Somethings I see here in London are things that I have never seen in New Zealand.
A while ago, I caught the bus through some far flung London suburbs and went through an area called Stamford Hill. At first, it looked like any other suburb - until I saw people. The houses were the same, the roads were the same, but almost every single person I saw was an Orthodox Jew, or Haredi Jew, as they are called.
I was absolutely fascinated by it - not just the fact that they were dressed in the style of Haredi Jew's, but the fact that this was a total community. Literally, did not see any other "regular" people in the neighborhood other than us on the bus.

I found these pictures by London based photographer Andrew Aitchison, which were part of a photo essay he did on the Stamford Hill area.

A whole world apart from me literally just around the corner. The best part of my brief encounter was the teenage boy in full Orthodox clothing, listening to his ipod on the bus.

Things I buy that I might not normally buy..

But I really like them!?
Long story short, I work for this company, and part of the deal is that I have to wear certain company's clothing to work EVERY DAY. Believe me, it gets tired. There are days when all I want is to wear something illegal. Some days I do. But regardless, I bought these three lovely items the other day and I felt like they were most un-like my regular style. Very floral, very feminine. But perhaps I'm becoming more girly in my old age??

Oh, p.s I know you can see the tags of the clothes, from which any smarty pants can know where I work. But I can't name it on the blog or I might feel the wrath of a lawsuit or something. Yuck.

what the hell is going on in these photos?

Pants?! Hello, what? It's not even bag lady. It's weird lady. I just don't get this aesthetic, like, at all...

How many horsey jumpers does a girl need?

Does she need two? Because she already has one. But she really wants this one too. Her one is white. This one is grey marle. Hmmm...

Christchurch

A bit of an understatement to say say that it's been a horrific week for Christchurch. Give what you can here

guess what?!

Did you know that Bif & Sarah had Tumblrs? Yawn, yes well we do. Bif's is less lazy than Sarah's as she actually took those photos. Click them, duh.

BIF

SARAH

looking forward to the cold

or at least the cool. I'm so sick of this heat. I would like to be able to wear at least two layers of clothing. I don't want winter, that sucks too. I want autumn. I like spring and autumn, I hate extremes. I already have a new cable knit jumper and wool dress hanging in my wardrobe crying out to be worn. I'm also thinking about getting this anorak...


it's a bit primary school excursion day, but in a really good way.

out with the new and in with the old

Scents. It's something a girl must find like a good handbag or acne cream. I had a really good one in high school, Marc Jacobs Perfume eau de parfum. But I was 16 and felt that it couldn't really last, so I tried to move on. I've been through all the 'it' perfumes, Chloe, YSL even dabbled in a little Gucci - thought I finally found my grown-up smell in Stella McCartney Sheer. But I haven't. In reality I really hit the nail all those years ago with good old Marcy Marc. I'm coming back, but please don't bring back bad coming of age memories with you. Maybe I can turn into an alternate scent girl, that way bloodhounds wouldn't be able to track me as easily...

home sick from work

but this pink blazer, almost smoking jacket, from Acne would brighten up my day. There is something about this bubblegum/muted pink that gets to me. I've never been a pink fan, but the way this pink doesn't yell 'IM PINK' is very appealing, also the masculine nature of the jacket makes this hue a-ok.

Quietly impressed

I saw Black Swan a few weeks ago, and it was everything I expected. Good. I wasn't blown away, but maybe that's because I expected "really disturbing, totally twisted." Yes it was somewhat disturbing and somewhat twisted, but not really or totally. Maybe I'm slowly growing out of my scary cat boots. I'm not saying it was bad, no, no, not at all. Just surprised I wasn't more scared. Go see it if you haven't already, if anything just to keep up with the crowd - because that's always important.

P.S. why don't they use this movie poster more?

happiness in a box

As you might already know, Bif & Sarah use to live together. What You probably didn't know is that Bif owned a crepe machine and was pretty good at making delicious midnight French snacks (Nutella and sugar included). But since Bif flew the nest 6 months ago I've had to find alternative snack solutions. Enter Marcel's Crepes. Individually snap frozen. Takes 50 seconds in the microwave. No artificial bad food stuff. Good for breakfast, lunch, dinner and any other hungry time. Oh and they are DELICIOUS! Best frozen/microwave food discovery in a very long time.

Can I justify this?

Keep in mind that I can't seem to find a photo of these from the front. Granted, I didn't try super hard, but I did try.
302 pounds... like $620 NZD. Ok, wait, now that I converted it, they are kinda expensive... but so pretty! FROM THE SIDE.

things that will never really work out in real life vol 2.

Amazing but inappropriate hats coming out of NYFW. Weird that this series is turning more into a hat series than anything else.

What the fuck is going on with The Row over the top raccoon hats? A lot of awesome stuff that's what! OH MY GOD! Give me this had and I'd be the happiest camper out - literally, I would take this camping, very warm and good for camouflage.


