Week 3

…in which I master the art of smart layering and the power of earrings… Sort of.




Monday: mum’s old silk top, h&m shorts, oysho wedges and the crucial addition of the turquoise earrings to smarten things up. some sort of eye makeup.




Tuesday: we had a meeting at the office so I wanted to look smart. wore a zara thrifted tee over my zara spaghetti-strap dress, my oysho wedges and silver hoop earrings. and eye makeup. when the time came to go walking around the city I took off the tee and earrings and tied my hair up to minimize suffocation potential.




Wednesday: I was so sleepy I couldn’t even take a proper picture. Wearing grandma-made top, american vintage skirt, mallorquinas and no makeup.



Thursday: still beat, went for comfort with another grandma-made top(!) and my h&m shorts, mallorquinas and red lipstick to brighten things up.






Friday: wore another spaghetti strap dress. to make it more office-appropriate (since it’s also short) I wore my vintage silk shirt over it tied at the waist and… you guessed what shoes. And on my eyes, beige eyeshadow, a touch of liner on the outer corners and plenty of mascara. When I finished work I took off my shirt, and then I went to the beach and stripped down to my bikini :)

Another holiday buy

Turquoise earrings for 2 euros. Why not?

Week 2

…beginning to discover the difficulty of going from office chic to tourist mode.Thankfully my wedge sandals are comfortable enough to do a bit of walking in and still look smart. Otherwise, I continued to push the limit with casual wear and short shorts ;)




Monday: silk top (mum’s old), h&m boyfriend denim shorts, gold leaf earrings (i’ll show you soon… promise!), the infamous oysho wedges, berry lip stain.



Tuesday: american vintage tee, UCBenetton shorts (my sister’s old), michael kors sandals, eyeliner.




Wednesday: [deconstructed] malo tee (mum’s old), american vintage skirt, michael kors sandals [which to my great chagrin broke while I still loved them, leaving me sandal-less… what am I going to do now?!], some sort of smokey eye I’m guessing.




Thursday: (terrible picture of) degand short sleeve shirt (dad’s old) tucked into my h&m shorts, zara pumps, no makeup.

Friday: didn’t go to work, instead wore this to dinner:






cutoff bershka tank top, beautiful tie-up trousers borrowed from my friend, oysho wedges, red lipstick, wavy hair and my little african bag.

A perfect start to the weekend!

Groetjes van Spanje!

Summer in (another) city

…or dressing for the office in relatively hot weather.

Since I’m stuck with the good ol’ iphone for the summer I won’t be making regular outfit posts. But since this whole office-appropriate dressing is new to me, and with the heat providing a little added challenge*, I thought I’d keep track -to the best of my abilities, which is not saying much- of what I’ve been wearing anyways. Which involves dailydown-style pictures and, yes, selfies. Apologies in advance for that step backwards!

Right then, this is what I wore on the first week…




Monday: thrifted COS tee, massimo dutti jeans, oysho wedges, hair in a ponytail and eyeliner.







Tuesday: thrifted zara tee, h&m jean shorts, zara pumps (which look like flats in the picture… maybe pointy flats are not so horrible after all?), pony tail and red lipstick.

Wednesday: no pictures but I wore Tuesday’s outfit with this light blue slik sleeveless top instead. I wore my (curly) hair down, with silver hoop earrings (pictured with the top in the link above) and a brown smoky eye.







Thursday: (another grey) tee and skirt from american vintage; this time I wore the skirt low on my waist so it was maxi-length, mallorquinas from department store el corte inglés.




Friday: mom’s old top, american vintage trousers (the thinnest I own but still very warm for this weather!), mallorquinas again. No makeup, no contact lenses and pony-tailed frizzy hair.


 And just to make sure you’re keeping up with my title references (and as a teacher said: “Intertextuality, in your face!”):

-Summer In the City by Regina Spektor (although there is no cleavage to be seen here -if you still don’t know what I’m talking about just go give the song a listen alright?!)

