Gold Lame` Leopard Print

I have a dream. My dream is that everyone, everywhere would find so many more appropriate times to rock out a gold lame` leopard print outfit!

I am sad to say in the 3 years or so that I have owned this piece of amazing-ness- it has only been worn 4 times. Out of those 4 occasions-  once was for a glam rock 80's dress up and once was for the pic for this post. I really need to lift my game I know.

This dress was my "feature frock" on a mannequin in the Wardroom for a very long time. On a slight side tangent  I believe everyone should have a mannequin for this purpose. You can only wear one outfit at a time and there are only so many outfit changes most people could work into a single day. It's nice to have something on display for instant visual gratification that may not be so easy to get into the general rotation. To be fair- this dress was used for so long more because I needed to do some serious sit ups and ab work outs before I was truly comfortable wearing this out anywhere. A tight, one shouldered, puff sleeve, gold lame` leopard frock is many many things- but forgiving of a less than flat stomach is certainly not one of them.

I can get very impatient waiting for the right opportunities to arise for dresses like this one. There is always a very real risk that if I have to wait too long, at some point I will throw all caution to the wind and bust out an extreme casual Friday in the office. Now while I bought this dress in total seriousness my impatience to wear it meant that it became a dress up ensemble for the most recent Masters of Metal gig I played in. I think it worked quite well for the 80's glam rock dress code - but it did plant a small seed of worry in my head. The trouble with wearing something as a fancy dress costume before you wear it in any other context means there is a small risk of people will remember it as a novelty outfit. This could seriously influence the frocks integrity for future wearings! Yeah. I know I spend way too much time worrying about things like this. I am fairly confident that nobody actually cares about my dress's "integrity"...

As a glam rock costume obviously the dress needs to be paired with some sweet white ruffled stiletto boots, a studded belt, side pony, and lots of jewellery. I'm sure you will agree the overall outfit sure is something!

Back to my serious wearing- and I have kept it pretty simple. With a fabric print like this it pretty much speaks for itself after all. Black tights, black patent mary janes and a black vinyl waist cincher belt. Simple. Effective. And much MUCH less bogan than the last time I wore it!

Baby Blue 70s Gown

Who doesn't love a great 70's gown? Well. You are all entitled to your own opinions- but frankly speaking if you aren't picking up what I am putting down you are WRONG. (heh)

I absolutly love 70's era vintage. It was my first foray into fashion from any decade outside the one I am currently living in and overall it has been pretty good to me over the years. Some fantastic things came outta the 70's. Queen. Fondue parties. ME.

 I struggle to walk past a rack with brightly coloured nylon and polyester frocks from this time period without squealing. (maybe a little bit of dribbling too. Lets be honest....)

This frock has been kicking around in my life for quite some time now. I think I must have picked it up about 12 years back. Sadly it doesn't get anywhere near enough wear time in. I may have to start just wearing it into the office or something. Casual Friday's need a bit of a pick me up anyway.

Baby blue and polyester is quite a statement in itself. Throw in a halter neck with ruffled front, backless... back and make it full length. I'm certain you will agree the overall look sure is something!

I love how this dress is doing such a great job of being the female gown version of the stereotypical baby blue 70s tuxedo. You know -  like THIS! I am yet to convince my wonderful man to don one to match me- but I haven't given up hope completely...

I have teamed this frock with some extra special shoes. I even glittered them myself! I was already fairly appreciative of the black pumps they used to be with the sparkly bows on the top. Now that they are     blue-dazzled (see what I did there?!) they are much MUCH cooler. Glittering your own shoes is deceptively simple but can be quite messy. I would strongly recommend a tray and an abundance of newspaper under your work area. I didn't realise exactly how messy this little project was going to be- so the first pair I sparkled up left a shiny trail of destruction through much of my bedroom. Ok. The entire house. My boy was less than impressed when 2 weeks later he was still finding glitter in his hair and on his face...

