Five ASOS Prom Dresses I Want But Definitely Don't Need

No matter how I twist and turn it I really don't need more dresses in my wardrobe. And I really, really don't need a prom dress in my wardrobe. Nope, not at all. Sure, these days I sort of go to a few more slightly fancy work-related dinners, but none are quite giant-bow, pouffy-skirt level fancy. 

Which is a pity, because just look at how pretty these frocks are...

1. ASOS Salon Holographic Shimmer Midi Prom Dress   

2. ASOS Salon Rose Print Bandeau Midi Prom Dress   

3. ASOS Salon Lace + Embroidered Panel Maxi Dress   

4. ASOS Mono Floral Jacquard Belted Midi Prom Dress   

5. ASOS Beautiful Floral Super Full Prom Dress 

Okay, so I did buy one. Oops. It was on sale, I couldn't resist... Can you guess which one I bought and why?

ps. Not sponsored, I just really love ASOS! Such cute frocks at nice prices. And for those of you who like to shop ethical ASOS here's some information on their green and ethical standards, it's from 2012 though - if you have more up-to-date info let me know.

The Search For The Perfect Spring Frock

Whilst I love a good dress all year round, I become especially obsessed with frocks when there's a sweet scent in the air and the chill of night dissipates. Come Spring I dream not of t-shirt dresses or shifts or shirt dresses, but of proper full skirted, fit and flare frocks. Preferably with pretty patterns and cute detailing.

Here's a few I'm liking right now:

1. Sunflower Bardot Midi Prom Dress | ASOS   2. Selina Dress | Boden

3. Secret Squirrel Dress | Maiocchi   4. On the Terrace Dress | ModCloth

5. Joanie Dress | Made590

It's so hard to pick a favourite! I am completely and utterly smitten with the ASOS midi dress, but being on the short side I couldn't pull it off. Sob. Boden is a new discovery for me and I'm liking all of their dresses. This colourful confetti print in particular caught my eye. The print on the Maiocchi dress is just wonderful; plus I bought a dress from them last year and it is the most flattering cut of any dress I've ever owned, so this one is very high on my 'must try' list. The ModCloth frock is simple and elegant and classic. Lovely. And I have a longstanding love affair with all things Made590. I actually have the Joanie dress in a different (super limited edition) fabric and I love it. I'm finding the gorgeous green and pink hues of this version hard to resist. 

Which would you pick? 

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ps. I have a confession to make, because I know exactly what's going to happen next. I know that I will go out and buy several gorgeous Spring frocks. I will be unable to resist their ladylike prettiness. And then I will spend the entire season wearing one of my fourteen denim shirt dresses from Muji. 

ps. Also - side note to all dress designers - can you please, please stop cutting bits out of perfectly gorgeous frocks (like this one)? Not all of us want to share our back / mid riff / love handles with the world...

Things To Love About Korea #6: Socks

I was talking to another expat a while ago, and she told me that before she lived here herself she had a friend in Korea who'd constantly send her boxes of socks. She always thought it was a little odd...but then she moved here and it all made sense. 

Socks in Korea are plentiful, cheap, quirky and fun. You can't walk a block in Seoul without tripping over a sock stall, selling all kinds of awesome for two dollars or so a pair. There's polkadots, stripes, florals, bows and checks; funny faces, cartoon characters and yes, even Psy. 

As you can imagine, I've built up quite a collection...

Things to love about Korea #5 : Knits

Oh the knits, the knits! Dear lord the knits! (I know parents of school age kids are probably reading that as 'oh the nits' and imaging a voice of horror / exasperation but I really do mean the knits with a k, and the voice should be one of swooning excitement.) 

As the weather cools in Seoul the knits come out to play. Pastel knits, kitschy knits, chunky knits and marled knits. All the textures, patterns and colours you could possibly imagine, need or want. All made in Korea (which means they are of pretty decent quality), and all very reasonably priced (think AU $10 to $50). 

At this time of year it's basically impossible for me to leave the house without coming home with something new and knitted (you can see a small sample of my ever expanding collection in the last photo). Korean knits - I do love you!

Three (by three) pairs of shoes I'm loving right now...

[Image of total loveliness by Lola's Room]

So yes.  I am a female.  And I love shoes.  Oh it's all just so terribly typical and cliched and predictable, isn't it?  But, there it is.  Sigh.  I love shoes to the point that I acquired three new pairs this week (it doesn't happen every week, I promise).  I love shoes to the point that I have some in my collection that I can't even wear, they are just so darn pretty it makes me smile to look at them.  I loves shoes to the point that when the step-sons are drawing humorous caricatures of their nearest and dearest they always draw me standing next to my giant cupboard of shoes, or doing some other shoe related thing.

