I've Contracted Comsumption

My total consumption of new garments in 2008 equals the following:

One pair of Lee jeans from Urban Outfitters in the sale (I actually put a lower priced sale sticker on the tag that I peeled off from another sale garment, not expecting to get away with it, BUT TOTALLY DID)

One pair of skinny ‘investment’ jeans from Zara

One stripey ¾ length sleeve top bought predominantly for its layering properties from Zara

Plus one kind of cheat where I facilitated the purchasing of a new garment for me as a birthday gift, resulting in one cute-as-a-button coat from Bershka via Lee and Isi.

Now in my opinion gifts are a bit of a grey area in the rules of my Wardrobe Refashion pledge, but even if the coat does have to be counted, I still came in within my allotted ‘new garment’ allowance. Another loophole in the pledge is the allowing new socks and underwear purchases, which starved of normal garment consumption, has for me taken on something of a guilty pleasure, resulting in the acquisition of more socks and pants than I’d like to admit.

Now, whilst the three new garment purchases I made last year were not manufactured in China, the coat and many of the pants were. One day I will go into my personally boycotting of Chinese goods as I fear I will lose your attention if I go into this here. But, even though the particular garments were not manufactured in China, Zara (I cannot comment on Lee without research that I am too lazy to undertake) does produce some of its garments China. Is that ok? Am I still condoning manufacture in China? I’m confused! Too many grey areas! These are my rules that I have chosen to implement, but they are opening up so many sub-questions. What are my exact standpoints on these? I am at risk of breaking my brain trying to figure them out.

So I have decided: Enough! I have embraced 2009 as the year in which I purchase NO NEW GARMS! Even pants and socks.

I have been trying to implement this more responsible approach into other sections of my life. My aim was to rely on street finds to furnish my new bedroom for example. But the street failed to provide me with certain items, and I was fed up with hunting through plastic bin bags to access my clothes, so I reluctantly accepted that I needed a trip to Ikea. So what do I go and do? I take my Christmas money and immediately go and purchase a clothing ‘storage system’ that turned out to be made in China! AGHHHHH! (See above image for proof of guilt.)

Dear Shannon...

Dear Shannon Sossamon,

Hi, how are you? I guess I should introduce myself, my name is Zoe. You may have heard of me, but I say now, the rumours that I've been cyber-stalking you are just that, rumours. Although the fact that I'm writing this may undermine my last statement.

I'd like to begin this letter by congratulating you. Well done on being (argueably unnecessarily) super-beautiful and 'physically successful'. Also, I hear your career is going well, although I can't pass comment as I fear I haven't witnessed enough of your work, and '40 days and 40 nights' probably wasn't your fault. (However, if pressed, I'll admit I found 'The Rules of Attraction' overly, even negligently, editted to the point of gross inbalance where the basic premise no longer made sense, thus undermining the work of you and your fellow actors to adhere purpose to the susbsequently warped and improbable plot.)

There are a few things, however, that I need to bring to your attention Shannon. Although if I woke up one day having somehow metamorphasised into your body, initially I'd probably not waste my time sobbing, as the (albeit unlikely) scenerio wore on however, I'd probably find it freaked my family and friends out, and I reckon I'd quickly get fed up of people just staring at me and forgetting to concentrate on what I was actually saying.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced by the authenticity of your drummer-in-a-band and DJing credentials. I mean when in popular culture have these ever gone hand in hand, not natural bed fellows are they?

Now, I know this might hurt, but I have to say I may have lucked out. Your whole 'being born in Hawaii, growing up in Reno, then moving to LA' may have somewhat bitten you in the arse (sorry, ass, I don't want to confuse you). I know on paper being born and raised in Essex, and continuing to live in Europe with easy access to budget airline flights into Stansted may not be the stuff that inspires great novels, but this scenerio helped me discover one epicly valueable nugget of information (my hairdressers phone number) and the viability to utilise it. In short what I'm saying is, now I hope your sitting down Shannon (sorry, Shannyn, I forgot you changed the spelling when you were 15), I have just had my hair cut and it is BETTER THAN YOURS!