Gold Shorts

Who knew I was a short shorts kindofa girl? Well. There actually have been a few clues along the way. I did spend a lot of time in Roller Derby hot pants afterall- so maybe this was a natural progression really...

I have often said that it isn't so much that I find great pieces of clothing as much as they find me. These shorts are a pretty good example of this happening. There I was. Minding my own business and ambling up Queen St after a lovely coffee date with a friend. As I neared the recycle boutique- I thought I would just pop in ever so quickly and have a quick look at their wares. My rack skimming skills are particularly good in a store like this I must say- and my well trained eyes pored over the different colours and patterns. Like a BOSS. Now the Recycle Boutique has a pretty good business model I must say. They sell your clothes on behalf- and will give you 50% of whatever they get for them. If your article has not sold within a set time frame- they will reduce it by 50%. If it still isn't sold within the next set time frame then you get the option to take it back- or they can donate to charity on your behalf. Pretty much everyone is a winner this way.

Now I have a pretty good history with the recycled boutique overall. I don't find amazingness EVERY time I wander in- but when I do. Woah doggy. I have been known to ponder how on earth these peices havn't been discovered by anyone else before me. Especially when by the time I have found them they have been reduced by 50%. It should be un-possible but I guess it's fate. I am supposed to find them and liberate them of their retail prison to take them home foe a long and happy free range existence in the wardroom. Makes for a better bargain story that way too really.

So back to my shiney shiney disco shorts! You may already have guessed where this story is going- but by the time these shorts found me- they were 50% off the original price.  (which incidentally I would have been happy to pay...) They came home with me for the bargain price of $20.00. Turns out you can put a price on my happiness afterall...

A Clean Wardroom Is Good For The Sole

Wow. Even with my best intentions of not letting my Frockstar postings slide- turns out I am still ridiculously slack. The good news (I guess) is that after this incredibly long break there is certainly no shortage of things to post about!

So much has happened since I updated last. I went to Auckland's last ever Big Day Out (I also went to the other 17 years worth-but that's another story) I had a "moment" with one of my favourite piano players- and then found said moment captured on a music blog. (Yes. That's me with the flower in my hair giving her the intense "I LOVE YOU AMANDA" eyes but to be fair I had just had my face in her boobs...another story too I guess) I lost some weight due to some long overdue portion control and my new love of boxing classes. This is turn led to my first foray into pants in the last 8 years or so! (They will get their own post. I promise) I accumulated a *cough* handful of new outfits under the great excuse that I needed more that fit me.

 And in a fit of organisation one Thursday afternoon- I decided to pull out all of my shoes to sweep, mop, reorganise and stock take. A much MUCH more time consuming job than initially anticipated. I don't know what to liken this experience to really but I'm sure you have at some time in your life started something before realising the sheer enormity of the task. Then the secondary realisation that you are already so vested in said task that you have to just keep trucking on and get the bloody thing done. It is 5 hours of my life that I'm not getting back but totally worth it in the long run. This dear reader- seems like a good place to start the rest of this post.

Those of you that have never graced the Wardroom with your presence won't know how much the shoes were starting to take over. They were stacked 5 and 6 pairs high in rows under clothes racks. They were spilling so far out into the rest of the room that not only would my door not open all the way- but I was often physically falling over them when in there. Not just after a gin or 2 either. Yes. This job was way overdue. While I would like to profess that the above reasons were enough to facilitate my desire to tidy them- it was in actual fact my OCD that finally put me over the edge. Truth be told I was sick of people asking how many pairs I had and not actually knowing the answer. Well. Now I do!

