Adventures in Wonderland

This time of the year is always Alice-themed these days. Or so it seems, anyway.

After weeks of letting it tug vaguely at the corners of my mental to-do list, I've gone ahead and booked tickets for Alice's Adventures Underground, interactive* performance extraordinaire. (I won't use the other 'i' word, because everyone hates it and you know it.) The event isn't until tomorrow, and already I've spent days obsessing over small details - does the 'Black/Red' dress code mean red and black? Red or black? What if I change my mind and decide I want to side with another suit? Should I Eat it? Drink it? Which one will make me big, which one small? What do I want? - until I thought I was going mad. And then I thought maybe that was the point.

I never thought I liked Alice. Having been decidedly unimpressed by the Disney cartoon, cat-less smile aside, I shoved the memory of it to the back of my mind as a child, to only take it out of a dusty brain drawer when Disney's shiny-and-new live remake forced me to. I was equally unimpressed. But I had to admit, something about the Crazy-circus, Creepy-clown concept of it all appealed to me. I mulled it over and had to concede - Alice belongs to the same, dreamy-yet-terrifying-if-you-think-like-really-think-about-it category as Peter Pan.

Once I realised that, I was hooked (no pun intended).

And so last year, I decided my birthday would be Wonderland-themed.

Quite conveniently, Archway with Words festival decided to hold an Alice in Wonderland Fancy Dress Day on that very date, complete with hat-making and flamingo croquet.

     

 

(In case you're wondering, I won at flamingo croquet. Ha.)

(At least... I think I did?)

A certain mad hatter talked us into making giant card hats...

          

...And we got stuck in a house.

Top - Etam

Silk corset - Harmony

Skirt - Topshop

Vintage apron - Absolute Vintage

Cardigan - Jane Norman

Shoes - Repetto

Clock earrings - Warehouse

Clock necklace - Vintage

Scarf - gift from Jerusalem







I want to hear all about YOUR Wonderland events, parties and adventures!

A Time Tourist in Kew Gardens

After being asked multiple times throughout the day if I was a tourist in my own city (was it the camera? the odd clothes? Who knows...) it was decided by my friends that a tourist I was indeed, only of the time-travelling kind. And so I was declared a Time Tourist.

This was my first visit to Kew in a very, very long time (a Time Tourist never reveals her age). The only thing I remembered about it was the large Greenhouse by the pond, next to Victoria Gate - I wasn't disappointed.

I like to think of it as a tropical palace...

 Dancing in the Greenhouse

What I didn't remember, on the other hand, was the Other greenhouse, the one where each room amazingly reproduces an entirely different climate to the next. The sights and smells there are wonderful. Seriously, take a deep breath when you enter each room! You'd be losing so much of the experience otherwise. It's like stepping into a different country altogether.

So tropical the lens gets foggy!

Banana alien

Now, I'm not much of a romantic, but on that day we happened to walk into a small and unassuming glasshouse. The contemplative stillness of the waterlily pond took my breath away. 

~

Making friends with plants

Blouse - Vintage

Leather skirt - handmade by my grandmother!

Turquoise necklace - Oliver Bonas

Outfits from Outer Space #3: Halloween

Better late than never, right?

Leaving you to ponder this for too long is potentially dangerous, so here's a distracting compilation of all my Halloween 2013 costumes.

1. Pop Art

This was put together very last-minute for MCM Comic Con, inspired by Roy Lichtenstein's art. Mostly it just involved orange face paint and a LOT of eyeliner. Drawing on those dots took fucking forever.

A very confused Castiel discovers pop art.

2. 50s movie character

After reading this inspiring blogpost, I decided to go greyscale for Halloween and aimed for a 50s-inspired look.

Top - Collectif

Skirt - Coast

Behind the scenes:

Originally, we were meant to go as a greyscale couple, but he flipped out when I brought out the eyeliner and wouldn't let me paint the rest of his face..

3. Last-minute Cruella De Vil

I got invited to a Disney pub crawl in Shoreditch, and was too lazy to go home and change, so I concocted this with what little clothes I had at my boyfriend's... Fun fact: I've owned this faux fur jacket since I was 6 years old and my cousin's bridesmaid. It's served me well.

People kept complimenting me on my 'white face makeup'... I wasn't wearing any. Sob.

4. Creepy nondescript Tim Burton character

Inspired by Emma Pickles' makeup tutorial, I wore this for Voodoo Rock Night. 

Corset - Primark

Skirt - Topshop

Armwarmers - Claire's

Annoyingly, it turned out to be one of those cases where everything looked better during the makeup test than on the actual night.

My eyebrows just wouldn't disappear!

5. ...And a minion

...What did YOU dress up as on Halloween?

I'm all graduated!

...Which is really only that exciting because I got to wear my new dress from China.

But yes, after four years of late-night essay writing, digging, costume parties, more digging, and lots and lots of crazy encounters with amazing people, I finally have a degree! Call me crazy, but it's been a week and I already miss lectures.

 

 

  

The qipao (traditional Chinese dress) was tailor-made for me in a fabric market in Shanghai. Love the coral pattern on the silk! Chose it because it's very 1930s-Shanghai-movie. The heels I just picked up from Primark, they killed my feet all day but I was really happy to find a colour that matched exactly!

