I have worn both the shirt and shorts before, so let me draw your attention to these two beautiful new bracelets my mom brought me from her recent trip to Bali.

This is the Warbler top from Birds of Passage. You can get a similar one of your own here. I crocheted myself this little chapstick holder necklace the night before. It reminded me of the one Cherie Currie wears in Foxes to holds her lighter.

This top is another of my early experiments in refashioning a garment. It's an Oleg Cassini shirt that had long sleeves and was huge. I think I may even still have the sleeves kicking around somewhere as the idea was to cut them down to 3/4 length, tighten them up a bit and sew them back on. That sounds as much of a pain now as it did then, so I've just left it sleeveless for the time being. I took in the side seams a bit too much and ended up having to leave it open from the waist down open because I (yet again) did not have a clear understanding of how hips and garments worked together. I'm not sure where I got these shorts - I have the feeling their previous owner was a senior citizen, so it was either from some sort of church rummage sale or from my great aunt. They clearly used to be longer and the hem has been fused into place.

I bought this blouse at a Pomona thrift store (probably in high school when I did a lot of thrifting in that area). I then attempted to alter it by taking in the side seams by about 1". Since, at that point, I had a lot less sewing experience and absolutely no pattern drafting experience, I just sewed the seams straight down without taking the hip area into account. Consequently, it fits a bit tight around that area. This blouse has a tendency to pull forward, the shoulder seams never want to stay on my shoulders. I think this is because the blouse has a front facing, but no corresponding back facing. Today, I find that really odd, but back in high school I had no idea about concepts like balancing a pattern. I think these shoes look a bit stupid with the grey jeans. They are from UO and were part of my July shoe spree.

This top sort of feels like a scout uniform. I think its the triangular kerchief, which is supposed to be attached, but is no longer (something I should really take the five minutes to fix). This is another top from my great aunt.

What can I say about this outfit other than it is a very typical one that I might wear to work (as I did today). The top I bought at a Jet Rag $1 sale back in high school. It is from a Hawaiian themed Sears collection that I would guess debuted in the 70's.

Do I look like the competent manageress of an independent retail store here? I had to train a new employee tonight, so this is my take on business attire. The top is from Hilo Hattie. My mom bought it for me on a trip we took in high school to Hawaii. The skirt is my old H&M standby.

I thought that this dress would be a big hit with women of a certain age. Surprisingly, the only person who commented on it was my boss (which is more surprising, I suppose, if you know my boss). I don't think he has ever said anything about my clothing before, but today when he saw me he said "That is a beautiful dress". A. gave it to me either while we were in high school, or soon thereafter.

Here I am hard at work at the drafting table. This outfit was inspired by a picture from an old Anthropologie catalog. The pants are from the Jovovich Hawk Target collection, only I have replaced the matching sash belt with this little red sailor belt from Value Village in Olympia. The top is one I've worn before.

Of all the pictures I took, I felt this one highlighted my outfit best (though clearly it doesn't say much for photography skills). These shorts are part of my little brother's old Boy Scout uniform. The T-shirt is from Zara.

In my attempt to wear atleast one new piece of my wardrobe a day, I give you this belt. The thing with this dress is that whenever I want to wear it, I can never find the matching belt, and when the dress is nowhere to be found, the belt will surface. Such is life I suppose. I have worn this versatile little dress before. Here is a picture of it outfitted for Winter wear. The belt I'm wearing it with today either came from my great aunt, or from a haul of free clothing my dad found. Wherever it came from, it was meant to go with an enormous dress/robe/coat thing that I had no intention of ever wearing - I tossed the indeterminate garment and kept the belt.

I went to Urban Outfitters last night looking for shorts as these Target ones are the only things I own. I was hoping for some cute 40's high waisted ones, but all they had were distressed cut offs. I have a real problem with buying pre-distressed garments - my clothes are going to fall apart anyway at some point, so why start out that way. Long story short, I ended up with no shorts, 3 new T-shirts and some major disappointment in my lack of restraint when it comes to sale racks.

Ah my hippy dress! My friend B. once told me that the first night we met, he wasn't really sure what to make of me because I was wearing "a hippy dress", but had bleached blond hair and bondage shoes on. I was trying to recreate that style confusion a bit here with the chain necklaces, though unfortunately I couldn't wear the bondage shoes because they are a bit too uncomfortable for work.

I know I wore this shirt last month, but the colour worked so well with this skirt that I had to drag it out again. I can't actually remember where this skirt is from. I recall having it at the end of high school, so I'm guessing it is either from a Pomona thrift store, or a Claremont church rummage sale.

I bought these shoes at a sportswear shop in Glasgow with the idea that I would take up jogging. I would have to estimate that since 2001 (when I bought them) I have been jogging, perhaps 7 times. The dress is from American Apparel. A friend of mine (I believe it was Mrs. N.) once commented on the Margot Tenenbaum look of this particular style. At any rate, it is the perfect thing for these ridiculously hot Southern California Summers.

Everything about this skirt is just cheap. Cheap materials, cheap workmanship and the price (from what I can recall) was cheap too. Nevertheless, I like this outfit. The shirt you have seen before, the skirt is from H&M. Check out my new shoes. They are from Urban Outfitters and are pretty comfortable. Still, because they are heels, I am a bit apprehensive about wearing them to a full 8 hours of retail hell and am currently only wearing them on my days off.

