Vogue Loki

Otherwise known as the Vogue-ki, this absolutely stunning and outstanding cosplay was done by The Lady Nerd and I'm totally in love. It's not hard to see why - this is a look I could wear to a formal event and not seem out of place. I really need to make this.

November day

I don't know how two months went by so quickly. I've been at my new job for about 3 months now, and things are pretty awesome, especially my coworkers. This is my coworker Jordanna's tumblr exclusively featuring cats in sailor costumes. They're adorable.

I have so many crafting projects in my inbox it's kind of overwhelming. I did succeed in making some cool pleather vambraces from pleather place mats from the dollar store for Nerd Fest last Friday. My friend Steph loved them and now I have two on order to make for Christmas. Pictures later! I'm thinking of making them for my Smaug costume that I'll be debuting at the Hobbit "midnight" premiere on the 13th (I dislike this whole business of assigned seating and 10pm showings. Kind of takes away the excitement of lining up super early to get good seats).

Speaking of which: STEEL PUNK - is a thing that Steph and I are totally going to start. Inspired by this article here. I am totally inspired to wear and hopefully make clothing like that! It's super funky and I love it.

I pitched the idea to my fashion major friend Jordanna (of the cats in sailor costumes tumblr above) for the collection she's working on and she's actually making it. I'm so excited.

So back to fashion. I've decided that this winter is all about luxe. Fabrics: leather, velvet, heavy wool, silk. Prints: tapestry weaves, damask. Colours: oxblood, emerald, sapphire. All jewel tones, everything that invokes Pre-Raphaelite and heavy curtains and mahogany walls and swishing gowns. It's all about luxury. I want an emerald or ruby velvet dress. That's my next target. But here is a picture of some tapestry wedge heels I got at Aldo for about 40 bucks on sale (with the obligatory outfit picture of course).

Emerald is my new seasonal colour. It's seductive and beguiling and dangerous. I'm in love. Also: snakes. I bought the necklace in my polyvore mix pic below. for 4 dollars. Not telling you where though, it's a secret ;)

Winter tapestry by elenna-elemirre featuring platform wedge booties

This is my first time using Polyvore! Please excuse the shabby first effort. 

Hopefully more inspiring outfit sets to come on the way :)

Fencing Fashion

 So, not sure if I mentioned that I picked up a new hobby while in England last year - Fencing! I joined the fencing club at my university upon returning home and have been more or less at it since then. I had practice this evening and just randomly decided to google fencing fashion when I got home and a whole lot of cool photos popped up so I thought I'd share them here.

By the way, my weapon of choice is épée, but I've recently started doing a bit of sabre and I've really enjoyed it so maybe will work on that a bit more since I've got to work on my offensive, footwork, and judging distance.

But without further ado, here we go:

From the May 2009 issue of Elle Italia by photographer Ruven Afandor
'Dame e Cavalier' (via Homotography)

Also discovered on Sassy Fencer that Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender also did a fencing editorial spread which is really cool. The full photos are on her blog but here are some of my favourites:

I love you Michael Fassbender.

And hey look! An Edwardian fencing costume (so Alice in Wonderland!) - via Monical Murgia

There were a couple more things that came up with fencing fashion but I felt they were more like models holding fencing equipment and less in the spirit of fencing, so they were not included. But just for good measure before I go, here is a picture of my fencing buddy Ramona and I at our last fencing practice together in the UK last December (haven't really had any photos of me taken while fencing since then):

Look at my attractive yoga pants under the fencing knickers.
And yes, we were in fact posing for this shot.

And here is a stunning shot of my fencing mates at UBC by photographer Josh Curran. Janice is easily recognizable on the left by her socks, but I'm not sure who is fencing her (I was not present for this particular practice session). This is just outside the partyroom in the rooftop courtyard of the Student Union Building. We like to fence outside when it's hot. And just because it's cool (HA unintentional pun).

En garde, prête, allé!

It's my Birthday!

It's my birthday today! I'm turning 23 :)
It's also Hobbit Day and Bilbo and Frodo's birthday.

Other notable birthdays include Tom Felton and Billie Piper. I also know 4 other people with the same birthday as me.

Today is also the Autumnal Equinox, with precisely 100 days until the end of the year.

My birthday is pretty sweet.

Tonight, I will be celebrating Hobbit Day at our local geek pub, the Storm Crow Tavern on Commercial Drive, singing Hobbit drinking songs and playing LOTR chess with a few special friends (and The Boy). I've got all the song lyrics printed out already. I've also downloaded the complete LOTR soundtrack (all 9 discs worth) onto my computer for music. Plus The Cat and the Moon for the LOTR musical.

It's going to be so so epic.

:) Happy Birthday to me.

Adopt a Stray Book

Found this today, was too cute not to post :)

original by Grant Snider

Blue and Gold and Bibliophiliac Fairytales

Short intro: I am watching Hellboy 2 right now which is way way way better than I ever thought it ever would be. I mean, the none of the Hellboy movies were really that big of a hit when it came out and nobody really made a point of watching it in theaters, so I was totally not prepared for the awesomeness level. BUT I watched Hellboy on netflix last week and was blown away by the orgasmic conglomeration of mythic saturation (including magic-obsessed Nazis), steampunkism, and chilling Lovecraftian monsters. Lovecraftian monsters! If you ever wanted to make scary, evil monsters, giant divine tentacular beings in space are the way to go. Basically, I was in love. So, I decided to watch Hellboy 2 which actually turns out to be EVEN MORE AWESOME because they added elves and trolls and fairytale creatures into the mix. Those tooth fairies? Man, even creepier than the scarab beetles in The Mummy.

"Welcome gentlemen, to the Troll Market."

