husband

Lots and lots of lovely luck for today, baby (although of course you won't need it)!

xx

wife

PS. just to clarify for all those people I'm not married to, today is the first day of shooting on his new movie. It's hard to believe we're finally here.

Bumbo

Someone asked me (in the comments of my last post) how the whole "short shorts with bow on the bum" thing worked. I thought I'd just post a photo of my own late eighties bow-bedecked bottom and be done with it, but extensive excavations in my photographic archives failed to turn up anything relevant and I was forced to create the following magnificent pair of explanatory diagrams instead:

Those two tentacle things are actually a pair of tie straps which were sewn into the side seams of the shorts (which were skimpy and fluttery and could be called "tap pants" if we wanted to make them seem somewhat classier than they were).

Once the shorts were on, the straps were pulled to the back and tied in a big bow which rested jauntily on our sadly taken-for-granted (and now long gone) perky teenage bottoms. Occasionally some foolhardy youth would attempt to undo the bow, and they were so terribly disappointed when the undoing of the bow didn't result in the immediate dropping to the floor of the shorts. Sucked in, Chad!

Black bedsheets aren't depressing at all when used as curtains.

I did turn up plenty of photographic evidence that explains exactly why my memories of the clog-infested era of the early nineties are so grim. Look at that photo above (you may not want to look for very long, it's pretty awful), where I'm trying and failing to look cute and adorable in my bass player boyfriend's horrible clothes (those are his purple pants there too) in amongst the general morass of his grunge-era bass-player decor. I know for a fact that a pair of my clogs is lying on the floor just out of shot, somewhere behind that random garbage bag and black vinyl couch, and next to the wall of giant amps, and in my mind that is still the natural habitat of the clog.

It's hard to see because of the flash, but the walls were pretty much orange.

Not that my flat was any better, just slightly tidier and waaaaaaay prissier. I have included this photo because it highlights not only my natural eye for composition, but also the strange sun and sunflower fixation of nineties homewares designers. That rug on my sofa was my pride and joy - I think I actually laybyed it because it was so expensive (that's not saying much, I was a poverty stricken teenager at the time) - I remember thinking that I'd own it forever because it was such a classic and beautiful piece. Just visible: my leather backpack sitting on the pink wicker chair. Not shown: the extensive collection of pictures of Keanu Reeves torn out of magazines and stuck to my wardrobe doors.

Yep, kitten heeled mules. Those little fuckers.

This is from later in the nineties, in a friend's share house - yet there's that sun still hanging around, looking all creepy and smug. Those things were everywhere, I think I even had a shower curtain with their little yellow faces all over it - staring at me slightly malevolently every time I had a shower. You can tell this was a share house, the wonky peeling posters and mismatched brown armchairs are a dead giveaway - but that artfully distressed rug really seals the deal. My friend and I were once caught by one of her housemates as we (drunk on a duty free bottle of Amarula Cream filched from another housemate) writhed around on that rug doing melodramatic interpretive dance moves to "Damn, I wish I was your lover" by the rather unpleasant and generally insane Sophie B Hawkins. Which was playing on a cassingle. On a tape deck.

What can I say? It was the nineties, we had to make our own fun back then, and find our joy where we could, which was no easy task in amongst the grunge, minimalism and brown lounges. There's a reason ecstasy got so popular!

xx

Skye

PS. Nostalgia is highly overrated.

Five Bucks

Tan leather wooden soled shoes - $3 op-shop

Tusk necklace - House of Baulch via Alegorie

Floral dress (altered by me) - $2 op-shop

Itty bitty floral prints generally make me itchy and twitchy, I prefer my flowers to be bold and even slightly predatory - I'd like to think of myself as a Venus Flytrap kind of femme fatale rather than a little daisy chain chick. Obviously I'm somewhere in between (probably a carnation, or maybe a jonquil), but either way I generally avoid little floral prints in the Liberty family. This dress, originally a vast sack before being hemmed into smaller sack form, is a print which is a fairly distant cousin twice removed from the Liberty archive, the kind of thing most usually found as a quilted kleenex box cover or one of the innumerable padded photo frames currently littering the op-shops of the land.