This outfit was chosen in a hurry. I needed a long waisted shirt to compensate for the fact that these jeans are on the low-rise side, and this was the first thing I could lay my hands on that fit that description. A. gave me this shirt a few years ago. It has an illustration of an anatomical heart on it which is somewhat faint, so you can't really see it here (or indeed in any of the other pictures I took of it - sorry).

This dress is from H&M. I can't remember if it ever fit me, but it's pretty clear that it doesn't now. I am having to wear it open across the chest with a tank top underneath. It was perhaps a bit risque to wear to work given that when I do any amount of walking, the overlap flies open and reveals a bit more of my leg than I generally like strangers to see.

We played the Echo Park Community Festival today (formerly known as the Lotus Festival), which meant sun and lots of it - so here I am in my full protective layers. I love this shirt and plan on wearing it til it literally falls apart on me. I bought it at Dumpster Values. The pants are also from Olympia from a store whose name I cannot at the moment recall (it was on 4th ave, so if anyone remembers the name please let me know). It mostly sold pricey club wear (I pretty much only went there to buy wigs and Manic Panic), but for some reason they had a bin of $5 work pants one day and I picked these little gems up. As you can see here, they are at this point in need of a good hemming.

I didn't mean to match my shirt and shorts so well, it just sort of happened that the green of the shirt (from the great aunt) was the same shade as the bats.

This shirt is an Anglomania mens top that I found at T.K. Maxx (the far superior U.K. version of T.J. Maxx). The skirt is from H&M and was too long when worn with this top (it all looked a bit messy and shapeless), so I just rolled it up a bit at the waist and the effect was much improved.

A. said this was a very 90's outfit. It was even more so later in the evening when I swapped out my Campers for some patent leather wedge heels worn with white ankle socks. You can get a glimpse of that here (and can I just say that those shoes were miserable after a half hour of dancing). This very purple dress is from Topshop. Of all the purples in the world, this shade is probably my least favorite, so it's something of a mystery why I bought this dress in the first place. But there you go, this is the dress that opened the floodgates to all sorts of purple purchases.

I almost didn't take a picture of this outfit because I ended up hating it so much. This shirt started life out as a promotional giveaway from my work that they were throwing out (I do so hate to see T-shirts being thrown away). I used it for a project from my favorite T-shirt reconstruction book. Admittedly it now looks better than it did as an oversized mens L, but that's not saying much and I think I will be taking the scissors to it again before a second wearing.

I built today's outfit from the shoes up. I've been suffering from terrible lower back pain for the past few days and couldn't bear the thought of wearing anything that didn't have a lot of cushioning. I even seriously considered wearing jogging shoes to work today, but settled on these instead which worked admirably. The T-shirt was my great aunt's and looks like so many of her other capped sleeved, V-necked jerseys.

This tank is yet another one from the Urban Outfitters sale rack. I buy quite a lot of my T-shirts there because I can generally find cheap ones with interesting necklines. My Mom is always saying that crew necks make her face look terrible, and this is slowly happening to me too as I get older. I just rediscovered these jeans in a box today, they are from, where else, The Gap. The label says pencil cut (???) and as I recall I was pretty desperate to get a new pair of jeans when I bought them, because they don't really fit that well. The hips and back fit great, but the waist is too big and thus falls around my hips making them unintentionally low rise. The effect of this is a very saggy backside that is not at all flattering. I was once told by a gentleman friend that it was cute the way none of my clothes fit me - I am sure he was referring to these pants.

My little orange jump suit. It's looking very wrinkled here because, not only did I take it out a box this morning, but proceeded to take a long nap in it before snapping this shot. I got this at Value Village in Olympia.

This is my 4th of July outfit. I just couldn't bring myself to wear red, white and blue, though I do acknowledge the sartorial possibilities in that particular colour combo. I saw at least one well dressed lady sporting her national colours. This sweater is from the sale table at Zara (the Zara in Belfast always seems to have a sale table of cheap sweaters no matter the season).

My friend and former coworker R. gave me this T-shirt. I'm not sure if he still plays with these guys, but he is generally up to some sort of rock'n'roll high jinx. [I have since heard that Sky Saxon died last month, so I guess that means R. is not playing with them anymore]

My friend S. took this picture at the end of a long day of running around town. I didn't even stop to comb my hair before taking this picture. The tank top (or perhaps I should call it a vest since I purchased it in the U.K.) is Matthew Williamson for Debenhams. The jeans are from The Gap.

I wore this stripy shirt a lot with my old synth pop band and there is a tiny battery acid stain on the right hip. For the longest time I could not figure out why so many of my shirts had similar stains in the same spot. Until one day I noticed that my keyboard was oozing a gnarly rust coloured liquid. I haven't yet found a way to get them out, but given that most of them are small and on the back of the garment, it's not too noticeable. The shorts are from Libertine's Target collection. I don't know much about Libertine, but I've liked the small amount of their stuff I have seen. I seem to remember that there was a darker pair of shorts in this collection with a clipper ship stencil on them which was the pair I really wanted to get. I ended up with these bat ones instead. I don't think you can properly see it here, but I'm actually wearing the striped ribbon belt that came with the shorts. I think this is the only time I've ever done this - the belt really doesn't do much for the shorts, but I do so love my clashing stripes.