And it was totally like WHOA.

Nevermind MORE steampunk and amazingly beautiful cinematography.

Also Nuala, who is the reason why I've paused the movie in order to post this.

Now, at the beginning of the story, they'd already show one gloriously illustrated leatherbound fairytale book with gilt pages (which Professor Broom reads to a young Hell Boy as a bedtime story - please let me take a moment to extol the gorgeous fairytale story animation with wooden puppets that follow), but this image kind of killed me right there and then:

That is Nuala and Abe in Professor Broom'S glorious library. Where she recites Tennyson. from a gorgeous gold and blue copy of Tennyson's poems. in the most beautiful blue and gold dress I've ever seen and jealously covet.

Let's see that book up close now:

Now I really want a copy of Tennyson like that. It kind of reminds me of an old edition of "The Blue Flower" that I bought last month.

But here's the dress in its full glory:

Seriously, this movie is gold. Watch it. I love the Lovecraftian monsters and all the gears and fairytale things mixed in. It's like a dessert filled with all my favourite things.

Anna Dello Russo for H&M

I just needed to share this because I was silently flailing on the inside when I saw this collection that's coming out at H&M on Oct. 4. I am seriously in love with every single piece in this collection. O_o The full article can be found on here collegefashion.net

Vintage Geekification

I've been obsessively looking through Think Geek again, although this fact is completely irrelevant to my original thought.

But let me to try to retrace the thought process for you.

I was actually posting about these gorgeous Doctor Who art nouveau posters (à la Alphonse Mucha) sold on this site. Here is the appropriate accompanying picture:

But then I was totally reminded of my earlier Think Geek hauntings where I found the set of Firefly art nouveau posters for sale here.

But anyways, just wanted to let you know of all these beautiful pieces of art. I love combining vintage and geek into something fashionable, artsy and geeky at the same time.

Which reminds me, this was my costume for Day 2 for the Fan Expo in Vancouver earlier in April:

  

There can be the best of both worlds. I rock my geek vintage whenever I can. 

And that's all I have to say about that. 

Dear Diary,

For most of my high school years, I kept my diary writing as a series of scattered blog entries all over the internet. I've used the now extinct Windows Live Spaces (now transplanted to wordpress), Xanga, Livejournal, and various miscellaneous word documents on the computer. I also had a paper and ink journal also existing in fragments of scrap paper and various notebooks. When I was 16, I bought a red leather diary which took 5 years to finish. But for my 21st birthday, a very good friend of mine gave me a beautiful journal which I took as a motivation to finish my existing one and move on to the new one. Ever since then, I have diligently tried to write in my diary regularly. As a result, I now have a stack of diaries which carefully document my life for the last two or so years. This is a significant achievement for me, since I've always been the kind of person to start diaries and never finish them.

I suppose I just find an ink and paper diary so much more convenient and intimate than a blog.

In my diaries, I draw and sketch, record dreams, doodle in the margins, write down my music soundtrack, record daily occurrences. There are things I can do with a paper diary that I can't do in a blog. There are also things that I can't do in a paper diary that I can do in a blog. But mostly, I just relish in having a soundly legitimate excuse to go out and buy beautiful diaries because (depending on my writing and on the size of the diary) I go through diaries on an average of one per every 2-3 months. The larger ones can last me 3-4 months, the smaller ones perhaps 1-2. But nothing excites me more than when I finish writing on the last page of an old diary and having to go out in search of a new one. Tonight is such a night.

Tomorrow, I go out in search of the new "perfect" diary, which I have already (finally) pinpointed in my mind. Which leads me to Paperblanks. Paperblanks is a division of Hartley & Marks Publishers, a Vancouver-based publishing company which specializes in beautiful journals/blank books, address books and dayplanners. I have drooled over their gorgeous specimens for years and I finally bought a Paperblanks journal a couple months back (Silver Filigree).

Voilà! My baby <3 td="td">

 I only recently discovered they were in fact a Vancouver company during my time abroad in England, where I found the collection of Paperblank journals available were sadly lacking and also much more expensive than at home. Paperblanks is an orgasmic experience for the journal writers and bibliophiles. And without further ado, I present to you my future diary and Paperblanks' new design for the fall: the Nocturnelle

Oh yes, it shall be mine.

This lovely thing is Paperblanks' reproduction of an antique French binding based on a cover designed in 1829 by publishers A. & W. Galignani for “The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore.” I cannot wait to be able to write inside those pages.

This is tomorrow's quest.

I would maintain my diary-writing habit just to be able to purchase and use all my favourite Paperblanks journals.

Perhaps later I will extol on the advantages of blank versus lined pages, but honestly I just would not care whether Paperblanks were lined or blank in this case (actually I do prefer blank books, but I would make an exception for beautiful bindings).

Time for sleep and a new day.

Goodbye, farewell, aufwiedersehen!

The inexorable feeling of eternity

I've been home for a month and half now, and the feeling is surprisingly normal. Nonetheless, I do so very much miss it. Do they have a word for being homesick for a place that isn't actually home? I find myself fixating on tiny things like the milk cartons I get from the supermarket or the 33p Sainsbury white chocolate that is especially addictive. I miss the way people dress impeccably in the tube.

Anyways, I've been doing some photo manipulation lately and I thought I'd share some. Not the best photo quality but I thought I'd make some nice BWs to go on my wall eventually.

 I think I am in love in earnest.

 In other news, I acquired a very peculiar and wonderful dress for obscenely cheap yesterday while walking past a sale rack on my way to visit a friend in Kitsilano. It goes with my patent black Victorian strappy ankle boots perfectly. For your viewing pleasure (please excuse the mirror self-photography):

Cheers lovelies :)