OOTD: Voting in style

On 26 November NZ got its election on!  And though walking a few hundred metres down the road to the local primary school to vote was about the sum total of my house-leaving for the day, I was damned if (as a new and eager fatshion blogging girl) I wasn’t going to throw together something passably cute to wear.

The City Chic military dress is one of my favourite purchases from there over the past year, given its decent tailoring and good thick fabric (though I must admit I’d overlook lesser fabric and construction in a heartbeat for anything with epaulets on the boobs.)

Red singlet, red shoes, red lippie, I was good to go.  And probably broadcasting my political alignment less subtly than if I’d just put on a sandwich board reading “PROBABLY VOTES A LITTLE TO THE LEFT” (for any random US readers out there:  our political alignment colours are the opposite to yours.  Which, incidentally, make no sense.)

But anyway, if we did follow the US political colour pattern I’d just be ironically wearing red all the time.  Because red = best colour 4 EVA.

Dress and red singlet – City Chic
Shoes – Kumfs (now Ziera)
Sunglasses – SpecSavers

Face talk: Avon party set

Curse Avon, and curse its fantastic deals.  The above was (I think, it was a few months back) a SuperSaver deal with some kind of “complete party set” name for $40 with any $15 purchase.  Or it was just $40.

Either way: Forty.  Dollars.

For an eyeshadow duo in “Stardust”, a black “diamonds” eyeliners, a SuperShock mascara and a lipstick in my new favourite matte red, Red Kiss.  Red?  And monochrome eyeshadow?  And forty dollars?

SOLD.

And since it was marketed as a party set, I of course wore it to a party.

Besides some foundation and the faaaaaantastic Napoleon Perdis Autopilot eye primer which (touch wood) never seems to run out, that’s just the four products in the set on my pretty face.

(The frock and belt are City Chic, the cleavage is all me.)

I was totally thrilled by the way the eyes turned out, since I still consider myself a student in the art of eyeshadow.

On the other hand, wearing nice thick-purple-framed glasses means I feel okay experimenting with heavy amounts of colour – and on the third hand which agrees with the second hand, always remember: you’re always looking at yourself a lot more closely than anyone else probably will.

And if anyone else is looking that closely, they should be the kind of person who doesn’t give a crap your eyeliner’s slightly wonky.  Or, the kind of person who will in full friendship tell you it’s wonky because you really do want to know.  Or something.

Enough yabbering.  CLOSEUP!

The mascara is fairly basic but … somewhat intimidatingly big.  I’m really resisting the urge to make a Freudian joke here, but seriously, it’s a substantial mascara wand.

The eyeliner is your basic Avon Glimmersticks nice-smudgy-wind-up-crayon with a sliiiight shimmer.  But a spare black eyeliner is always nice, especially if you’re me and you constantly lose things.  No one tell my partner I admitted that.

If I have one criticism of the eyeshadow, it’s that the white/pale pale grey shade is very hard.  As in, scrape-off-the-top-layer-with-your-fingernail-and-then-dab-with-brush hard.  The dark dark grey, much less so.  Weird, but manageable for forty dollars.

One more look!  This was for work on a day when bright-red-lippie-management was too much effort so I attempted a bit more of a smoky-eye look, with the dark grey further down on the lid and lots of mascara.

The lippie is another part of my surprisingly-epic Avon collection (I know I order it, and it arrives, but then a month later I’m all “where the hell did this all come from?”), in a shade called Champagne Glow.  Goes on quite pink on my lips because they’re pretty dark compared to my pasty whiteness.  If you can’t afford/find MAC’s Marquise D’, from the Wonder Woman collection, buy this one instead.

(You may recognise the top of that outfit from a previous post.)

Everyone loves cheap makeup … when it works!

So after months of sniping at the Designer Brands ads on TV (“Can you tell which of us is wearing the cheap makeup?” “NO BECAUSE IT WAS APPLIED BY PROFESSIONAL MAKEUP ARTISTS AND YOU’RE UNDER TV LIGHTING” etc) I was in need of a pick-me-up one lunchtime and gave in to the power of $9 eyeliner.

I mean, if it was crap, it was only $9 of crap, and that’s cheaper than most pairs of stockings /bitter.

