Flashback! Cadaqués 2008

I haven't done a flashback for a while, but today in my Catalan class we were discussing the Dalí museum, which made me think of Dali's house that I visited almost three years ago. Which made me think of Cadaqués, the nearby village in the Costa Brava which was the reason for the trip, and these photos. Also, strangely, another woman in my class was wearing this same shirt that I'm wearing here, only in blue. !

So, if you couldn't tell already, Cadaqués is a beautiful little Catalan town on the coast, and Dalí lived just a bit up the coast in the craziest house you can imagine, but apparently when he wasn't being a surrealist genius he was really normal and would walk down to the village and play cards with all the other little old men.

When I am a famous author I will make a point of having a beautiful coastal villa. ; ) And I shall wear cotton dresses and these shoes every day.

seeing stars (and exploring barcelona)

Whew, it's hot these days! I had to peel this off the second I got home from photographing it (at the really late hour of 9:30 am)! It's something I wore in the evening once anyway. And with the summer heat in Barcelona, I become a creature of the night. Everyone does. For starters, there's the summer's biggest and most ridiculous party to keep everyone up all night on the 23rd of June. On St. John's Day (or El Dia de Sant Joan here) the city erupts. Firecrackers do a roaring trade for about two weeks in advance, and anyone with shell shock in the city would have a heart attack as they explode on every corner at any hour of the day and night. On the 23rd, everyone heads to the beach, stays up all night drinking and setting off these firecrackers in close proximity to everyone else. And people dance on the beach to the music of the little beach bars, light fires at around 3 am and then commence jumping over them. Those who make it to sunrise swim in the by that point absolutely disgusting water! I didn't make it to sunrise at the beach this time; I flaked out at 4 am, but was still awake at sunrise anyway, eating a fried pork sandwich in my local park. My two visiting English friends were pretty much in shocked wonder about the whole evening.





You'd think we'd all spend the rest of the long weekend in bed, but on Saturday night my friend called me at 10 pm to suggest we go to the bar next to the castle on the nearby hill. This involved hiking uphill for 40 minutes through a dark, humid jungle, carrying an enormous bottle of vodka sprite and pausing occasionally to admire night time panoramic views. The bar itself, La Caseta del Migdia, is nestled next to the castle overlooking the port, and had a DJ, people clustered around tables with lighted umbrellas, and old movies projected onto a wall (first Metropolis and then, erm, Robby the Robot clearly a deservedly forgotten 1950s "classic"). Ah, good times. Somehow made it down the mountain again in one piece. : )





Damn I love Barcelona in the summer. Definitely back to work tomorrow though!




Sorry for photo overload... thought I'd hit the ground running!

Oh, and this outfit was partly inspired by this picture. I never follow runways, but I must have seen this on a blog somewhere and thought Yesssss... I can do that.

dress: charity shop, blouse: Zara sales last year, shoes: Liz Claiborne sales (2009), hat: vintage from Camden Stables

i'm a-travellin' on

These pictures were taken near Albert's work, on the Monday I left Germany. We met for lunch, took a little walk and snapped these pictures, and I headed on to the airport.

Now, I can feel a bit of a theme developing. Last week I posted about lazy outfits occurring more frequently in life than on the blog, and these photos touch on a related issue. I started off with my usual litany of poses, calculated to make me look taller/thinner/like I'm not standing around like a gormless idiot having my photo taken but am really deeply involved in holding onto my ear. Or looking down, to conceal the fact that my eyes look increasingly tired. Well, this day I actually was tired, and the poses kind of fell away. Maybe it was the informality of shooting casually on my little Sony. Maybe because I'd actually been running around all morning running errands, and now I was off for several more hours of travelling and then going straight to my Catalan class from the airport. Whatever. My tired-eyes disguising sunglasses came off, my face assumed a more natural expression, my hair was pretty haphazard to start with, and even my carry-on suitcase crept into the frame.

Blogging is so much an exercise in studied naturalism. Oh, look, I'm photogenically delighted by a cupcake. I was unphotogenically captivated by it for three minutes and thirteen pictures before, but never mind. Now I'm looking cool and craning my head down the street. One inch out of the frame is likely a garbage can.

On the one hand, I like that bloggers take their photo sessions seriously, whether with gorgeous, dreamy photos or half-way attractive poses. I don't need to see the clothes strewn all over your room or the fact that your dress is mysteriously shorter in the back than the front. Nonetheless, participating in this kind of deception makes me wonder. I and my friends have certainly lobbied a lot of criticism at magazines for creating unrealistic standards of beauty, at TV shows for giving the impression that everyone is slim and rich, at fashion designers for making us feel we should be walking clothing rails. Nonetheless, a lot of us, including a number of people who I would consider intelligent and somewhat alternative, reinforce some of these same perceptions and problems, whether by never showing our spots, or by posting pages of "inspiration" of underfed teenagers in lingerie (never had a piece of lingerie until I was probably 22, FYI) reading dog-eared copies of Lolita. Actually, that's probably food for a separate rant.

Any thoughts? Oh, and I'm not saying I'm going to stop doing this sort of thing by the way. I have an upcoming post where I look extra tall and slim, just for you guys!