I was drawn to it by two things, the peachy nudie colur scheme (predictable), and nostalgia for the late eighties when my friend and I had a little craze for sewing clothes out of craft print fabrics. I think we started using that stuff because it was cheap, which made it perfect for teenagers who were long on sewing inspiration but short on cash. I seem to recall a fair number of short shorts (with little bows on the bums), frilly mini skirts and crop tops whipped up without patterns, from fabrics that were far more usually found fashioned into quilted wall hangings of geese wearing bonnets sold alongside the bread dough rose earrings and lavender scented wheat dollies at trendy (!) local craft emporium, Potpourri Cottage.

Quick, look away!

The photo above is a handy illustration of how Hands-In-Pockets shots can go horribly wrong, and end up looking like there's some unsavoury (double-chinned) rummaging going on, when really it's all innocent and sweet and Potpourri Cottagey. Also horribly wrong - clogs! I saw these shoes at the Salvation Army, bought them because Kaiser Karl had penetrated my brain with his eeeeeevil clog collection, felt ashamed of myself, then put them on and clunked around very happily indeed. Then I felt all confused, because really clogs and I, we don't get along. In my universe, clogs are strictly the domain of that certain breed of yummy mummy who wear Marimekko headscarves, shop solely in Scandinavian design stores and always looks extremely aesthetically coherent, even with babies tied to the front of them and longhaired blonde toddlers hanging off their selvedge denimed legs.

I also have clog issues, because the last time I wore them was circa 1993, with outfits which also contained such things as extra wide raver pants, crocheted chenille skullcaps and chokers with glass daisies on them. They remind me of doomed relationships with unsatisfactory youths (of the classic early nineties bass player/record shop employee kind), interior decor with an excess of sunflower themed items, and specifically they remind me of a pair of giant wooden platform clogs with metal daisy buckles which were my clubbing shoe of choice throughout that grim era. I eventually sold those to Melissa George at a garage sale, along with a maroon lace flared catsuit, and I was quite glad to see the (clunky chunky) back of them. Still, these ones are kind of cute, so perhaps I can be won over, even after decades of disdain.

Marc Jacobs, my tusk and I may have to have serious "talk" with you if you persist in this attempt to bring the kitten heel back. It's too soon for the trauma to have faded!

I cannot find such charity for kitten heels however, those still bedamned in my book. At least my chunky clogs never got hopelessly entangled in long carpet, and I never found myself on one side of a dancefloor with my clogs somehow still sitting neatly on the other. Unlike the kitten heel mule, foul demon shoe which would only stay on dancing feet if a the wearer employed a sort of shuffling gait which was neither sexy nor sensible nor recognisable as dancing by any sane human. Away, I beseech thee! Away!

Note to online retailers: flatter your customers, we like it.

I need a moment to think of nice things, soothing things, things without weird little stumpy heels on them - ahhhhh. That's better. A calming moment to reflect on, for instance the very nice things for sale online at Alegorie or in my neighbourhood at The Village Markets. This post has been hanging around waiting to be published for so long that the monthly market is almost upon us again (first Sunday of the month), and the memory of my most recent (and highly successful stall there has almost receded into the distant mists of three weeks ago.

Doing a little business.

Spot the small invader in the markets office tent.

That's another sausage, that child can eat his weight in sausage sizzle sausages.

It's a great little market, and not only do Marissa and Sarah do a fabulous job of organising the whole thing - they also let the little dude hang out with them to his heart's content. If you're in the neighbourhood then I highly recommend a trip down to check out the stalls - you never know, you might just see the little dude on the loose, sausage in hand and smile on face!

A slightly less problematic version of the Hands-In-Pockets shot.

xx

Skye

PS. Nice to see you!

Stand By

If you keep looking at me all hopeful like that, then there might just be some low grade action on this blog before too long...

xx

Skye

Tamarind Tales

Eighties high-waisted peach shorts - fifty cents op-shop

Vintage Brazilian tan leather pumps - $10 op-shop

Eighties peach peplum blouse - $1 op-shop

I've had a bit of a monochrome monkey on my back since I saw this Garance shot a little while ago:

Arnsdorf designer Jade Sarita Arnott in... Arnsdorf.

...but what with me being me, and the monkey being an apricot ape:

The monochrome monkey.

