A Christmas Holiday in Review

The English Text:

It always feels like every holiday goes too quickly, even if it is more than a week. However, if we fill it up with things that impress us, our holidays will not easily be forgotten. I tried to do this by optimising what I wore during the Christmas break. And here in this note I’ll share with you my experience.

My husband and I started our Christmas holiday on the 21st. We drove our car from Central Queensland to Brisbane where all the family had gathered.

The first item on our agenda in Brisbane was to watch a special ballet performance for Christmas called the Nutcracker. This was my first experience seeing ballet in a live setting. I wore one of my favourite dresses for it, the Ballerina Rose Prom Dress.

ballerina rose x (2)

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A Long Journey: Emily and Fin Dresses from Talis

The English Text:

Last month, November 2, 2018 to be exact, Talis, a fashion shop in Australia that sells fashion products from Europe, held a warehouse clearance sale in a Facebook group called ‘Talis Vintage Style’. Dresses usually priced at $150 were uploaded onto the group at a price of $50. This meant of course that all the members of the Facebook group competed with one another to buy the dresses as quickly as possible. And do you know which products caught my attention the most? Emily and Fin!

Emily and Fin is a fashion brand from London which produces fine clothes, both in the modern and vintage style. I am interested, of course, in their dresses in the vintage style. I’ve been interested in trying their dresses for quite a while, but I was uncertain about the size. Because of this, when Talis held the big and remarkable sale event, I thought here is the best opportunity to try out Emily and Fin.

I recall that over the few days the sale was taking place, I was actually busy travelling by land from Central Queensland to Brisbane. The internet signal during the trip was unstable, but nonetheless I persisted in trying to join in with this event. And I was successful in winning three dresses from Emily and Fin which I had dreamed about, namely ADA Dress Romance is Born, Violet Dress Jade with White Polka Dots and Florence Dress Bed of Roses.

collage emily and fin dresses

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100% Cotton For Summer?

The English Text:

The season of summer in Australia officially begins on December 1. However, hot weather can be felt for some days earlier or after that date, depending on which part of the country a person lives in.

I live in a small town in Central Queensland where the summer began a long time before the month of December came along. The hot weather is quite extreme and can reach 42 degrees celsius. I cannot imagine how a person could have survived without AC or a fan in the past. Every time I leave my room, I feel as though I’m in a sauna, but one that is very dry! I start to sweat and feel that my skin is severely threatened.

This experience makes me try my best to survive. I think to myself, it’s not just technology that helps us overcome weather like this, but also fashion!

I read an article which explained the characteristics of various kinds of fabric. I found that cotton fabric is considered the most comfortable to wear in the summer. Is this true? And why?

I tried to prove it by wearing dresses made from 100% cotton throughout this week and to compare these dresses with my experiences wearing dresses made from different fabrics.

Summer Cotton Dress-4b

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THE LEOPARD: A Feminine Animal That Wears a Cloak of Roses?

The English Text:

What do you think when you see clothing with leopard motifs? Are you interested or displeased? If you’re interested, what is the reason, and if not, why?

Just a year ago I still had never considered wearing anything with a leopard motif. I thought this kind of print was too striking and controversial. Like Indonesia’s Durian fruit. There are some who like it a great deal, and there are some who are made queasy by its pungent smell.

However, this last year, I have become very interested in this kind of motif. In the beginning, I did not understand what made me change my mind.

I started by buying and trying on a leopard dress from Collectif Clothing. When I looked in the mirror, I think I fell in love with this motif. I then started to look for more information about the profile of this animal, which has been for some time one of the fashion world’s strongest inspirations.

leopard-collectif-3-edited.jpg

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Revisiting Heritage Buildings in Harlequin Dresses

The English Text:

Last weekend, my husband and I enjoyed a short holiday in Brisbane. It’s not a new place for us, but because we presently live in a small town, a visit to a big city is always refreshing.

For me, the most thrilling aspect of visiting a big city like Brisbane is the majestic and artistic old buildings. We revisited some of these buildings and captured them in some images.

Of course I prepared some dresses that I thought might be suitable for the atmosphere of the big city and its majestic architecture. My choice fell to dresses with harlequin motifs that were produced by Pinup Couture.

HARLEQUIN Pic-1

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Are We Frightened to Grow Old?

(Reading the Poetry of Yeats)

The English Text:

when you are old poem.jpg

I first read the above poem in Indonesian when I was about 19 years old. Without having to re-read it, the poem touched my soul immediately, and pushed me to look for the original verse in English.

It appears this poem was first published in an anthology entitled ‘The Rose’ in 1893, while Yeats was born in the year 1865. The poem ‘When You Are Old’, therefore, was written when Yeats was still quite young.

The poem does not lift up a large subject from the world’s history, but nonetheless concerns a subject that is important to humanity, one that will always cause disquiet in mankind, namely that of age, and aging.

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Are You a Wiggle or a Swing Voter? (Trying Out Elsie Dresses)

Today I threw out a question to my friends on the Facebook group ‘Wear All the Dresses’: “Are you a ‘wiggle’ or a ‘swing’ voter?” Of course what I was referring to was the ‘wiggle’ dress style, like the style in the photo to the right, and the ‘swing’ dress style, like in the photo to the left.

swing and wiggle edited

The results? I was not too surprised by them because they were similar to my predictions. However, I was interested in the reasons that followed.

From some friends who declared their position, 70% chose ‘swing’ and 30% declared a vote for both. This means there was not a single one who chose just the wiggle style. Why?

One of my friends said: “I love wiggles on other people but I don’t think they suit me. I feel more comfortable in a swing.” And others said: “I prefer swing, as I think it suits my body shape better.”

What was said by my friends on the Facebook group is actually the same with what I have felt all this while.

Nearly 100% of my collection of dresses are in the ‘swing’ or ‘fit and flare’ style. I always feel a little unconfident trying out ‘wiggle’ dresses because I have a rectangular body shape. Meanwhile, I always think that the wiggle style is very suitable for women who have an hour-glass body shape. Is this so?

These last few months I have seen a dress in the wiggle style worn by lots of women with various and different body shapes. And I felt that this dress looked good on them. For quite a while I had restrained myself from buying a wiggle dress, but I felt at last that this was the dress to start with.

Elsie dress-1.jpg

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