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Monday, February 25th, 2008
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9:53p - sunday and the power of suggestion
I’ve been emailing this girl in the States these past few weeks, she has the most gorgeous FlickR site where she posts pictures of her illustrated books for girls and most fascinating of all – her outfits. An eclectic mix of op-shop finds and her grandmothers clothes she has a very girl and unique style, and I was asking her a few questions for this fashion article I was working on for Vibewire. She told me that she had just found this 1950s pink dress with giraffes on it, which made her daydream about going to the zoo which instantly reminded me of this equally ridiculous dress I own, a strapless white thing with a repeat parrot pattern and a ruffle or two, picked up several years ago at Kirribilli markets. I’ve only ever worn the dress twice, and both times it made me do some very silly things.
So on Saturday I mentioned to Cass that I wanted to go to the zoo. And on Sunday we went. She picked me up a few hours earlier than our said meeting time and we hit Woolies, determined to pack a picnic lunch for our guests. I had offered to loan her some animal related clothing (a pale pink t-shirt with a horse on it? Or a blue leopard print 1950s day dress with a black bow maybe?) but she politely declined.
We stocked up on chicken, rolls, fresh fruit, honey flavoured tiny-teddy biscuits and juiceboxes before heading home to pack lunches. I insisted on drawing animals on all the bags and when our guests arrived I busied myself asking who wanted the bear lunch? Snake anyone?
We rushed to the zoo, Cass was intent on seeing the seal show at 11.20am but sadly we missed it, because the car park was full and we had to hike there from far far away. That and the fact that the seals were in the process of moving to their new home, had to be trained for a new show and were probably busy packing boxes and things.
A 17-year-old German exchange student lives at Cass’s house and he came along. He made fun of me for cheering every animal, saying cute! repeatedly and clapping. Except for the red panda. It was very disappointing. It was small and looked more like a raccoon. My favourite animal was probably the tiger. It was definitely Sunday at the zoo because most of the animals were sound asleep in the shade.
It’s been an animalistic weekend. The day prior I went to the Lover jumble sale with Angie, Nat and Cass. I haven’t been to a warehouse sale for years because I usually find them overwhelming, sweaty and generally not fun at all but there’s something about Lover that made me get out of bed and join the masses in a Surry Hills suite that was severely lacking in ventilation. I think it’s the oversized buttons, the music-inspired collections and their take on girl that makes me, well love Lover.
Anyway, we arrived as close to 9am as we could muster only to find a long line of predominantly Asian girls. Which, admittedly, Angie and I are, but these girls came in packs. Posses even. Clearly I’m not very good at the warehouse sale game because I had no tactics. ‘So what sizes am I grabbing for you?’ Ang asked as we neared the door, the considerate and expert shopper she is. Inside there was practically nothing on the rails and everything in the arms of the small packs of girls who were hoarding and not sharing. I wandered around wide-eyed before realising the game was more about grabbing and thinking later. Despite this realisation, I still wasn’t very good at it.
Maybe it was a waiting game for cast-offs? Not so, the hoarding girls didn’t just leave clothes around, they tried to bargain with you, eyeballing the items you were holding and casually attempting to initiate a swap. ‘Do you need a bigger size?’ one girl said directly to my black Joplin dress, her arm outstretched with the one she had snatched. Apparently a lot of these items will end up on eBay, which I think isn’t very nice.
I did get a few things, which I am very glad about. It sounds silly but I always wanted something gorgeous from Lover in my wardrobe. There was this one girl in my store the other day who was ecstatic about the new season and grabbing armfuls of clothing. She said that Love My Way was her favourite show and that she’d promised herself that when she had money, she’d buy clothes that looked like things the character Frankie would wear. And apparently we were having a very Frankie season. I could empathise completely – and had similar pipe-dreams about being a girl-writer, wandering around the place talking to people and writing stories, ideally in a super cute Lover smock.
I have two stories due on Tuesday (as well as incredibly nerdy plans to digitise my portfolio...) and so I plan to wear this, even though no one will see me, as I type type type, sitting outside on my deck with everyone at work and a gigantic pink mug of tea.
My summer is coming to an end. Well our collective summer is but this is my last week of holidays. I’m sad but had a very relaxing time.
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