...it should come as no surprise to anyone that my monochromatic outfit ended up pastel peach instead of baby pink. It's also far less suave, but who needs suave when you can have a tail of your very own!

Unfortunately it's the kind of tail found on an executive assistant circa 1984, rather than the curling, tree swinging, fabulously prehensile tail the monkey and I might have preferred, but the one dollar rack can only do so much.

There's a pleasing geometry to the whole affair.

I suspect this outfit would have benefited from a statement shoe (or preferably two statement shoes for my two statement feet), but I was having a chasing little dude kind of day so opted for the pumps.

The apricot ape gibbered his approval of their peachy nude tones.

Now the little monkey has scampered back to his tiny tribe so I am once again free to mix my colours at will, without his insistent demands for monochrome and mangoes haunting my every move. I am still feeling oddly drawn to outfits in a single shade though - Simian Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps?

xx

Skye

PS. Not many words today, my word herds are depleted after yesterday's Wall Of Text extravaganza. I have put the few remaining small one syllable wordlets in a nesting box with some coconut fibre and fresh pawpaw and I'm hoping that, with a bit of gentle coaxing, by tomorrow I'll have a big enough breeding population to construct whole paragraphs again!

A Highly Scientific Experiment

This post is a bit of an experiment with Wall-Of-Text type posting of a kind I usually steer away from. First of all the backstory - I was asked to write this little piece on the secret of a happy marriage as a guest post for fatmumslim, and I liked it enough to post it here too (even though it's rough as guts and I did bang it out in record time because I forgot my deadline). I have been considering the occasional posting of non-style/non-photo based stuff for a while but am not sure if anyone actually wants to see it, but since I had this one sitting there I thought I'd give it a go and see what happened.

In order for everyone to give me their honest opinion, that no one has to feel bad for telling me NO to the Wall Of Text, I am running a poll on the subject. Please vote either way!

Anyway, on with the show...

I asked my husband what the secret of our happy marriage is (assuming we still have one, and I’m not jinxing myself by writing this and next week we’re filing for divorce and fighting over custody of the cat and the free Christmas carol cd that came with the Sunday papers) and his answer was this:

“No unrealistic expectations.”

Which threw me for a minute, because I had some very unrealistic expectation that he’d say “A well-developed sense of the absurd” or “My vast and mighty love for you O goddess-like one.” And also because I thought he meant “Low expectations.” You know - don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed, aim low and any scrap from the marriage table will seem like more than you deserve. Which doesn’t seem like the secret of a happy marriage so much as a recipe for dysfunction, low self-esteem and generalised misery, with a garnish of secret drinking and prescription drug abuse.

Now, our house may have its share of chaos and madness and out-of-tune ukelele playing, but we don’t have any of that low expectation stuff. Not one bit. Some further investigation (aka hassling of the husband) subsequently revealed that unrealistic expectations include:

1. Large diamonds
2. Either of us being someone or something we’re not.

Fair enough, I thought, so what are realistic expectations then? Some meaty husband/wife style conversation resulted in a list a bit like this:

Respect
Trust
Commitment
Love
Communication
A mutual capacity and willingness to evolve and adapt as a couple

And all those Dr Phil-type truisms which seem so trite and obvious but actually encompass vast oceans of meaning. I know a Dr Phil-ism when I hear one because I must have absorbed several volumes worth during my first year of motherhood, otherwise known as The Year of Being Stuck in the House at Nap Time But Too Sleep Deprived To Do Anything Except Watch TV. Don’t ask me for advice, don’t even hint that you might need guidance on an emotional issue, because my eyelids will flutter, my eyes will roll back in my head, and before you know it I’ll be dishing out endless neatly packaged southern accented soundbites of wisdom, originally picked up by osmosis while slumped on the sofa zombie-like, too tired to sleep.

So what’s the secret, why don’t we have the dreaded unrealistic expectations, how have a pair of contrarian reprobates like us kept this all-singing, all-dancing, occasionally yelling, show on the road for the last seven years through the vagaries of the film industry and kidlet and a creative life full of unknowns? There’s no real answer of course (apart from my general ambivalence toward diamonds of any size at all, and the fact that he does most of the cooking), but my personal theory - vigorously refuted by husband - is that it’s because we didn’t like each other at all when we first met. He was a cocky arrogant male chauvinist (he actually told me “Save your breath sweedhard, you’re too cute for me to take you seriously.”), I was a loud and bossy little beast with a bad case of my-way-or-the-highwayitis, and together we were disastrous. Well, we were very unprofessional when we should have been very professional, and had a big fight in front of people we were working with and were the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.

