Celery green coat

A sneak peak at my beautiful new coat I treated myself to this afternoon from Mod Human Vintage on Etsy. I've wanted a midcentury coat for so long but as it's quite tricky to find them in smaller sizes I thought I'd pounce now and stow it away for next winter. It's incredible what quality you really can afford when you buy vintage: when an acrylic coat with a viscose lining will set you back about £85 in Topshop, £38 really isn't too bad for real wool and satin. And if it's looking this good at approximately fifty-five years old, it's clearly built to last! Let's just hope celery green is my colour.

Have you acquired any beautiful vintage recently?

Cut stone and blossom

Topshop top // Thrifted vintage skirt // Cut stone necklace // Topshop sandals

Deeply enjoying the blossom.

Does anyone else have strange feet with the second toe longer than the big one?

I am officially over half way through my dissertation! Hurrah! Part of my procrastination has involved creating a tumblr for this blog, it'll be a little pictoral scrapbook where I can collate all the images I enjoy on the internet. If you're interested you can take a look here.

The top I'm wearing has been one of the best purchases I've made it a while, I never seem to invest in plain jersey and so never seem to have anything to wear. I've realised that plain jersey is the missing link in outfit building. I thrifted the skirt last year from the Dead Shop for £2 and this is the first time I've worn it, it's pure nineties goodness. Ooh and I cunningly bought the sandals in the Topshop winter sale for a mere £5 and hid them away in a draw, I think I'll be getting a lot of wear out of them this summer.

Also my boyfriend's delightful sister has recently joined the blogosphere! If you're interested in reading about her charity shop finds and general adventures in life the follow Little Miss Maisy. She's a truly adorable human being.

The IOU Project

One of my new year's resolution was to try and shop more ethically, ditch the high street and start taking a greater interest in where, and by whom, my threads are made. The IOU Project is on a mission to break our consumerist reliance upon mass-produced and unethically sourced cheap clothing, in a word disposable fashion. And, if the aesthetics of their promotional video are anything to go by - I just love the sixties' letter fonts and luscious earthy shades - the clothes could be very exciting indeed.

You can sign up for more information here and please note that this is not a sponsored post.

New hat, new chair, new degree

I found this hat for £5 in Ryan Vintage on Oldham Street and I absolutely love it, mustard yellow is one of my favourite clothing colours and the hat is the perfect size for my head which means it doesn't squash my fringe down beyond my eyes. It was clearly fate.

This chair was another purchase from the same day. I'd spotted in before in the furniture section of Pop Boutique, also on Oldham Street, but wanted to get Jian Wei's opinion on it before I splashed out. I say 'splashed out' but it was only £25 which I think is a bit of a bargain for such an eye-catching piece. I know that in London it would've cost at least double that price, it's the perfect blend of midcentury design with a Hawaiian kitsch feel. I can't wait to position it next to a giant dragon plant in our new house in West London.

On Thursday I received a conditional offer to study an MA in English: 1850 to present at King's College London. I am absolutely overjoyed as in my heart it was my first choice, I've also applied to UCL but realistically I feel I won't be getting an offer and so King's became the university I spent the most time stalking on google maps. It's slap bang in the centre of London and, from what I have ascertained, you have to cross the Millenium bridge to get from one side of the campus to another. From the classroom windows there are views of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament, it's also where John Keats studied. Jian Wei also studies in London, at Central Saint Martins, and so it'll be so wonderful to be able to meet up for lunch or go and read together in the Jazz cafe in Foyles. After three years two hundred miles apart it just seems impossible that, not only will be be studying in the same city, we'll also be moving into a house together. A house with a garden and a greenhouse! We have big plans to buy a handmade hammock from Guatemala, have barbecues at dusk enhanced by lantern light and cultivate a crop of exotic fruits in the greenhouse. I'm so excited about my life!

The park gates will close at dusk

H&M Breton top // Topshop midi skirt // Topshop sandals // Primark belt

On Saturday we had the most glorious sunshine here in Manchester and the parks were full of people having barbeques and enjoying the warmth. Luckily for my flatmates and I we live directly opposite one which is very handy for nipping back to use the loo and for getting drinks, nibbles and for changing into increasingly minimal clothing. My flatmate Lizzie, with her English rose complexion, managed to get sunburnt Brits abroad style catch an impressive amount of sun for an April afternoon in England's greyest and wettest county.