Also, I loved my robes! It's not everyday you can use the word robes in normal conversation (unless you're french, that is), so let me just indulge one more time. ROBES. There. How Hogwarts-y.

Outfits from Outer Space #2: A little bit of Cosplay fun

I went to Comic Con last weekend!!

Or, as it used to be called back in my days, the MCM London Expo.

I hadn't been in a few years - used to go when I was 14-15 - and it was interesting to see how what constitutes a 'staple', easy outfit has changed. Five or six years ago, the place used to be crawling with (some very last minute) Death Note and the Joker costumes. Now? Batmen, Deadpools, Harley Quinns and Poison Ivies everywhere, and the go-to last minute option seemed to be either Ash from pokemon or Pikachu onesies. Link, naturally, has stayed a classic <3 but I saw a cosplayer portray the PERFECT Link back at my first expo and since then find all Link cosplays unsatisfying. If he gives me the OK I'll post a picture.

Anyway, I decided to cosplay! Because I like to complicate everything i chose to do two costumes over the weekend: Lara Croft - what with, you know, actually being an archaeologist and all - and the Khaleesi, because I have the ultimate girl crush and wish I was her.
But first things first - I imagine some of you have no idea what I'm yapping on about. "Cosplay" is short for "costume play", and essentially is the japanese way to say "I'm dressing up as my favourite character and geeking out about it".

Lara Croft

Ahh... Lara, Lara, Lara. What to say... as much as I do not condone actual Tomb Raiding, she has definitely helped archaeology look a tad more badass to the eyes of the uninitiated. Seeing as how I was actually cursed by Siberian shamans for what they view as raiding their ancestors' tombs, I thought the costume choice only appropriate.

This costume cost me the great sum of £0. I only used things I already had.

Tank top - Primark

Shorts - Next

Pocket belt - vintage

Combat boots - Dune

Necklace - made it meself

The pendant I've got around my neck is an antique chinese coin, courtesy of my boyfriend.

The airsoft gun and thigh holster (thigh holster!) I borrowed from a friend, who has the most amazing toy gun collection I have ever seen, as well as a cool rubber knife which you can't see in these pictures but was strapped to the back of my belt. Guilty confession right here: I love weapons. Of course I don't condone their use, and find the right to bear firearms completely absurd. But there's something so GRACEFUL about the barrel of a flintlock pistol, or the deadly curve or a katana blade. So I was very happy to get my hands on that airsoft gun right there.

That said, cosplayers in general do need to be careful when carrying replica weapons. They have a tendency to wave them about in public regardless of context, which can result in situations like this...

But back to Lara! The task I'd set myself for this costume was to recreate the crazy, nature-defying figure of video games and cartoon characters... I was pretty satisfied with the results.

Naturally such a figure doesn't come without effort, and I was strapped in a steel-boned underbust corset and a very, very padded bra. After all, if you ain't got it, fake it!

Speaking of faking it, my braid was also fake. But shhh, don't tell anyone ;)

Khaleesi

And then came Sunday, and along with it the urgency of patching up a decent Khaleesi costume in an hour or less.
I trust you're familiar with the Mother of Dragons. No? Daenerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen, is the rightful queen of Westeros. She's been in exile her entire life, and is now set to reclaim what is hers by birthright. In the space of two and a half seasons, she's grown from little-puppet-to-her-abusive-brother to the badass leader of a horseriding tribe, three dragons and a plethora of male admirers. Oh, and spoiler alert! an army of 8,000 men. Still doesn't ring any bells? She's also known as "that chick with white hair from Game of Thrones".






Scalped

Now, see, all I had to start off with was the wig. And let me tell you, that wig did NOT come ready made with the braids and all. It came looking as far off as a platinum fashion wig could possibly get. It had bangs and too much volume and unnecessary layers, and boy was it a pain in the neck to style. Well worth it though.


I got it from Annabelle's Wigs, and quite frankly in terms of quality and customer service they were great, and considering how much I played around with it it's a wonder it doesn't look like a mop yet. A tad on the expensive side, because I got the next-day saturday delivery, but I feel I got my money's worth.


Now, the outfit was a different story altogether. I'd bought a shoulder dragon at the Expo the previous day, from Trollart. It was staring at me with those damn adorable eyes, how could I resist? I'm his mother now. He's called Albert. Albert the Dragon.
But other than Albi, I was stuck. Of course, I could always pull on a brown skirt, a leather top, dub it an approximative costume and be done with it, but my friends were expecting a crappy costume and I wanted to prove them wrong.

Instead, I ran to Primark, land of cheap textile and clothing that you don't feel bad about ripping apart, and bought 20 quid's worth of knitted tank tops, to tear apart and re-use as I please. Want another confession? I cannot sew to save my life. In that respect Dany's costume was the best possible choice, because it only required ripping things apart and braiding them back together - that, I can do. Braids, braids everywhere!




I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen...

...the Unburnt...

...Mother of Dragons...

Adding soot and dirt (read: dark brown chanel powder) to my face was so much fun. 

...khaleesi to Drogo Saxton Hale's riders...

    

...and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros

I also shop at my local supermarket.

 

So many awesome costumes!

My boyfriend Saxton Hale...

 

Morticia Adams

FORSWORN!!! Best costume ever, absolutely made my week.

Minions