Here are some that are currently in my shoe-dreams:

The lovely Pip from Meet Me At Mikes has written before about her penchant for a pair of Swedish Hasbeens, but it wasn't until this morning, when I saw a photo of her in mid-craft sporting a pair of these 'Jodhpurs', that I decided I needed to add them to my shoe wish list.

Woah!  Check these out!  Is there anything more beautiful than a perfectly formed boot?  To me these are perfectly formed - just the right amount of buckles and straps, curves in the right places, toes that aren't too pointy or too round.  One of each please, Mr Lauren!  Yes, these are from Ralph Lauren!  Not normally the first name I think of when I dream of shoes but their current boot collection is very swoony I think.

And lastly, some sparkly shiny color-bursting fun from Miu Miu!  I swear if I owned that sparkly yellow pair I'd wear them every single day, they are so very happy! (And so very expensive.  Hence that is why they are in my shoe dreams, and not in my shoe cupboard.)

Three dresses I love right now...

[Image by dhammza / off]

When I was a kid I was a bit of a tom boy.  And by 'a bit' I mean 'a lot'.  To the point where I can clearly remember being mistaken for an actual boy at several points growing up.  Dresses, make up and hair styles were a foreign language to me.  And to some extent they still largely are.

I definitely still don't get hair (can pulling it in to a ponytail every single day count as a 'style'?), and my excursions into the land of makeup tend to be limited to a subtle blush and a not-so-subtle layer or three of mascara.  But I do most definitely get dresses now.  Some might even say I'm frock obsessed.  I love how a good dress can make you feel feminine and fashionable and flirty, even on days where you start out feeling blergh.  I love how a dress is basically a complete outfit, no thinking about what goes with what.  And I love how a dress can work with you at any age, at any weight.

Here are three beauties that are tempting me at the moment:

There's a reason that Lana Stepul is featured on the Etsy front page every second day, and that's because her stuff is gorgeous!  This is her open back dress and I heart it a lot.  The fabric, the colours, the nod to the 50s.  Sigh.

This maxi dress from M Missoni has me weeping softly, just a little bit.  I am very, very far from a fashionista but there are a couple of labels that I consistently covet and that I try to 'invest' in.  I have a dream that by the time I'm 60 my wardrobe will be wall to wall M Missoni, DVF and Kate Spade (I am going to be the best dressed step-grandma ever!).  It would be nice to add this to the collection. Sigh.

After an initial wariness, I've become quite a fan of ModCloth. I like that I can find dresses on there that hit my knees (I've realised I can't quite pull of the mini-dress any more), and that also fit perfectly around my enormous ribs (yes, I said ribs.  I have a very big rib cage, comes from my father's side of the family. *cough*).  Plus they deliver within a week and aren't prohibitively expensive.  This gorgeously bright little number is one of the samples from a co-lab they might do with a designer called Eva Franco. I do hope they go ahead with it.  Sigh.

Long live the frock!

Good Things...

This morning I woke up to sunshine and snow!  A light dusting of fresh stuff on the balcony, a few stray flakes falling and the gentle warmth of the winter sun.  A perfectly gorgeous start to the weekend, just when the Korean winter was starting to drag a bit...

...and speaking of the long, cold winter (it very rarely gets above zero degrees Celsius at the moment), having survived my first month I promise to never ever speak disdainfully of earmuffs again.  They might look a bit silly, but gosh they are actually damn sensible.  Life (ear?) savers. These beauties are from Muji.  I love Muji.  I have been slowly growing my earmuff collection, as I keep leaving the house without them and then am forced to pick up a pair when my head starts to go all tingly with the cold. (ps. if any of you know how I can get my hands on the Muji x LEGO goodies I would be eternally grateful...)

I know it wasn't on my list of creative goals for 2011 but I have got to try sashiko this year. Sashiko (which, according to Wikipedia, literally means 'little stabs'!) is a kind of Japanese embroidery, and to me it is everything wonderful and good.  I can't wait to give it a go.  I think this introductory how-to from The Purl Bee will be a good starting point.  (Photo is from good-ness, whose photostream I have just fallen in love with.)

Korea has some great lifestyle / home decor magazines that I regularly buy and drool over.  This kids rooms is from the January issue of Lemon Tree - isn't it great?  I especially love that tree-shelf. My dream craft room would look a bit like this, I think.  But with way more storage.  Way more.

As you might expect, my sister has a knack for getting me ace presents.  This amazing paper-craft book was part of my xmas package.  Every page is bursting with seriously good stuff.  Thanks sis!

Good Things...

First up - my mum is coming to town (that's her in the photo up there)!  I am so very excited, I can't possibly express how much!  Not only do I get to spend some quality time with my Mum, who is pretty damn cool, but I also get to show her around my new 'hood - take her to our favourite pretty spots and my favourite shops and our regular restaurants!  Oh my gosh it's going to be SO MUCH FUN!  She arrives Thursday: HOORAY!  (I may burst with excitement before then though.)