Jian Wei and I nipped to LIDL and ate a continental style picnic just outside our front door complete with Magner's pear cider (!) (it took me a long time to finish mine, I was still sipping away whilst watching iplayer in bed) and I attempted to make an improvised rasberry cheesecake. Lidl's unorthodox interpretation of cream cheese however failed me when it turned out to be closer to a form of sour yoghurt and scuppered all my plans to making a dessert that would set.

The top I'm wearing is seriously worn in and I've been wearing it almost every day since I bought it two years ago with Clare. I obtained the skirt for my last set of Topshop uniform, it's actually gone down into the sale since but it's the most beautiful cut and fabric so if you do come across it, I heartily recommend buying it. I also bought the sandals from the winter sale at Topshop, they were reduced to £7 so with my staff discount about a fiver - a rather thrifty purchase seeing as they're real leather and oh-so-cute with the bow tie. I also bought two other pairs of sandals which I'm slowing bringing out, blinking and pale, from where they've been stored for the last four months in my bottom drawer. The faux leather belt was £2.50 in Primark and I've been wearing it to death ever since I brought it home. It's made me realise how crucial such overlooked accessories really are to a successful outfit.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say a warm 'hallo' to anyone who has started following this blog recently, I value every single one and every comment I get serves as a gloriously welcome distraction from my dissertation writing!

All photographs by Jian Wei Lim.

Day trip to York

I'm wearing a vintage 1960s/1970s dolly dress from Retro Rehab in Manchester, grey ribbed tights from Primark and black patent child's shoes from Topshop.

On Saturday Jian Wei and I went on a day trip to York. After Manchester its easily my favourite city in the North of England: it's steeped in history, the architecture is beautiful and it's full of lovely walks and unusual shops and friendly tearooms. The fact that the sun was shining and it was a glorious day made it all the more enjoyable and Jian Wei and I stumbled across our dream place to live...

Isn't it just the most idyllic street? Located within the Medieval city walls and basked in sunshine, with the following image as the view immediately opposite, this row of Victorian houses completely stole my heart.

We spent the morning pottering about the Medieval walls feeling quite vertiginous at times, ate lunch outside an Italian restaurant that used to be an old girl's school, did a little charity and antique shopping and I bought a 1930s pistachio green jug for my future home. Jian Wei invested in his first 'mantique', a 1920s flask which at £9 was our find of the day, until the oddball shop keeper began an enthusiatic rendition of his xenophobic views and we made a hasty exit. Can anybody else believe that you don't see the quintessential English gentleman walking around in London anymore with his cane and bowler hat? Our shopkeeper seemed to blame Japanese tourists in York solely for this demographic and social shift. I don't really understand why he was hoping to find shared beliefs from a mixed race couple, one of whom at least had the potential of actually being Japanese.

And a few more obligatory tourist snaps...

In other news, the lovely Hannah of Foxtail and Fern featured me on her blog today!

All photography by Jian Wei and myself.

Vignettes

This is undoubtedly a 'filler' post but, while I write my dissertation, I'll be plumbing the depths of my photographic archive for blogworthy material. Although Jian Wei is coming to stay this weekend and I've bought train tickets to York so will hopefully have some nice pictures from our day trip to put up on Monday. I also bought a new sixties dolly dress to wear, as a little treat to myself for handing in my final essay of my degree! (Bar the dissertation of course...) What are your plans your next day trip?

All my own photography.

Mulberry Spring Summer 2011

MULBERRY from park village on Vimeo.

How lovely to be showered in petals whilst wearing the the most perfect trench coat in the entire world.

BNWT £125 Topshop Boutique dress for sale!

Just a little heads up to let you know I'm selling this dress on eBay now with a starting price of 99p. It's a UK size 12 in immaculate condition with full tags attached. Auction ends this time next week. Click here for the listing.

I have plans to auction off a lot more of my old clothes soon, I just have to get my deadlines out of the way and then I can get on with organising my life.