Ain't No Mountain High Enough

I spent the earlier half of this week rummaging through countless charity shops, separating the rad from the ugly, in and around Katoomba (a small town in the beautiful Blue Mountains). The trip was primarily to collect some much needed stock for our next Vintage & Retro Fashion Sale but it also acted as a badly disguised break from Sydney. The evenings were spent in the communal areas of our hostel drinking delicious clean skins, eating, reading an enormous amount and gloating - I managed to whittle my clothing necessities down to about five items. Admittedly however, this achievement was slightly discredited by my knowledge of all the buying of clothes we'd be doing.

Whilst, at the time, hunting for good quality vintage in the town felt an equivelantly overwhelming task to finding needles in a haystack, in hindsight, we actually did absurdly well from the trip. I suppose this is exemplified in the fact that on the final day, we felt it necessary to purchase of a large second hand suitcase to appease the awkwardness and difficulty of carrying so much home. We more or less took Katoomba by its ankles and shook out its pockets for all it was worth. The majority of our finds are by now well hidden within all the rest of our new stock but I did keep a few things for myself, the most expensive (ie most awesome) of which I snapped some photos of just for you (but mainly for me - I'm hyperventilating at the sight of them *in photo form* as I write this).

I wholly accidentally scored a new (!) pair of boots from Rivers which I'm super duper very excited about - particularly by the fact that they're not leather. Also, my feet aren't quite as big as they look here. They're quite big. But not that big. Well, not from where I stand, anyway.

We bought this at the last minute, after having mulled over the prospect of spending so much money on something that might possibly probably break on the way back to the City. But it didn't! And it's amazing!

We're already planning our next trip.

Look What the Cat Dragged In.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this might be a contender for sweetest dress in the whole world ever. It's a cat! And it's on her dress!

Image courtesy of the aptly named website All The Pretty Birds.

Another Day

Earth Hour takes place this Saturday night from 8.30pm 'till - as the name would suggest - 9.30pm. Embarrassingly, despite the often stubborn, quite annoying and sometimes hypocritical die hard environmentalist side to my character, I'm yet to participate in the global event.

In 2008, being just a wee bit naive and filled with well meaning enthusiasm, my then-housemate and I concocted - over a few beers - an elaborate plan involving the Centrepoint Tower, our rooftop in the city, lots of candles, all our friends and their friends and even possibly their friends friends, a camera and the words 'Unicorns! Fuck Yeah!' However, a few days prior to the scheduled fiesta, Mahogany (the hairdressing salon I was - am? - a sometimes model at) called to ask if I wouldn't mind a free haircut and dinner in return for modelling as part of a presentation on GHDs and some other things I couldn't/was too distracted by food to understand. It was an offer that, with a measly two dollars in my bank account and no food, I would have been, frankly, an idiot to turn down. So, unfortunately, the plan didn't go ahead. In hindsight though, considering that our plan was largely dependant on the whole of Sydney City switching off their lights, it's probably best that I had to work: I was told that only a handful of lights could be seen switching off come Earth Hour. As my then-housemate sat on the rooftop, rather disappointed, I was meanwhile making my way to Mahogany, wondering how they were going to conduct a presentation in pitch black - I didn't consider for a moment that they wouldn't be partaking in Earth Hour at all which, in the end, was how they got avoided the stumbling block completely. Rather sly, eh?

In 2009, I was on an aeroplane (and not the jelly kind), on my way to London - about the least environmentally friendly act possible. Of course, by this time I was slightly more worldly and only 35% of me expected the plane to switch of it's lights and engines for an hour.

This year, I'll be at the Metro watching Angus and Julia Stone (or, perhaps more likely, their supports) during Earth Hour. While my hopes are still considerably high (about 28% positive) that they'll turn off their lights and sing in the dark for oh, at least two songs - they are supposedly hippies, after all - I'm somewhat sceptical after my previous experiences.

I'm afraid the height of my participation in Earth Hour 2010 will be turning off my bedroom lights before I leave the house. *Maybe* (there might be hope yet) the lights in the whole house if no one's home/I manage to convince the housemates not to throw bottles at me when I switch their bedroom light off mid cartwheel. Either way, there's nothing particularly special in that, is there? I would have switched off my light either way. I suppose my point is that you should probably get your shit together for Earth Hour, get your whole neighbourhood involved and switch off all your lights, appliances and vibrators for the whole frickin' hour because if all my readers do that then it might... er... probably won't come anywhere near making up for that year I flew to England or my subsequent years of failure. Sorry, Earth, this one's for you. Cue the clinking of glasses and sculling of beer - at least beer's environmentally friendly, right?