I am willing to bet that if someone else had attempted this mean feet (haha)- it might not have been made as un-necessarily complicated as I made it. Once all the shoes were pulled out and pretty much taking up every inch of floor space it was time for the organising to begin. If I was going to stock take I was damned well going to do it properly! This translated into arranging them all pair by pair. In a semblance of colour co-ordination of course. (Don't get me started on my constant need for a system to find things in that room!). It started with the boots then worked down into high tops and trainers, heels/wedges/sandals all the way down to jandals and slippers. I figured that as I hadn't had all my shoes out where I could see them all in one place before - there was every chance it wouldn't be happening again for a long time. The picture above took me about 20 minutes to take as I couldn't fit all of them into one shot! I actually still haven't quite fit them all in the photo- but at that stage I was in danger of falling off the piano stool I was doing one legged acrobatics on and I'm not very good with heights. Even piano stool sized ones.

I realise that cleaning out a closet isn't exactly a life changing event. It isn't even really a rite of passage either. It was quite eye opening however and I am sure there was some character building mixed in there somewhere too. I'm quite the hoarder collector you see. This may be a surprise to read (if you have paid NO attention to the rest of this post if not the rest of Frockstar as a whole that is!) I learnt that I had 12 pairs of boots that were exactly the same. I knew there would be a few pairs kicking around - but 12? These are the only pairs that I threw away. No- not all additional 11 of them. Lets not get silly. I threw away 4 of them though. 8 pairs seemed like a much more manageable number to lean on. 1 pair for wearing till they get too worn then 7 back ups. Stop judging me. They stopped making them a few years back and are hard to come by. I always snap them up on trademe if I trip over a listing. I also learnt that by no means should I ever buy another pair of yellow shoes in any style. I am in no danger of running out of these either.

So there they were. All neatly co-ordinated and taking up all of the Wardroom's floor space. I got to tickle my compulsive tendencies and start to count them and compile the most ridiculous (and I do mean ridiculous) stock take list ever created. Now that they were all splayed out in front of me it just didn't seem enough to do a straight up count of them. No no. That just wouldn't do. I needed to get more detailed in my approach. What good was knowing how many pairs I owned if I couldn't tell you exactly how many pairs of red heels I had? How could I not know how many pairs of white wedges I had to match with Summer dresses? What if someone wanted to know how many pairs of knee length boots I owned? What if... Yeah. I do actually know that the chances of anyone asking me any of those questions are slim to f**k all. I still wanted to know though- and that was a good enough reason to press on. The other good reason to list them in a more detailed way was to keep them top of mind. I have been known on occasion to purchase a pair of shoes in a colour I thought wasn't already represented at home- then found later that there was. (another reason to not have them all stacked on top of each other and under things...) In some strange way - the list will now potentially stop me from buying un-necessary footwear. Well. Excessively un-necessary footwear at least. Even I have a line somewhere....
 

My counting and stock take now complete- it was time to re-organise back into the space allocated. There still needed to be pairs stacked and piled under racks- but now it was done in such a way that it just made so much more sense! Sure my 19 year old Cherry Doc Martin 10 up boots aren't getting a great deal of air time these days but they will never ever be let go. These were the kind of contenders for getting stacked outta sight. I still know they're there. The lesser worn pairs safely stashed, the frequently worn pairs easy to access and the statement faves now had the glory display spots for optimum showing off.

The Great Wardroom Shoe-ganize of 2012 was complete!

 NB. After much deliberation on my part- I have decided to not share the full nerdiness of my shoe stock take. I think I may have already shared too much in fact. I will know when I run into someone who has read this post. I have a pretty good idea of the look I will get from them. Hell- it may even be YOU dear reader. No- I think that the list itself is destined if not completely for my own enjoyment but small intimate and in person audiences at least. That said- I am happy to tell you the total number. Knee boots, ankle boots, high tops, laced trainers, slip on trainers, stilettos, kitten heels, wedges, sandals, jandals and slippers- all together.

153.

NB/2. Since stock take I did buy 1 more pair of yellow shoes. I was going to include a picture to show you why I had to buy them- but they are good enough for their own whole post. Which at my current blogging rate you may get to read in 2017....