Forcast: Balmy Autumn Weekend

Forcast of the Day: A Balmy Autumn Weekend. You wake up and it’s 7am, Saturday, last weekend of the season. Far too early for a weekend for sure. Its chillier than usual but you haven’t taken the thickest duvet out of your storage cabinet yet. Just another monotonous item to add to your things-to-catch-up-on list.

You consider staying under the covers to scroll through Instagram but then you decide that you need caffeine to power through the day: local markets, spin class, brunch, grocery run, late lunch …. You crave a Trenta, no foam, five-shot half-caf, no foam pumpkin spice latte with no foam at 210 degrees. Then you realise you don’t have a designer name nor a trust fund so you roll out of bed and get dressed.

You pull on the turtleneck you’ve been wearing everyday this past week – the one that can be unbuttoned at the neck to be a cowl neck and the one that looks good over a tulle skirt, under overalls and with a blazer. You slide into some jeans and moccasins, both varying shades of autumn and nod to yourself, Jobs had the right idea.

Then its 5pm and somehow your things-t0-catch-up-on list has grown longer and you’ve done nothing all day. You have to start getting ready for dinner, you need to be out the door five minutes ago. Its too late to change so you start trying on the heels stashed under your bed. You start with a patent block heel Mary Jane then you lace on some suede oxfords but nothing seems to work. At the last minute, you see your half patent, half suede court heels, buckle yourself in and troop out the door.

Recreate my look:

Violet Button Turtle Neck Knit / Sydney Double Breasted Coat / Kerise Skinny Jeans / Adelle Contrast Court Heels (all c/o Forcast)

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Mint Condition

Hello hello! 3 weeks without posting :0 This is the longest absence I have had in a year and I’ve missed the excitement of scheduling a post to go live. I could tell you work got in the way or mid-semester exams took over or Sydney was having terrible weather but in actuality, I was not feeling the buzz to shoot. Then, during the ANZAC long weekend, the clouds parted, the stars aligned, I was finally digging my Insta feed and my creativity fuel was back!

Kicking things off, we have this autumn-appropriate outfit, shot in the cute little streets of Surry Hills. The hero piece is a great thick and structured double-breased blazer perfect for work and dressed down with boyfriend jeans for the weekends. So here’s to a better month ahead filled with blog posts!

Recreate my look:

Blazer / Tee / Jeans / Shoes / Sunnies 

Marble Timepieces and Double Pinstripes

In the last one to two years, there has been a sudden influx of watch companies popping up over the internet. Over the weekend, I read this article in the Herald about how ironically timed these start ups were – coming in at around the same period as the launch of the Apple Watch. Apparently, the market isn’t as saturated as I originally thought because watch brands that haven’t even hit the one year mark are managing to make turnovers of almost a million.

Today I’d like to introduce to you a new player – Valor Watches, founded by T. Bermejo and launched only a handful of days ago. To give you some context around the title of the post, the Cross of Valour is awarded “only for acts of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme peril”. When I look at this watch, it reminds me of one of my personal mantras – I am made of courage, compassion and commitment. When jewellery can transcend its original purpose to become something invaluable for the wearer, you know its a special piece.

The marble face paired with the classic black leather band perfectly embodies what I like to refer to as ‘modern prep’. Carrying the theme into the rest of my outfit, I went with the ultimate preppy pattern after feeling incredibly inspired by the Australian Olympic team’s uniform unveil by Sportscraft earlier this week. To give it that modern twist, I layered two pinstripe pieces but kept the base crisp with white jeans. Front ties have been popular of late and knotting a complementary second piece will give you a similar silhouette.

The white denim, flowers and linen must make you think that I live in the northern hemisphere! Nope! Sydney has just brought a lot of warm weather this month but I’m hoping that the end of daylight saving will bring some colder weather along with it.

Recreate my look:

Shirt / Blazer / Jeans / Watch (c/o)

Dressing for Uni Post Mid-Sem Break

How great has this four day weekend been? A double weekend was exactly what I needed to slow things down a bit and gorge on chocolate and tea (2 new loves from Twinings – apple & ginger and spearmint & peppermint). I’ve been moseying around, trying to get up to speed with everything as well as pre-doing things because I know in a couple of weeks, it’s going to get full on. That means pre-readings, pre-shooting, pre-instagramming, pre-writing and pre-emailing. It’s a bit annoying, losing the real time authenticity of blogging and the excitement that goes into hitting ‘publish’ but if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail – as they say.