And you can’t really screw up a good colourless lipgloss, right?
To really amp up the frivolity, I went with a bright green.  It goes on very watery, and on a back-of-the-hand test it looks really unpromising, but once it dries it seriously lives up to the smudge-proof label.  I applied the above at 7.30am and the pic above was taken at around 3pm, and I am an incorrigible eye-rubber.

The gloss is less surprisingly awesome, but utterly serves its purpose.  High shine, not too sticky, lasts a decent amount of time.

I’m wearing it over Avon Ultra Color Rich lipstick in Red Kiss which is loooooove but pretty matte on its own.  Add some clear gloss, and pop, boom, bam etc.

The other excellent thing about a cheap lipgloss is that you just don’t care when the brush gets dark red lippie on it.

Final verdict: on frivolous eyeliner and throwaway gloss, Designer Brands delivers on providing pretty-good quality for a-lot-less-than-everything-else-of-similar-quality.

I’m not quite ready to give up on the OPI and MAC when budget allows, but it’s nice to have choice!

OOTD: Take that, subspace! (where subspace = fashion “rules”)

Or rather, “Take that, silly mainstream notions about pattern-mixing!”  But only because I didn’t know how many of my … one readers would get a reference to the classic “PARTY PARTY PARTY / SUCK BITE SUCK BITE” flea-treatment ads.

Admittedly, for a walk on the wild side of fashion, where pink and orange meet in darkened alleyways to share moments of illicit passion and plaid shirts strut down the main drag yelling “COME AT ME, BRO” to passing cars, mine was a pretty tame one – there’s a lot of safe dark neutral between the leopard print belt and the checkerboard heels.

Yep.  Leopard print belt.  Checkerboard heels.

And one fabulous damn pose.

Like 90% of my outfits, this one is almost pure City Chic (though recent trips down to The Carpenter’s Daughter on Featherston are convincing me there could be two whole stores in Wellington which stock multiple things which I like and which fit me), but I have to give a shout-out to my besties down at Molly N.

This is as shameless a plug as I will ever make on this blog, promise:  buy shoes from Molly N.  Kiwi designer, ethical manufacturing practices, and the heels are so well-balanced you will pinch yourself to ensure you’re not in some Shoe Nirvana Dreamland.

The most important fact about this outfit, however, is the reaction it got.  Not the “my gods and little wizards you look awesome” reaction, though there was plenty of that (and I make no apologies for puffing myself up on my own darn blog) – it was the universal cry of “STEPHANIE.  YOU’RE WEARING PANTS!”

Yep, pants.  Jeans.  Things what are not skirts or dresses.  It has been quite some time – enough time that there’s probably a much longer post on The Eternal Quest For Pants in my future.  But the photographic proof is undeniable:  I am once more a member of the pants-wearing club (though certain friends of mine would definitely point out that the no-pants club is where it’s at).

Here’s a closeup, shamelessly taken in the bathroom while other [drunk] people hammered at the door:

But I couldn’t help it, their lighting is far better (and the nouveau backdrop is a definite winner).

And an even better closeup (taken at home, hence lack of stylish backdrop), so you can admire my hair’s height and actual done-up-ness:

I am not a doer-up-of-hair as a rule (she says, blogging post-shower with wet combed hair tied into two ponytails for ease of sleeping on) and the art of the beehive is a difficult one, especially for a lazybones like me who can’t be bothered remembering to buy a proper rat-tail comb.  The main secerets are (1) tease that sucker till your arms hurt, (2) all the hairspray ever, and by “hairspray” I mean that Schwarzkopf product that comes in the ridiculous, huge, threatening black cans and is technically termed a “lacquer”.  Trust me, you’ll spend all evening telling people to touch your hair so you can see the look of wonder on their face when they realise … it’s pretty damn plasticky, but doesn’t look it.

Other notes … the lippy is Gypsy Rose by Avon, previously teased in my September Swag post.  I love it so damn much you better believe it’s getting its own post, perhaps along with its pink mate.  Phwoar.

The leopard print belt is adorably fuzzy and has some good structure to it, so it doesn’t crumple horizontally the way some City Chic plastic belts do (another reason to save up for some TCD real-cow products).  People were petting my under-boob area all night, but fortunately that’s how my buddies and I roll.

The nails are Not Really A Waitress by OPI under, you guessed it, Black Shatter – and yep, more on that later!

Outfit:

Jeans, black tunic, leopard print belt – City Chic
Checkerboard heels – Molly N
Blue singlet – Farmers bog-standard brand