Surviving Summer

You know when you’re taking blog photos and you’re thinking to yourself oh I sure hope the poisonous snakes aren’t feeling particularly feisty today… Or is that just a me problem? I’m probably the only one mad (or foolish) enough to decide to defiantly take photos in the area where there have been a lot of snake sightings recently. But I was feeling really determined, and really lazy because these palm trees are just down the road from me and sometimes it’s good to not have to go far for blog photos. Every time I go past this spot I think how I could totally pretend that it’s somewhere exotic like Cuba, Africa or India, and then I realise that apparently where I live is already what most people would consider exotic. While we don’t have malaria, we do have dengue fever which in some ways is a lot worse, and after the time I spent editing out the mosquito bites on my legs I’m amazed I’m not its next victim.

Those of you who know that I sleep in a four poster bed that doesn’t have a canopy might be wondering why that is, like do I actually like being bitten all night long? But the real reason is that I’m pretty certain that having a canopy on my bed would actually be asking a big fat python to slither in through the window and use it as a hammock until it eventually collapses onto me in the middle of the night. Well if not a python, definitely one of my cats. And if you’re reading this and have a phobia of snakes, I’m very sorry. I spend a lot of time obsessing over all the bad snake related incidents that are likely to happen where I live…

It did occur to me that I could write a survival guide about how to handle summer in Queensland while wearing vintage fashion…but then I realised I was too late. Because apparently today is the first day of autumn, or so they would like to have me believe. I survived summer by spending the majority of it holed up in an airconditioned room, working my way through a pile of books and when I did go outside it was wearing something similar to this outfit. I came across this set at the Boxing Day sales and I thought oh, I really don’t need another 40s shorts and top set…but then I realised that considering how much wear I get out of them it would be silly not to.

This set is actually by an Australian company called Dangerfield, and every time I’ve worn it people have asked if it was vintage. I normally don’t buy a huge amount of Dangerfield as they mostly do 50s and 60s looks, but every now and then there’s a few odd 40s appropriate pieces here and there. The pineapple purse is also one of theirs and I bought it a few years ago and then decided it wasn’t my style at all. So it sat in my pile of things to get rid of for a long time and then I remembered that I had it the other day and decided to try it and see if it would work with a 40s look. Personally I think it looks too modern so it ends up being an anachronism and annoys me just that little bit when I look at these photos.

When I was reading some of my 40s magazines, I kept coming across photos of girls at the beach wearing hats identical to this one. As it turns out, you can still buy these at most discount stores here, so I picked one up for myself together with some el cheapo hair flowers. I know you’re probably wondering how many straw hats does this girl need…and I’m actually not at all proud of how many I own or the fact that I feel the need to wear them with every damn outfit…

Wearing:

Dangerfield top & shorts

Dangerfield bag

Miss L Fire heels

Discount Variety Store hat & hair flowers