JEN’S TOP 10 FAVOURITE BANDS OF ALL TIME

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Alt Fashion, alternative, Alternative Fashion, bands, Blue, bow, Classic, colourful, design, Fashion, Fashion Design, frills, j fashion, lace, list, Mint, Music, otome kei, top 10, Vintage

So yesterday I briefly mentioned that I have a top ten favourite bands of all time list tucked away in my head. I thought I would share it because what’s the point of being a music fan if you don’t spread the love of your favourite artists!

SO IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, JEN’S TOP 10 FAVOURITE BANDS!!!

10: The Crooked Fiddle band: http://www.crookedfiddleband.com/ These guys were first introduced to me through my current band. Both Tim (bass) and Jake (guitar) were (and still are) huge fans at the time that they linked me to the wonderous sound of Crooked Fiddle. What really cemented them as a favourite band was the first time I saw them live. (Incidentally it was also Vanishing Shapes first ever proper gig) They are absolutely nuts in the best way possible.

9: System of a Down: http://www.systemofadown.com/ I stumbled upon this band in year 9 after growing bored with Linkin Park and various other not so fab metalish hardcoreish bands. If I had to choose a favourite album it would definitely be Toxicity

8: Panic! at the Disco: http://www.panicatthedisco.com/ I was 13 when I first heard this band. Their first album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out was a life changing album for me. I’m not one to listen to music over and over again, but, this album was on repeat for all of my major heart breaks in high school. This band was also a catalyst for my next band…

This is Sundays outfit yo!

7: The Hush Sound: http://www.thehushsound.org/ Do you guys remember last FM? In high school it was the way I found new music. Anyway, the way it worked was that you typed in a band that you liked, and it would play you a bunch of music similar to said band. Of course the first band I typed in was Panic! at the Disco. Once my super slow internet started the streaming process, I heard this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFjw4IAkQEQ fabulously orchestrated snazzy tune. I then proceeded to download the rest of their discography. What can I say? I was hooked!

6: Oren Lavie: http://www.orenlavie.com/ I’m pretty sure this man is the only solo musician on my list. No words can do the beauty and mastery of his only album justice. Every song is perfect, with amazing orchestration, and silky smooth vocals.

5: The Cellar Door: http://findthecellardoor.org/ One of my favourite Youtubers Abb3rz07 https://www.youtube.com/user/abb3rz07 introduced me to this band. From the very first listen I was deeply in love with this band. They are very folky, but not in an antiquated way. They also have a cello in their band. It’s a well known fact that cellos make everything better!

4: The Decemberists: http://www.decemberists.com/ This is yet another brilliant folky band! They have such a vast and varied repertoire, one can listen to them for hours and not get bored (which is no easy task for me!) If you’re going to start with one of their albums, I suggest their concept album the hazards of love.

3: Dead Letter Circus: http://deadlettercircus.com/ This alternative rock band captured my heart with their infectious beats, and beautiful melodies. Like SOAD, I found this band after becoming bored with Linkin Park. I’m so glad I did, because their music is brilliant!

2: Fair to Midland: http://fairtomidlandfans.com/ I have a large Fair to Midland shaped hole in my heart, which I doubt I’ll ever repair. This band has produced the most perfect music I’ve ever heard, and the fact that I’ll never get to hear them live again devastates me. Their official genera is prog rock, but they also sport a very heavy folk influence.

1: The Gorillaz: http://gorillaz.com/ I’ve yet to meet a person who doesn’t like the Gorillaz. I have quite a long history with this band. I first heard them when I was about 5 on Rage. After seeing the video 19-2000 I fell in love with the music and art style. Being so young, I didn’t have the resources to track down the rest of their music.  My next encounter was not until I was 12. There was this website, take 40.com, which was really big with the year 6 class. Feel good inc. was in the top 40 at the time. I used to listen to this song on repeat, until it eventually drifted out of the top 40. When this happened I purchased my first ever CD, demon days. Since then I have been a hardcore Gorillaz Fan (except for plastic beach. Lets forget that ever happened)

Rain Rain Go Away.

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Alannah Hill, Alt Fashion, alternative, alternativefashion, Classic, cute, Dress, Fashion, perfume, polka dots, Red

Yesterday was quite a busy day. It started with a rehearsal for the school band I take Monday’s, then finished with a heavy rainstorm, which I got drenched in. In between these events, I started the new pokemon game, Alpha Sapphire, and played in Jake’s end of Bachelor exam (Jake is the awesome guitarist in my Band Vanishing Shapes!)