The photo of my Mum was taken in a seriously crazy flea shop just off Cat Street (aka Lascar Row), on Hong Kong Island.  And speaking of Hong Kong...

...the husband and I just spent a weekend there, the first time we've visited since we moved.  It was great fun to be traveling in a city we knew so well.  We got to see some old friends and go to some of our most favourite restaurants in the world (and perhaps I may have done a teeny tiny bit of shopping).  We stayed in a pretty cool hotel called East.  It's new and sleek with great service and great value - it's a little way away from the normal tourists haunts but it was really rather lovely.  I took a heap of photos so I might do a blog post on it one day.  

The weekend reminded me that Hong Kong is seriously one of my absolute favourite cities in all the world. Aside from the harbour, which is quite spectacular, there is the wonderful mix of old and new and that Blade Runner feel it gets on a misty evening and the constant unexpected finds (like the natural beauty of the South side of the island; or the crafty shops in the 'burbs).  All the cliches are true - it's bustling, vibrant, constantly 'on'.  And it's so very (and proudly) Cantonese, and yet still a true world city (in fact, after 6 months in Korea, Hong Kong feels like a veritable cultural melting pot!).

This is a very small selection of Uniqlo's Heattech range which I am currently obsessed with.  I've been gearing up for winter and it's been the perfect solution.  I can't seem to go within 10 meters of a Uniqlo store without buying something from the Heatech collection.  So far I've got full sets of thermals for the whole family, leggings, neck warmers, gloves and (yes!) leg warmers.  I am actually really looking forward to the super cold weather now.  Seriously.

We did a quick trip to Seoraksan National Park with the boys when they were here and oh my gosh is it beautiful (even in the rain)!  I'm going to take my Mum there for a night too, so more photos and information to come.  In the meantime, have a look at some of these images of Seoraksan on Flickr - so gorgeous, right?

And last, but definitely not least, I've fallen in love with the gorgeously soft and sweet photos over at life through the lens.  Beautiful, yes?

Retro-styled

Well, I'm back from what has been possibly the most relaxing getaway we've ever done.  There will be much more about that once I've gotten through the what-time/day/planet-is-it? soupiness and sorted through all 331 (yep! 331!) photos.

In the meantime I'm playing along with Meredith (aka @thinkthinkers) over at Oh, the Thinks You Can Think and reveling in some tasty 70s fashion.  I've dug deep in to the family archives to share some of the 'style' of my early childhood.

Go have a look at Meredith's photos you'll see it seems that the 70s were quite cold and that ear-covering, under-chin-tying, knitted beanies were the height of kiddie fashion.

This is me aged about 2 with one of my aunties, Chris.  Feast your eyes on the purple flares, the leather beanbag and (look closely now!) the green espadrilles - seriously hip!  And that dress I'm wearing?  I reckon if they had it in adult sizes I'd probably still wear it now...

This is my step-dad, Erwin, who I can thank for introducing us to skiing.  I want that hat.




























[I'm hoping mum will correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the top photo is of my Granny, on my dad's side. And it's all about those lapels.  Oh yeah.]

Do you want to play too?  Post some pics of your 70s fashion adventures and leave a link over at Meredith's blog. Please do!

Thailand!

Today is scratchy eyes and very tired and can't-the-world-just-leave-me-alone-ness BUT yesterday was nothing much to do except eat and read in Phuket, Thailand.

Some good things:

- A dinner and a lunch at Baan Rim Pa, quite possibly my favourite restaurant in the world. Beautiful location (overlooking the beach just outside of Patong), super tasty Thai food, lovely service...and they make a mean lychee martini.  If you're ever in Phuket, you must go there.

- Unless you are in need of a pirated DVD or a carved wooden elephant, Patong is a bit of a shopping wasteland so it was a pleasant surprise indeed to find the beautiful boutique that is Baru.  Full of bright summer frocks, beautiful silk clutch purses and spectacular swim wear - all fabulously embellished with beading and embroidery - Baru also stood out because of it's locally and ethically made ethos.  Their stuff is available on-line, but it's a pity the product shots really don't do justice to the careful craft and design in each piece.

- Spectacular storms and sunsets.  Having a few days to just sit and watch an ever changing sky, what luxury!

The quick little trip also reminded me that despite the downsides of living in Asia (being away from friends and family and a complete lack of good cheddar are two that spring to mind), we really are very lucky to have this opportunity.  Everywhere is just so ridiculously close!  And if this seems a strange statement, you are clearly not an Australian.  Australia really is miles and miles and miles from anywhere.  Which kinda sucks, if you like to travel.

Vietnam is next on my list (just have to convince the husband it's worth visiting...)

Update! You can see more photos here