We then got together in a pink cloud of romance which included mutual dislike, too much cheap red wine and some unsavoury acts in a back alley (“I hate you” sloppy pash “Me too” drunken grope, etc etc.) and a taxi (sorry driver, wherever you are, probably permanently traumatised), and then continued to knock along in a ramshackle haphazard fashion for ages before we worked out that we were utterly, thoroughly, gleefully meant for one another and nobody else. It's almost as though we started our relationship in reverse, starting off at rock-bottom, but finding mutual respect and admiration and pure unadulterated fun as we went along, falling in love in the giddiest way only after we’d actually decided to get married. Knowing all our weaknesses but discovering our strengths and wonders together over time. Now I’m sounding like those people you see in Marie Claire articles and random Lifestyle Channel dating shows promoting arranged marriages as the most sensible way of building a strong relationship. Hmmm, perhaps it's better if I do channel Dr Phil, after all.

In any case - there you have it:

Cheap red wine + mutual loathing + an arranged marriage = marital bliss!

xx
Skye

PS. That photo up there was taken at about 2am at the end of our wedding reception (in a cocktail bar round the corner from our old place in Bondi), the orchids are wilted and many peach bellinis have been drunk and we are just about as warm and fuzzy as two happy little humans can be.
PPS. Yes, that's another appearance of the rarely sighted husband. It's now officially full steam ahead on his new movie (with gratifying front-page-of-Variety articles and suchlike to make us feel legit), so it's nice to see him here on my blog, since in real life he'll be in the studio for the next six months!

An Elder of the Tribe

Fleur Wood silk Vera dress - from My Clothes Horse

Mollini "Opening" in taupe grosgrain - full price retail (!)

Forever New pear stud earrings - $10

Despite absolutely no demand at all, and not a single person clamouring for this post - behold my re-creation of the outfit I wore to my little sister's wedding a couple of weekends ago:

You'll have to believe me when I say that on the day I blow-dried my hair, ironed my frock, applied visible lipstick of a flattering pink shade, and was in all ways a tidier and more fragrant version of myself (at least until I'd had a few drinks). No blow-drying or ironing occurred in the making of these photos, so some imagination and judicious squinting might be required to achieve a closer approximation.

Sweet, demure, lady-like - all adjectives NEVER applied to me, but perfectly apt for these earrings.

When choosing this outfit I was very mindful of my odd, and somewhat transitional, position in the hierarchy of the clan. I'm still a part of the junior generation, but I am the oldest of all the "kids" (most of us in our thirties now) and somebody's mother (mother of the pageboy, no less) and therefore inching my way bit by bit toward elder status. I'm at the stage where it behoves me to dress with decorum, but where I can still dance until 3am with the youths (albeit in sensible-ish heels and pretty much only as the crazy old lady of the crew).

Grubbiness is due to stumbling home in darkness and drunkishness.

I feel like I'm gearing up for the day when I'll take my place in the line-up of matriarchs - ready to sail through the family wedding scene, bestowing my approval (and advice) as I see fit, dispensing compliments and making a little trouble, laughing in a full-bodied fashion and giving hugs of an all-encompassing nature, all of it while wearing a hat of great majesty. Something to aspire to, I think you'll agree!

Silly!

For now I'm just starting small - a pussy bow here, a knee-length hem there, some amateurish dabbling in advice-giving and trouble-making and the bestowing of satisfactory hugs - I still have a ways to go on my journey from naked kidlet running around seventies backyard barbecues to magnificently be-hatted elder stateswoman of the tribe.

This is a very lovely dress to wear, it flutters most delightfully - and there are few things which go better with champagne and dancing than a delightfully fluttering frock. I'm biased because I chose it, but I do think the dress manages to bridge the gap between girlish and grown-up - which is just as well because I'm halfway across that gap, and trying with all my might not to look down...

xx

Skye

PS. The lovely Chantelle of fatmumslim asked me to do a guest post on the secret of my happy marriage, you can check it out here.