The storm was quite quick, lasting a grand total of 20 mins. After the storm had finished, the sun came out, allowing me to take outfit photo’s in front of this awesome backdrop!

Dress: Alannah Hill, Belt: Alannah Hill, Tights: Coles, Shoes: I ❤ Billy

Some perfume I ordered ages ago finally arrived in the mail yesterday as well!

I ordered both perfumes from a small company called Firebird Bath and Body: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FirebirdBathBody. The two scents I ordered were black cocoa (which smells like a rich dark chocolate, with a slightly smoky tang) and macaroon (Which smells like coconut vanilla icecream)

Ordering from this company was a breeze, and everything was packaged really well, and there was great communication from the seller.

Basically from now on I’m going to smell like a dessert!

Wearable Art

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Alt Fashion, alterations, alternative, Alternative Fashion, baroque, blazer, bow, Classic, converso, cute, design, painting

I have been doing so. much. sewing.

Remember that alterations pile I talked about a few days ago? Well, I altered another piece of clothing from it!

The dress I wore today was originally a floor length maxi dress. I’m not a fan of wearing maxi dresses (They look great on others, but a bit odd on me) , so I chopped it up and re configured the fabric arrangement.

Basically I made two cuts: One at the waist, then one halfway down the fabric that I removed from the waist section. After that I sewed two darts into the top of  the dress to make it fit better. I then attached the two skirt panels together, gathered the skirt and sewed in onto the bottom of the bodice. To finish off I gathered some block polkadot tulle around the base of the skirt, because I don’t feel quite right without a swishy skirt.

Blazer: Black Friday, Dress: Mimosa- altered by me! Tights: Coles, Shoes: Converse

Now for the title explanation. You can’t see it too well from the photos, but the print on my dress is some type of old painting (Hence why I called the post wearable art) I’m not trying to be pretensious, I promise!

Fairy Dress

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alternative, Alternative Fashion, alternativefashion, altfashion, blazer, Blue, bow, Classic, colourful, cute, design, Dr Martins, Dress, fairy, Fashion, Fashion Design, floral, flower, Flowers, Green, lace, Red, sewing, spring, Velvet, Vintage

I sewed a dress yesterday. Today I wore the dress that I sewed.

This is the first dress I’ve made out of a non stretch fabric. I also drafted the pattern myself. I’m quite surprised it turned out this well. The last time I attempted to sew a dress from cotton, it didn’t end to well (which is part of the reason I hardly sew dresses)

Hair bow: Alannah Hill, Choker: Home made, Velvet blazer: Thrifted, Dress: Home made, Tights: Myer, Shoes: Dr Marten.

I suppose you’d call this type of dress a ‘skater dress’. It has a fitted top, and the skirt is a 3/4 circle skirt. I’ve made the dress out of two layers of material. The inner layer is a floral printed cotton, and the outer layer is a sort of netting.

The frilly bits around the base of the dress were hand gathered, and then hand stitched around the base of the outer net layer of the dress. (never. again.(Although, in saying that, the gathered net frill is what turned this dress from an nice dress into a really nice dress))

If I had the choice, I would have used the machine to stitch the frill onto the bottom of the skirt, but unfortunately the net was super fragile, super stretchy and super uncooperative.

Close up of the fabric.

Close up of the bottom layer of fabric.

Welcome to the 60’s

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60's, 60's fashion, Alt Fashion, alternative, Alternative Fashion, bow, Classic, classy, coat, colourful, cute, Dr Martins, landscapes, lense flair, macro, photography, Vintage

As well as being a loving mother, my mum is an enabler of my crazy fashion adventures. She went shopping on the weekend, and bought me these fantastic shoes. When I saw them, I just had to pair them with a vintage outfit I’ve been meaning to try for ages (But never felt game)

The coat I’m wearing is one half of a yellow two piece my dad found at a vintage shop in Sydney. The dress is one half of a pink two piece my mum and I found in the best shop in woy woy (shop 55 yo!)

I don’t wear this type of dress very often (I think it’s called a shift dress?) If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll notice that I tend to go for form fitting dresses, which come in at the waist, and almost always with a full skirt. This dress is the exact opposite, but, I kind of love it.