Art Land

In a photographic tribute to Surry Hills (the Sydney suburb I, and most people I know, quite pathetically but very contentedly rarely venture from) my good friend, excellent popcorn maker and even better photographer Daniel - the same Daniel who took this series of shots of Bobby, Elle and I around this time last year - showcased a small portion of his work as part of an exhibition hosted by Time Out Sydney at the relatively new Urban Uprising on Crown Street. His photos are no longer on display (it was a one night only affair, unfortunately) but you can have a squizz at them on his website.

Included in the exhibition were photos of the late Hopetoun Hotel, burlesque performer Gypsy Wood and well, lots of other really good stuff. We wandered around the deservedly buzzing space, admired Daniel's skills (also pronounced skillz), drank a couple of beers, chomped on a veggie pie or two (which were curiously called vegie pies) and then, realising we were already running late, rapidly ran off to catch Jeffrey Lewis at Oxford Arts Factory where I had this totally epic conversation with Jeffrey himself (motioning to the comic books on the merch desk I was like, "Are these the only comic books you have left?" And he was all, "Yeah, sorry! We've sold out of all the others.") If you're currently furrowing your brow in confusion, check out his Myspace and perhaps you'll understand my excitement at meeting this particular balding young American man.

All photos courtesy of Daniel Boud (pictured above).

My black lace leotard, cropped denim jacket, faux-Glomesh bag, floral skirt and granny boots are all from various charity shops, markets and garage sales. Lace headband made from lace bought at C&H Fabrics in the U.K. and the stockings were originally from a department store if I remember correctly - the holes I inflicted on the poor things some time ago (inspired by Rodarte, of course).

Vintage & Retro THREE DAY SALE at Hibernian House: March Edition

The only excuse I'll accept for not making our sale this month is if you live lightyears away. Or kilometres - kilometres is also acceptable. Not only do we have oh-so-much retro goodness at ridiculously low prices, but we'll also be open an extra day this month for all you early birds and weekend workers. We'll be here with our mountains of sexy second hand on the 12th, 13th and 14th of March (that's this weekend!) I won't spell out all the finer deets lest it drive my overseas readers to insanity (presumably you know them off by heart by now anyway), I'll just direct you to the details which you can find on the Facebook event or, for you non Facebookers, via our mailout.

The lovely - and super talented - Aleesha Dibbs, who very excitedly picked up this amazing tutu at one of our recent sales.

Bird On A Wire

Oh, hi there... buster. No, don't be silly. Of course I didn't forget about you. What an absurd accusation. Hey, don't raise your voice at me! In fact, if anything, I should be the one getting angry at you for doubting my commitment to you, my usually-so-lovely-and-forgiving-readers. Okay. Fine. You're right. I've just been a little slow on the updates, that's all. Hell, I've been really bloody busy, you know? With what? Well... lotsa stuff. Important stuff. Yes, as I've said to Bobby many a time when we've been running late and he's trying woo me out of the house with cookies and the promise of absurd amounts of alcohol, feeding Rainbow Lorikeets IS important and if I don't feed them at least three times a day they WILL die. So it's a good thing I do, isn't it?

Also? You probably shouldn't have got me started on the Rainbow Lorikeets because I have approximately eight billion photos of them and have bored my housemates for approximately four thousand hours with stories of their antics. You know they were spinning around on the washing line the other day? And then, earlier this week, one even flew into my room and sat on my bed. I know, right?

But I have been doing other things too. Like looking for a new housemate. Again. And yoga. Lots of yoga. I'll let you see my yoga gear if you're nice enough. Though, let's just say that I wouldn't look at all out of place with this lot:

I've been eating coconuts, too. And sewing. Shortening hems, taking in dresses, hacking off T-shirts, patching holes, changing threads just for the hell of it, sewing together pieces of scrap to make strange looking animals and generally making a complete mess of the living room. Hey! Speaking of which, check out my new sewing table. It set me back a whole $5 from the charity shop downstairs.

And if, after all that, you're still not entirely convinced of my blog directed diligence, I'll have you know that I taught myself how to make a GIF, just for this post. Yep, it took some serious skill - that was high tech stuff.