Today, ASOS asked me to share what I would wear to university nowadays compared to what I wore on my first day of uni as a fresher. You can see that cheesy enthusiastic throwback picture here. Which, brings me back to mid-semester break. I always find myself burnt out right around this time. The newness of the school year has worn off, the social calendar falls apart as everyone gets too busy and the days get shorter and colder.

Maybe all you need is a good outfit to roll out of bed into next Monday – ready to face group assignments, mid-sem exams and all day library hang outs. I’ve been wanting to try a pair of over the knee boots forever now and I finally get why people have them in multiple heel heights and colours. They are super flattering even if you have more muscular legs but I will point out that real/faux suede is difficult to maintain (I have grass all over mine already from this shoot) so I’m glad I didn’t drop 1K on a pair of SW’s.

Recreate my Look:

Sweater (c/o) / Jeans (c/o) / Boots (c/o) / Similar Bag / Pens / Sticky Notes

 

Biker Jeggings

These Rockmans’ jeggings with their stitching and panelling are appropriately called ‘biker jeggings’. My first instinct was to run far far away because the word jegging takes me back to my first pair which were from Valley Girl and made of a thin material that was excellent for tucking in to tall Ugg boots but not so much for hiding my neon coloured panties. My second instinct was to pair them with studded biker boots and a leather biker jacket. But that’s not what Style Smorgasbord is about. Instead I pared it back with some neutral boots and a flouncy shirt.

Recreate my Look:

Top / Jeans (c/o) / Boots / Watch (c/o) / Necklace (c/o) / Bag

Plaid & Denim for Summer?

Groundbreaking is what I hope Meryl Streep’s character would say if she looked up at me through her glasses and did a head to toe flick with the eyes. In reality, she’d probably get her assistant to throw me out.

Victoria is known for its crazy four seasons one day kind of weather so I wanted to be as prepared as possible in Mornington Peninsula even if it meant sweating a bit and looking out of place on the beach. Everything about this outfit is a travel essential regardless of the climate you’re jetting off to. Converse are a given, boyfriend jeans are comfortable eating pants and flannels make great swimsuit coverups. Plus, a boater hat and aviators are just good sense.

I spotted this long line of brightly painted beach boxes as soon as we docked and couldn’t wait to get a proper look at them and call dibs for the future. For a cool, 150k you can buy one to store all the flamingo blow ups, boogie boards and neoprene wetsuits you need for a day by the sea. Its a sound investment because the government has stopped allowing people to build new ones only to purchase and repaint old ones. I think mine would be turquoise, with a white roof and a pink door.

What colours would your beach box be?

Recreate my Look:

Flannel / Jeans / Converse / Hat / Backpack / Sunnies / Watch (c/o)

Monsters Just Trees

I forget how picturesque Hyde Park is sans tourists. Must be why there is always at least one bride and groom getting their pose on. There’s so much green right now but I’ll definitely go back in the spring to see everything in bloom. I wore these jeans for some Sunday Funday shenanigans with the family squad. (HAHAHA you know you’re a social butterfly when you refer to your family as your squad). They are so comfy and I finally see the deal with boyfriend jeans. I hear girlfriend jeans are also a thing now? I’ll probably get on to them in another five years time.

Outfit Photography: Matthew

Band-aids don’t fix bullet holes

Or in my case, slashed knee jeans. No bad blood here just a really great ribbed sweater from Trendsgal and a serious side part to hide that 3rd day hair. I used to hate these types of coats because the ones in my wardrobe were all varying shades of pink and I really didn’t need to look like a giant marshmallow when my cheeks were already so red from the cold. Now, I found myself reaching for this jacket more times than I care to admit.

Turtleneck (c/o): Trendsgal (8% off with coupon trendsgalitry8)/ Jeans: Dotti / Bomber: Miss Shop (similar here) / Necklace: Lovisa (similar here)