-Sex and Another City, a SATC episode.

As you can see I’m so very high culture these days ;)

*the bonus challenge that I set myself is wanting to head to the beach straight after work, and most of the time I wear my bikini under my clothes -good thing the office dress code is quite relaxed right?

Mallorquinas

While everyone else [in the fashion world] is going crazy over Birks (Céline or not) this summer, I thought I’d be original and…* get the traditional Spanish version of the man-repelling summer shoe. Well, those and espadrilles, which I’m getting later.




I’m still looking for actual sandals (possibly slightly less man-repelling) because even these are quite warm on hot Barcelona days, but I’m so particular that I suspect I may never find any (affordable) sandals of my liking. In the meantime though, these are comfortable, casual and quite cool if you ask me. I bought them in black** (they didn’t have brown/tan, which was my first choice because it’s more summery), and and I think they’ll be even better in Amsterdam where things are not usually particularly summery anyways, making black more appealing. Oh, and they’re made out of leather which I’m quite pleased about :)


PS: The title is only referred to what these shoes*** are called, in case you were wondering. What can I say, insiparation is sometimes hard to come by!

*ermmm, sorry but that’s not even true, everyone wears them here -they’re unisex, too!

**though they look a bit navy (?)

***do they qualify as sandals?

Because it's Monday

…and everything has zero relevance. This weekend was too good to have ended!

The one with the grey scarf

dress: zara, blazer: thrifted, scarf: random,  shoes: converse, and glasses because my eyes need a rest!

I got this scarf from my friend, who must’ve been insane because she didn’t want it. Oh well!

I’m not entirely sure I like this ensemble though… I think I kind of look like a mum, or maybe it’s just the random associations in my brain. I put on some berry coloured lip stain which probably helped though.

And now for the random question of the day: why does my parting always creep to the side? (I want it in the middle, damn it!?)

Gentleman -or how to de-sexify yourself once and for all

shirt: my dad’s old, blazer: thrifted, jeans: weekday, shoes: converse


Actually, contrary to the title, it is my belief that girls can look incredibly sexy in guys’ clothes. You only have to look at this project to realize that girls can look just as cool in girls’ or guys’ clothes, while a guy in a dress just looks funny.

But sometimes you just want to be completely gender-neutral. So, really, I didn’t want to dress like a guy. I just didn’t want to dress like a girl. Sometimes it’s nice to forget your gender -which doesn’t mean I’m not proud to of who I am, but rather that sometimes I don’t feel like impersonating the stereotype of a woman. Which is why I didn’t just wear these androgynous clothes. I also didn’t wear makeup or contact lenses, or let my hair down in an attempt to look more feminine.

OK, OK, the real reason I looked like this is because I was dead tired and I had an exam so I didn’t have time to, or feel particularly like, constructing an image of femininity. I just changed the top and otherwise wore what I was wearing the night before. And the thing is, I felt a little insecure during this little experiment.

Every time I leave my femininity at home, I feel a bit ugly. The truth is that even if I don’t usually dress sexy, I almost always try to wear a little makeup, or use my long hair to assert my sexuality. And I now realize how pressured women (and probably men, too) are to assume a gender identity, to look and be feminine or masculine. And like I said, even though I’m proud of being a woman, there are so many other things I am that have nothing to do with my gender, and yet I don’t feel the need to walk around with a sticker saying: ‘I’m Greek’, or ‘I like reading books’, or something else. But then again I do express these things, albeit in a less forceful manner. Expressing yourself is supposed to be a good thing, after all. I guess the point here is that I should be free to express my femininity through my appearance (as I am happy to do, most of the time), but I shouldn’t be made to feel less of a woman when I choose not to. Not by society, but most of all not by myself.

When in Amsterdam...?

…get a bike. Some cool things I did in June:




Went to Roest at night and sat on the beach* -complete with hammocks!- by the canals (i was wearing this, in case you were wondering)




Visited the (free) outdoors Henry Moore garden exposition at the Rijksmuseum.




