fakewell outfit, since it looks a bit Madewell but not one single piece is actually from there. In fact I bought this top in the airport on the way to Amsterdam, when I realised I hadn't packed enough clothes! 

   

Also, this was meant to be a sarcastic pose:

Instead I look like I've been sniffing glue. Anyway, see that tassel sticking out of my pocket? It's from this little Anthropologie coin purse I have with my initial on it - since it was green (my favourite colour) I'd treated myself to it before Christmas and bought my mum a matching blue one - yeah, her initial happened to hit on her favourite colour, too! Also, this bandana - the bandana trend was just kicking off then, and I happened to find this thing in my old bedroom in Mum's house. Like, seriously - a perfect vintage 90's bandana that I had no memory of owning, so who did it even belong to? Not that I wasted much time worrying about that; it's mine now and I still wear it all the time! 

Organic Building

Top: Banana Republic, Skirt, backpack & necklace: Madewell, Shoes: Nike.

So we managed to find the memory card from our camera, and I discovered this outfit I'd asked Victor to photograph while we were in Osaka. Maybe they're not the most flattering pictures in the world, but I don't care! It was too warm to wear makeup, it just melted right off me and made my eyes sting, so here you go - internets, meet my nekkid face. This is the face of a woman who survived an eighteen-hour family wedding ordeal only days earlier - makeup is the least of my worries, ha! And clearly, I liked my outfit on this day in one of our favourite cities in the world. 

Anyway, the building behind me is pretty cool - I don't know if you can tell but literally the entire facade is covered in flowerpots! And I'm pretty sure all those black things are little storm drains that water the plants. It's called The Organic Building, which makes it sound like it breathes on its own and makes the walls - which would be translucent and warm to the touch, you know? - sort of move in and out. "Siiigh..." Luckily it's nowhere near that creepy in real life! 

Nomadic Gardens

Beanie, Madewell (on sale!), sweater, from Norway, hella old, Skirt: Chickwish,
Boots: Doc Martens, Coat: Madewell

The hip area in London used to be Camden, many moons ago, until that got taken over by Commercialism. Now, it's Shoreditch, which I like because it's where the playhouses were in Elizabethan days, and I used to take yoga classes round the corner from what they claimed was the site of the original Globe theatre. (Seriously, show me some archaeology and I'll believe it.) Shoreditch is buzzy and fun, and is famous for its street art. It's not just that Victor loves it - my mother loves it! And the two of them have gone round there looking for cool graffitti while I've been at the gym or whatever. 

Lots of people come to Shoreditch for the street art, but not many of them seem to have found the spot we found - the Nomadic Gardens, which were basically an open-air art gallery. Graffitti, art installations and sculptures - the latter a bit the worse for wear because they're left to the elements  - greeted us in a merry, eclectic mix. The first thing I spotted when we walked through the gates was this huge warrior. As soon as Victor had finished buying tea from a lady selling hot drinks out of a little mint green van - awesome lady, she complimented my skirt! - I made him take my picture in front of him, as well as the phoenix on his far right and the Japanese Oni on his immediate right. 

I mean, check this thing out, it's glorious! And did I mention the horns have been mounted on the wall? I'm just in awe of all the gnarly creativity that went into the creation of this wall. 

As for my outfit, I wanted to wear something green and I wanted to wear this skirt. Turns out they go pretty well together, right? Also, behold the blog debut of my white Doc Martens - see, I told you my style had changed! Or rather, it seems to have shifted back to where it was a long time ago, only taking some of the newer elements along with it...? For the ride, as it were? All I know is, I felt 100% like myself in this outfit, and that's something I feel good about. 

Mom Jeans on Valentine's Day

Jacket: from Hong Kong, Top & clutch: Madewell, Necklace: c/o Sayaka,
Boots: from Norway, Jeans: Madewell, on sale now!

This was my date-night outfit for yesterday, when we celebrated our 13th Valentine's day together at a teppanyaki restaurant in our neighborhood. (We had to count that out on our fingers. 2005, 2006..) We were trying to remember what we ate on that first Valentine's, but neither of us remembers - Victor's main memory was that we went to see MacBeth, and it was a performance where they didn't exactly save on the ketchup, if you know what I'm saying. Not exactly romantic! And me, I know for a fact we went to a pub near the British Museum called The Ploughman - and we've never been back to that pub since, for some reason - before making out like it was the end of the world in a bus shed on Regent's Street. (Favourite Victor quote: "See, now you're just trying to eat me.") Anyway, we must have grabbed dinner somewhere but alas that is lost in the mists of time. 

Weirdly, we ended up matching for this date - Victor wore a red sweater over a shirt, and we both wore jeans because it's freezing over here, and nobody checks out your legs at teppanyaki anyway. Aside from my jeans, everything I'm wearing is stuff I've had for a while, but I love thinking of new ways to style stuff - this blouse and shirt combo was an accidental favourite, and all of a sudden I love pairing this necklace with this bag. And my jeans - brand new, I am obsessed with them! - are Cruiser Straights from the Madewell sale. And they are probably a size too big for me - they're supposed to hit you at the waist, right? This is what happens when you order online and can't try stuff on, I guess. I still love 'em, though! 

PS: Sorry about the picture quality - this is what happens when you find your camera but not your memory card. So until we find it or buy a new one, it's phone camera to the rescue! 

Lars and Me

Sweater: J.Crew, old. Dress, shirt & bag: Madewell, all old. Booties: from Norway. 

Why hello there! If you still read my blog, I'm sorry I disappeared for so long. I've had a weird few months of not feeling like taking pictures of myself because of what I thought was me putting on weight. I was working out and watching my diet more than ever, but my stomach just kept getting bigger. Well, guess what? I wasn't putting on weight at all, I was growing an ovarian cyst the size of a fist. More than 12 cm in diameter. This only came to light when I got sick - like, really sick - during a meal out with friends, because the size of this thing caused the ovary it was attached to to, ahem, flip over. Four hours of excruciating pain later, I was ready for some answers, which is why I went back to Norway to see my Norwegian gyno. These pictures were taken right before my appointment, by one of my oldest friends, who thought she was just helping me take selfies for an Instagram challenge. So did I, at the time. 

But well, Sayaka told me my outfit was cute, and she's a lady I listen to. And now that I've had an operation to remove the cyst - which I named Lars, because it was big enough to have a name, and because it was a Norwegian cyst, well... I feel really good and healthy these days. My stitches came out the other day, my organs have all shifted back to where they're supposed to sit - seriously, for the first few days after the surgery, I could feel them sloshing around in there! Like they just weren't used to having that much space! My body-shape is back to normal, all my clothes fit me again, and I miss blogging! In these past few months, I feel like my style has shifted, but I'm still wearing a lot of my quirky old Anthro stuff - just in different ways now - and it's something I'm kind of looking forward to exploring, so yeah... I'm back! Now, where did I put my camera...?!