Many apologies
Zoe Edwards

P.S. Enough of the self-consciously contrived lip-biting, we get it, you're cute.

P.P.S Bad luck on Devour. What do critics or ticket-buying audiences know anyway?

Base Camp

I'm leaving for the airport in, like, less than an hour so what better time than to start a new post?! Well, I wanted to draw a line under this crazy-arsed year by sharing some pics of my new flat, the venue from which, for at least the first part, I will attack 2009.

I didn't bother to tidy up before papping. Nor did I choose arty or visually exciting angles from which to represent my home. I just wanted to show you how it is.

After viewing eleven flats, I knew this is the one I should live in when my new-flatmate-to-be offered me this:

(The mannequin, not the scarf!). But, as I'm sure you can imagine, one of the very best things about having a place to (kind of) call my own again, is that I once again have a recepticle for all my street finds!:

Hair/brain Schemes

Dunno about you, but in a similar vein as actors altering their hair and makeup to portray a different character, I’m pretty convinced that in real life how you wear your hair makes a real impact on how you feel , as well as how you are perceived. Let me tell you a little story...

Once upon a time, several lives ago, I had dreads. As I have no pictorial evidence to hand, you’ll just have to believe me that, for the most part, I believe they looked pretty cute. And no, they didn’t smell. So when I’d had enough (about 10 months in) I ended up hacking them out with a knitting needle (!), then getting what I could salvage cut into an elfin ‘do. That was six or seven years ago, and from then on I have been growing my hair. For the last couple of those years my hair idols all resembled this:

Having dabbled with growing it out, I am committed to The Fringe. Got that part covered. However it turns out that the rest of my hair just isn’t playing the game when it comes to texture. I have to accept that. Tough times. So these days I can be found rocking a cute fringe/topknot combo:

And I ain’t the only one:

However, I am increasingly aware that this is a pretty identi-kit Barcelona look. A month or so ago, my mate trimmed my barnet. Now I kind of feel a spell has been broken and I am on the verge new hair dynasty. Whilst hanging around down by the beach I saw (ok, stalked) this girl whom unwittingly provided a light bulb moment:

Now I think my aim is a haircut so cute, that it makes total strangers weep! Having undertaken further research I am considering something along the lines of this:

A hair appointment has been procured with, in my opinion, the best hairdresser in Christendom (who happens to live in Essex, who knew?!) for when I return to the UK. Any thoughts or comments to help make this a 'happy ever after' would be gratefully received...

Nice piece of skirts

Umm, maybe I was a little hasty to declare that it’s all about dresses. Ok, largely it IS all about dresses, but not ALL about dresses, if you get what I mean. Occasionally, and those occasions seem to be coming thick and fast recently, it's quite a lot about skirts.

I have long been a convert and creator of the A-line and pencil varieties; however there may be a third way! I don’t know what the fash-on term for this style, which I feel I should, but it kind of goes a little something like this:

The above was created by the uber-talented Christine, she of the potentially-nicest-dress-on burdastyle-or-even-in-living-history fame. THAT Christine. This type of skirt has a waistband, something I haven't tried since my ill-advised dabbling with full '50's styles the year before last. Well, I had pretty much written it off as a style that wouldn't suit my 'womanly' curves, and then POW!! This happened:

I know. Honestly, I know. Who knew ''70's house wife on holiday' chic was so now?! Another Burdastyle triumph, click on the image for credits and info. Now I'm pretty much determined to make some interpretation of this skirt style work, no matter what.

Well, I'm thinking of cheating and going for an inbetweeny, less full and subsequently less scary variation akin to this Built By Wendy interpretation:

Still waistbandy, but not so high, with some fullness but not so potentially 'tenth birthday party' (something that, I'm quick to point out, the top two examples have well fallen the correct side of).