Then I headed to Stedelijk museum…



…whose gift shop is for the most part a really cool bookstore, with all sorts of interesting, scholarly, art, or just plain funny (see picture above) books.

*Speaking of beaches, Zandvort aan Zee may not be a Greek island, but it’s a nice beach nonetheless :)

The Mafioso

t-shirt: oysho, blazer: thrifted, jeans: weekday, shoes: converse

…complete with Mediterranean genes and pinky ring.

I thought I would try the fast lane to sophistication, i.e. the total black look. With white converse to make it more casual.

I wore no bag because who needs one when one has pockets (irrefutable guy logic right there), and for makeup only wore a semi-sheer red lipcolour, which is less dramatic and more effortless than matte red lipstsick.





And of course, to compensate for the lack of colours, I had to wear all of my rings. I actually lost one during the bike ride (maybe my fingers are shrinking?) but thankfully it was just a cheapo one so no biggie. If I were to lose one of my mum’s, I would still be back there looking for it!

PS. In case you were dying to know, the book on my mini bookcase/table is The Sartorialist, a collection of street style photographs by Scott Schuman.

Now, is Mafioso a good look?

On free (and not-so-free) bags

Ivania's already done it (of course): a plain clear plastic bag (the thick kind of plastic) transformed into a minimalistic hanbag that's also free!





Something quite similar but not quite free was, a couple years ago, Jil Sander’s plastic market bag. According to the internet, what was essentially a coloured bag made out of thick plastic was retailed at 130 euros, became the it-bag of the season and was sold out everywhere. Whether you find the idea of carrying a bag whose contents everyone can see appeals to you or not, I suspect everyone who paid so much money for a plastic bag had a. more money than sense, b. money to burn, or c. recently had a lobotomy. Sorry Jil.



Personally I still haven’t experimented with this idea, but a visit to the Stedelijk museum (where I inevitably spent hours in its gift shop/awesome bookstore) gave me another updated version of the clear plastic bag which I might be persuaded to try: The plastic bag with the Stedelijk logo around the edges. It’s so hipster, man! You’re being fashionable AND showing you appreciation for modern art at the same time!




Seriously though, what do you think? I might take this for a spin, although it will have to be on a night out/outing where I don’t need the 12645629854745 things that I usually carry around with me. The problem with a bag like this is that you’ll probably end up carrying around used tissue, tampons  and secret world domination plans other random items in plain sight. Which I’d rather not because none of these are particularly beautiful to look at, or anyone’s business.


And then of course, after getting past all these issues, there is still the most important question to ask: “but won’t it look silly?”

Favourite colours: casual day and night

sweater: zara men, trousers: my mom’s old, canvas bag: came with a pillow or something at cocomat, flip flops: DKNY

Just, you know, popping out for some groceries. You’ve seen these trousers before, most recently here in an equally relaxed outfit and with -surprise, surprise!- the same colour t-shirt, but also dressed up here. This time, though, I decided to go for a non-tucked in top, keeping everything very loose. While it doesn’t emphasize my body, I don’t find it unflattering; in fact, it felt very comfortable and safe.



Oh and I love that bag. Sometimes the best things really are free ;)





On another night a few days later I found myself going for the same colours and I thought aha! Let’s show the blogosphere my subliminal predilection for this colour combination! I wore this to a jazz thing at Bimhuis (I thoroughly recommend it!). People were not dressed up at all there, so it’s a good thing that I didn’t go all dressy. I would’ve worn this to uni or on holiday with flats.




I actually really wore my Gucci handbag, but it was unavailable for the shooting (holiday packing, whatcha gonna do?), so I used this self-made newspaper clutch instead, and I actually think it looks even better!


Conclusions:

1. I really like blue and grey

2. Most colours go together (but you didn’t need me to tell you this did you?)

3. I love free bags: both bags in the pictures didn’t cost a thing, and there’s more to come on this topic -the Gucci’s another story, although it was a hand-me-down so technically…?