Another hat that is awesome, but ridiculous for real life are the Karen Walker black fisherman/Steve Zissou skull-cap-beanies. Who would really look good in these except for Bill Murray, the original Jacques Cousteau and fat fish mongers? Not even these skinny bitches look good in them, imagine a normal sized bitch with a rather round head (me). Yeah...nah.


Sigh, hats how you continue to allude me.

a party for my eyes

Rodarte Fall was freaking awesome! This is girly good, girly Sarah. Beige, grey, blue, lace, BEIGE! Loves it. Ladylike I can handle and happily do. Also want hair like that, all day every day. Nothing else really to say about this. Going to be lazy and just post a bunch of pictures. Money, money, money, I want it all!

slowly chipping away

Karen Walker's North is slowly chipping away at me. I especially like this skirt.

Hey guys NYFW is happening...

...maybe I should blog about it. Ok here goes. Steven Alan was one that I quite liked so far. No it wasn't any fake prom, prep/geek chic, varsity be done with yourself already wet dream or anything (that was still totally cute and cool btw, despite my tone and choice of words). But it was something...


I like the idea of a leopard print shift dress. But this is something that should really be filed under my new 'things that will never work out in real life' series. But I liked more looks, so Steven Alan gets his own post.



Lets all say velvet and rejoice! Velvet maxi dress! Velvet skirt-suit! OMG! I NEED a velvet skirt-suit for work!!!


If being Morman was really as cool as being Nicki Grant, I'd do it in a heart beat.

Bags to fulfil my life

Do you think that if Coco Chanel was alive today she'd die with horror over how far the 2.55 has come? How many imitations and variations of this bag exist? How many people own a version without even know their copy's true source of birth? Anyway, my ultimate bag. Black lamb skin. Gold hardware. End of story.


But it's not the end of the story or at leas this blog story; it's almost the end, but not quite. I also really reeeeeally want this Sofia Coppola x Louis Vuitton bag. That's all really. Nothing new or ground breaking here. Just two classic, beautiful, amazing bags.

I want this hair... I think.

Hermione Granger can do it, but she's soooooo cute. Me - not so cute. But like, maybe. It is in consideration! High consideration. Any opinions??

The Only Thing

...making my night a tiny wee bit better.  For when "Golden Oaties" (healthy version of Digestives) alone are not enough - enter chocolate icing and sprinkles.
I ate two and that's pretty much enough but at least now I have a treat idea for when I'm too lazy to go to the supermarket.

navajo yo!

So the whole navajo thing has been in full swing for a while now, and yet to hit NZ in a decent way...oh well, I can live with that. Check out this awesome cardigan by Rodarte x Opening Ceremony. If you ask me it completely knocks the socks of anything Chloë Sev did for them this season - oh how I blaspheme. I was honestly very excited about her collection when they had the wee tea party and all, but now it's online...I'm a bit meh...except for the shoes, Chlo knows shoes. Anyway back to Rodarte, not much else but this is awesome and I want it.



Here are a few more navajo things that are also awesome

Why do I love inappropriate shoes?

The orange ones I love because everything I know says I should hate them but for some reason I feel like I need them in my life.

Loving impractical shoes is a real issue for me. Working in retail, especially when your stock room is up 3 flights of stairs, heels are just a far off dream. I'm too wussy to put up with the pain all day so I usually wear converse or Vans. So finding good shoes or work is HARD WORK.

And then I saw these...




I recently bought these little babies, which coincide quite nicely with my Jason Wu passion. My new favourite shoes! Now I just need to wrangle an outfit to match.

Could this be me!??

For quite some time now, I have been after the perfect fusion of my three favourite kind of styles.... Bogan/Westie + Western + ladylike. Its much harder than you think to combine these looks! Most of the time I just alternate between the three depending on how much I do or don't want to talk to customers at work. For some reason, men in the banking area of London don't respond well to the Bogan/Westie look.. huh, who'd have thought.

ANYWAY Jason Wu has got me all wiggly on the inside because I love Love LOVE this collection. Well, the first half mostly, but there is a few maxi skirts later on in the show. Maxi skirts always get me.







For some reason, trousers seldom work on me *cough thighs cough* so I may have to
do some hunting around, but I'm feeling positive about this one! I think its real, true love with this.

Well , the time has come when I have decided I need to buy a bag. A real one. Like, a nice leather one. Flimsy canvas totes no longer cut it.
Seeing as the bag of my dreams -see below - is waaaaaaay out of my price range right now (sigh ! woe is me)


this could be the next best thing... Sarah, what do you think?



Granted, the leather will not be as buttery and smooth. And the hardware isn't gold. That long strap looks awfully long, I must admit..But its like, 650 dollars cheaper and that is $650 I could use for something else awesome.
Yes or no?

book club time.

Welcome back to the Unfashionable Guide To Fashion book club. Did you all read Valley of the Dolls? Did you love it as much as I did? Perfect summer book. Well it's time to move onto Picnic at Hanging Rock. Everyone who has a blog and is a girl has pretty much wet their pants over the film and how it's so beautiful and how much they want to dress like 1900 Melbourne boarding school girls. But I'm talking about the book here. Read it. I am and it's pretty good.