But as Christine in the top image has quite correctly pointed out, reality requires tights:

Experiments in where to live #465

So the plan to get myself adopted failed. After the whole 'getting kicked out of one of the shittiest flats in bcn' incident:

a stay of almost a couple of months at the 'dads'' has provided a much needed regrouping and restabilising experience. Amazing food, lovely caring people, Mexican hot chocolate, my YouTube addiction fuelled and encouraged, on-tap help with my lesson plans, massive collection of DVD's and documentaries, wifi and so much feng-shui'd calmess that whole relaxing hours go by without me noticing their disappearance. I'm not sure what the legalities are regarding a 36 year old and a 29 year old adopting another 29 year old, but whatever the case, it would probably upset my mum, so I decided not to start the planned 'Dads please adopt me' campaign afterall.

So once again I am submerged in a state of flat hunting. This time I at least have a pretty damn good idea about what different areas, even different streets, are like. However, trying to figure out with what type of people and what kind of lifestyle you desire is a little trickier. Like many people my age I'm sure, I'm in a strange limbo of still sometimes feeling the unignorable urge to go out and get slaughtered in cool bars and talk random crap to friends and strangers, but I also sometimes just want to cook a nice dinner and have a relaxing, comfortable night in somewhere clean and relatively peaceful. It's an intriguing dichotomy that makes flat viewing even more difficult.

Nevertheless, flats still need to be viewed. Price is obviously a key factor. I'm either aiming at getting a double room somewhere nice and old with enough space for sewing, OR a smaller room somewhere possibly less nice but still old, and using the subsequent savings to share the rent on a small sewing workspace/studio with my mate Harriet.

Check it out, this is one of the many uninspiring and frankly depressing rooms that falls into my (limited) budget:

When Daddy Isi saw the image he declared it reminded him of Van Gogh's bedroom painting:

Similar furniture, carpet, colour scheme... There's some crazy inspiration derived for interior decorating going down over here in bcn! Excuse me, I must go flat (mental style) hunting.....

Experiments in how to live #3769

After what is a strong contender for the best weekend so far in bcn, today the inevitable happened: Monday rocked on up. With it brought the necessary evil of work. So if you will indulge me, I'd like to discuss my present take on that old chestnut.

When I first moved to bcn I spent a long time figuring out how I wanted to support myself. There were lists, diagrams, bar graphs and pie charts. Drawing upon lessons learnt from my varied, extensive and commitment-phobic employment history, I decided I would be happiest by cobbling together a collection of sources of income, rather just having one steady job. So I sorted it thus.

The most fixed element of my working scenerio is being a canguro (literally a 'kangroo', i.e. babysitter) for three families. Basically I get paid to hang out with kids and talk to them in English. As a result my colouring-in and plasticine skills are getting pretty strong! I also blag a bit of English teaching. And last but by no means least, I research fashion trends for a forecasting company based in NY. I'm their 'man' in bcn (except I do womenswear). It's very flexible and fits nicely around my other work, and general weekly whims and desires. It's ironic that someone who doesn't buy new clothes spends so much of her time in clothing stores and changing rooms! Here I am in my natural habitat:

Now, I could warble on about the down sides of my self-cultivated employment situation, but the main point is that I feel I've achieved the level of freedom I personally need for my mental health. And although it can get pretty tiring and a little lonely, flitting around the city as I do means I have a connection and relationship with the city that I think it would take office-bound peops a lot longer than four months to achieve (no offence office-bound peops). It provides me with the opportunity to make fascinating discoveries (e.g. I know where you can buy the TINIEST croissants possibly known to man) and provides constant visual stimulae that sometimes I like to record:

PLUS, when my sewing stuff arrives, the application of a little more self disaplin and time management should result in a whole lotta time for creating. That's it in a (chest)nutshell.