I took my outfit photos on the board walk near a local park. While I was strolling around/looking for the perfect railing to attach my camera to, I found myself reminiscing.

At the high school I went to, we had to participate in thursday afternoon sport. Myself and my small, but close group of friends used to choose what sport we’d do as a group (because unless you took sport with friends, it was a lonely and painfully boring experience)

Anyway, when we were feeling particularly cheep, we’d choose “powerwalking” (which was really walk around at a leisurely pace around Gosford) Often the path would intersect with the board walk.

The boardwalk was always my favourite route. It’s such a serene place. I don’t get to go as often as I like, but whenever I go, it’s always so very quiet, and I’ve never seen another person there.

Speaking of memories, it’s weird how they can change over time. When I used to think back on boardwalk fun times, I always remembered there being a bench here. There is no evidence of a bench. I’m entirely sure my mind created a bench, and now I am questioning my sanity.

Tree tops

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Alt Fashion, Alternative Fashion, Fashion, Fashion Design, Green, home Made, knit, sewing, skater, skater dress, tights, trees

In all my years of sewing I’ve only ever successfully made one dress.

This is that dress. It’s made from a scuba knit fabric (like the stuff they use for swimming costumes and black milk tights) I bought it on sale from spotlight then spent several hours sticking, swearing and unpicking until I ended up with this.

Butterflies

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Alt Fashion, Alternative Fashion, butterflies, butterfly, Classic, colourful, Fashion, insect, nature, rainbow, water colour

This is what I wore Friday evening!

I went out to dinner with my boyfriend, his mum and his grandmother and had a fantastic time! It was lovely to catch up and the food was delicious (we ate at a place that predominantly serves pizza, pasta and hot stone food.)

I always love having at excuse to wear this dress. It’s such a classic cut, but has a quirky side, which is perfectly for when I need to be semi formal but don’t wish to be dress normally.

Closet cleanouts

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Alt Fashion, alternative, Alternative Fashion, bow, classy, closet, cute, dots, Fashion, girly, pink, polka dots, spots

I procrastacleaned on Sunday. Once I had cleared out my closet I found this beautiful dress which I completely forgot I had.

My mum bought this dress for me from Alannah Hill about 3 years ago (before Alannah Hill stopped designing for the lable)  It’s such a pretty floaty flouncy dress (and I might have flounced around all day :s)

Pre Gig Fashion Fun

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spring

So I forgot to do a shoe shot. In it’s place though, I have a crappy mirror selfie of yesterdays outfit (I couldn’t find a camera fairy 😦 )

Blazer: Revival, Dress: HellBunny, Belt: Alanah Hill, Socks: Ebay, Tights: Ebay, Shoes: Kmart.

I had another gig with the New Empire today. Unfortunately after the gig it was way too wet to get any shots of my stage outfit, but I managed to get some pictures of the clothes I wore before the performance.

This dress is a recent acquisition. As you all know I’m a bit busy at the moment (because all my posts from the last month can be summarised as “waaaa I’m so bussyyyyyy”), and all of this being busy stuff is making me a bit stressed, so my lovely mother bought me this dress (and its minty sister) to cheer me up a bit.

The Orchestra played really well this afternoon, although it was a bitter sweet performance, as it was our front-mans last concert. (byeee Toby, and well done with your singing today.)

Just as an end note, can I just say that doing my eye makeup like this makes me feel like a 15 year old when it’s out of context (because I may or may not have gone heavy on the eyeliner at that age…)

Dreamy Dresses

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alternative, alternativefashion, altfashion, Blue, Classic, colourful, cute, Dress, Fashion, lady petrova, winter

Lady Petrova’s webstore is a dangerous place for my wallet.

Basically there was this dress which I loved. Then it went on sale. Then it got marked down further, and the once more. Every time it was marked down it was so much harder for me not to buy.

I may have caved this week….

…and this might be the dress in question.

Usually I’m not a fan of wearing ‘bodycon’ dresses, but, the organza overlay makes it super cute and a bit classy.

The dress was designed by house of cards http://www.houseofcardsthelabel.com/ which is a pretty darn cool label.

Dress: House of Cards, Belt: Shop 55, Tights: Sportsgirl, Shoes: Whitners.