P.S. Let's share some love for the vine-covered house, the reason I thought Monday lunchtime was a good photo shoot time in the first place. : )

skirt: Spank (Vancouver boutique), vintage shirt: gift from Veronika, Liz Claiborne shoes, handmade bag, sister's anchor necklace, vintage belt, Alberta Ferretti sunglasses, and my carry-on.

the devil's in the details

from A Fine Day for Sailing


from The Clothes Horse

I seem to be pretty neglectful of my blog this week. And I'm actually really happy about it. Summer has arrived to Barcelona and is working its magic; I've stopped caring much how I'm dressed (simple pretty dress and ridiculously broken Victorias and doing me fine). It doesn't even occur to me to enter shops; I float around in a sunny dream.

Nonetheless, for those who aren't currently going as scruffy-minimalist as me at the moment, I think the real key to summer dressing is in tiny details. The first picture, apart from being a simply gorgeous picture of Islabell and taken in Turkey (!jealous!) shows the simple effect of a striking nail polish. And a cute coffee cup. And I would kill to be that photogenic. I love Rebecca's minimalist but quirky necklace, and again, the nails.


from Resplendent Tranquility
I wish my hair would do this....


from Strawberry Koi
And I love that the detail of this hat is at the back.

What are your favourite details for elevating summer looks? (I so don't believe that fall and spring with all their layers are the best time for style by the way; I think summer is pretty much perfect).

stormy weather

It actually didn't turn stormy this particular day, though it made threatening wind-in-the-trees noises often enough that I was sure it was going to pour down. A simple holiday Monday: another bike ride, a coffee in a very strange place where apparently you had to be middle aged and rich; we looked like aliens. Some photos by the river, and then we glanced again at the dark skies and shot home again, me riding with one hand and trying to keep my hat on with the other!







Photos by Albert

Topshop dress via ebay; Mom's vintage blouse; hat from the Bay, socks from Primark, Fly London shoes, Flash Paradise bag.

in the attic

How can I follow last post's yellow dress? Well, I can't really, so I won't try. I've been thinking how the blog somewhat misrepresents how I dress anyway. I do of course wear dresses pretty often, but really, I work from home, and I'm quite happy to wear the same thing (ie. this) for three days in a row. Kallie and I were talking about this when we met; sometimes, despite being style bloggers, style is really not top of the agenda. She responded with this post. Nicole talked about some of the same things last week here. Consider this my entry into "reality check wear!" Because life doesn't take place in a field of flowers every day.

In fact, it takes place in an attic, at least in Bonn, where I carved out a cozy nook for myself with my wonderful Day of the Dead cushions (bought at Spitalfield's Market in London; they make me so happy), and some co-ordinating flowers from my lovely boyfriend. And I proceeded to catch up on my journal, and then read a bit of Steinbeck (currently The Grapes of Wrath), conveniently forgot that I should really be researching, and gazed out the window.





***Edit*** Hey guys, I'm enjoying the spontaneous links to your own non-dressy looks. Keep them coming!

Photos by Albert

Warehouse jeans, Alfred Sung shirt, my sister's anchor necklace and my boyfriend's watch.

bicycles and picnics and beer, oh my!

On Sunday Albert and I went on a picnic. We rode our new (from Bonn's big flea market) bikes down along the Rhine to a park, and ate our salami sandwiches and strawberries in the grass. And then we had ice- cream.





Long time readers will know that I have wanted this very dress for over a year. I feverishly searched everywhere for a suitable substitution yellow dress, bought two other dresses in the search (one of which isn't even yellow) and finally decided that no, there was only one dress like this, and bartered the ebay seller down to an acceptable price. I love the structured cotton-silk blend, the lovely quality of the fabric, the big bow. It has to be said that I don't think this is the best ever colour on me, but there's no arguing with an obsession, and I do love this dress. Aaaand, I love these, by far the most ridiculous of my sunglasses. I like that they transform this pretty, simple look to something with personality to spare. I like pretty, and I've always gone for pretty, but somehow the blogosphere exhausts me a bit with its relentless prettiness, and I like the assertive madness of these sunglasses!



And then we rode back (my bike is way too big for me and as a man's bike, pretty interesting to get on an off wearing a dress, but I love it to bits already).


And happened upon one of those urban beaches, like the one in London I visited here, except this one was also a beer garden.


And took a little detour.


Photos by Albert

dress: See by Chloe via ebay, vintage headscarf: car boot sale; sunglasses: Alberta Ferreti via TK Maxx, shoes: Liz Claiborne (sales)

altstadt

Whew! The end of an internet-banned long weekend. Well, I was still on the internet, I'm not going to lie, but to a lesser extent. Which is always a good thing. I went to visit Albert in Bonn, where these photos were taken, among the Roman markers that dot the streets of the Altstadt where we live. Unfortunately that's about all I can tell you about them, since the internet has not been forthcoming on the subject.

These somewhat ridiculous sunglasses are part of my summer of personal style discovery. I feel that since starting a blog I've both started to define what I like, and strayed from it, lured by all the possibilities for self-styling that I see everyday on other blogs. I'm making a real attempt to narrow my focus as summer wears on, mainly because I like summer dressing to be as hassle-free as possible. So far I've discovered that 1) headscarves are really my thing (I think it would be hats, but you can only fit so many hats in a suitcase) and 2) I like my eyewear on the eccentric side. I think it must be a family thing. My dad is a bit of a mad professor, and my mom celebrated finally needing reading glasses by getting various coloured ones with rhinestones at the corners... I say, if I don't look like a bug, an alien, or a 60s escapee, I'm clearly not having enough fun.





Photos by Albert

dress: Monsoon via charity shop; headscarf: charity shop; glasses: Lucky brand via TK Maxx; espadrilles: Primark