State of Fashion

Skirt: ASOS (Similar here), Jumper: Opening Ceremony, Necklace: 8 Other Reasons, Heels: Veronique by RMK, Watch: Triwa via Belance, Beanie: Eugenia Kim 

ASOS is putting all the style bloggers from around Australia head to head in a winter style-off (cue the scene from Zoolander), and I'm on the front line for NSW. Head on over here and lend me a vote for all that is good in the East coast of Australia. If you upload your own style for your state, you'll get the chance to score an easy $1000 ASOS wardrobe. Which I recommend spending all of it in the midi skirt section. Long enough to protect your thighs from wayward winter breezes and stylish enough not to feel like a warm dag in the atypical winter uniform of leggings and a hoodie (not that I'm in the position to make a judgement on this...hoodies and leggings are the bomb.com)

I go through a frustrating cycle - my personal style is constantly in turmoil. I'll be browsing COS and start itching to do as the Scandanavians do - clean, minimalist and uber cool. Not a hair nor thread out of place, colours limited to dark neutrals and greys. One click later and I'll be falling madly in love on Etsy with a 1970s jumpsuit made out of the shaved-off hairs of two  hundred faulty Furbys dolls. This internal struggle between want-to-be-cool minimalist Jess and rainbow vomit Jess makes it a constant pain to get dressed in the morning. 

P.S. to any fans of Game of Thrones...or fans of board games in general. Game of Thrones: The Board Game is basically the Quantum Physics of the board game world. My friends and I spend two hours slumped on the floor trying to make sense of forty different tiny tokens and pieces and reading the rulebook over and over before being able to play - and it was SO WORTH IT. I won and didn't even know I possessed a strategic bone in my body - it's now a Sunday ritual. 

Choose Your Own Adventure

Dress: Apart of Me on Etsy, Boots from Mode Collective, Bag from Vintage Princess, necklace from Dallas & Carlos, Watch by Michael Kors

Kate Brook is based in Melbourne, Australia. Her clothing label, Apart of Me is the apparel equivalent of dragonfly cartoon people living out their pretty lives within the pages of a children's picture book. Everything is delicate, and looks as though it belongs on the body of a doe-eyed girl with porcelain skin sitting in the park reading. The Lost Landscape shift/tank dress in the below/above photos is my favourite piece from her store - just begin to say the words 'digital print' and I'll be there faster than that time I got to McDonald's after waking up in the middle of the night craving chicken nuggets. This loose, easy shift shape is basically the definition of comfort-dressing. The coolest part? The buy one/get two prints thing this dress has going on. It's like a choose your adventure on a dress.

Lost Landscape Shift Dress, Boots from Betts, Vintage necklace

First Kiss

Eugenie A/W 13, Photos from Pitch Present

"Eugénie is a womenswear label with an aesthetic focused on refined cuts and sculptural silhouettes, paired with a fresh approach to textile print."

Hailing from NZ, Liz Wilson, the former design assistant of Karen Walker brings crisp cigarette pants and ladylike box jackets into the realm of the sporty and the structural with killer taffeta fabrics. That fabric with the almost wood-grain going throughout it - I'm looking at it with a thin sliver of drool hanging from the corner of my mouth. It's a clash of construction references with  tailored and ladylike shapes. Throwing in the mermaid-esque sea foam shades of teal and that pastel purple, it shouldn't work - but it does. 

Taffeta is no longer banished to the yearbooks gathering dust in the basement. Re-apropriated into sleek tailored trousers and boxy jackets, the Dolly Parton of fabric is finally having its time in the sun. Although I'm not too keen to see the resurgence of the other members of the embarrassing formal-dress fabric family (like sequins…), it'll probably happen. I'm guilty of this - I was thrifting a while ago at one of those pay-by-bag stores, really getting into the swing of having half my body immersed into giant bins of second hand clothes when I let my enthusiasm (it's kind of a thrifting trance) get the better of me and I bought a full length purple, strapless taffeta formal dress. It had a pearl-esque iridescent sheen to it. cinched right in at the waist and flared out all the way to the floor. It looked amazing, it fit like a glove. "It's only $2," I rationalised. It made its way into the 'give to charity' garbage bag of clothes the other day while I was cleaning my closet. But of course. Where would I have worn a full length secondhand 80's prom dress? 

It's kind of ironic how half the clothes I gave away to charity came from there in the first place. I'm glad that the period in my life of purchasing everything and anything with a quirky print on it, regardless of size or shape or whether or not it made me look like I had rolled around in a garbage bin - thank goodness those days are over.

Isa Arfen S/S13 - Photos from The Best Fashion Blog

Isa Arfen was created by Serafina Sama, an Italian graduate from Saint Martins and cut her teeth at Marni, Lanvin, Marc Jacobs, Chloe, LV, Acne and Charlotte Olympia. Her resume reads like a Court-Clarins sister reading out the labels from her walk in wardrobe. Again, heavy on the shiny fabrics and dainty embellishments with a mix of rigid and free-flowing shapes. 

Helsinki

Pants: Thrifted, Knit: COS Store, Necklace: Lovisa, Sunglasses: Bespecd

Sweaters that are missing arms. Am I hot or am I cold? That's a black hole of a question that I can't even begin to answer.