we would be dancing and it would be spring

Last week, between when the snow disappeared and the sun began shining again (though the temperature didn't change), I was attacked by a sudden upsurge of spring fever. I began thinking about shorts, sunglasses and flimsy dresses;  in class, I was having visions of walking through sunny streets and last night I dreamt I was outside and it was so warm I didn't need a coat. (Yes, I have pretty exciting dreams. Hmm). It's only February, which is probably the coldest time of the year in the Netherlands, but somehow my mind refuses to register that though it may be sunny outside, in the morning there's still ice on the road and if I were to wear those spring outfits I have in mind outdoors, the next thing would be me being rushed to the hospital as a bad case of hypothermia. Still, I might as well start thinking about what I'll wear when the weather does get better, right? Something like this:

ALL VINTAGE EXCEPT FOR THE H&M BLOUSE THAT'S SO OLD IT COULD ALSO BE CALLED VINTAGE

Or something like this - short-sleeved shirts, florals, and cutoffs:

she will kiss you till your lips bleed, but she will not take her dress off

   

 

CLOTHES: BLUE DRESS WORN AS SHIRT, OBJECT / SKIRT, VINTAGE / POLKA DOT TIGHTS, PRIMARK / SHOES, VAN HAREN

smoke on the water

I normally try not to wear too much makeup. When you have to cycle every day, it's simply not a good idea to smear black eyeshadow all over your eyes, because once you've arrived, it'll be on your cheeks instead of your eyelids and you look like a raccoon - especially with this weather; it's raining at the moment I'm writing this, but yesterday it was snowing and in the mornings it's freezing, which makes for very teary eyes while cycling. So only the bare minimum is tolerable (which is, for me, eyeshadow, kohl and mascara; still a bit more then the average 'bare minimum'), and certainly only on the upper eyelid, nothing under my eyes, to avoid the aforementioned raccoon effect. But I decided to give the whole smokey-eye-thing a try once; it doesn't really fit with how I usually look (and my version isn't shockingly dark - it was just too big a change from my usual makeup, and so I kept the line under my eyes reasonably thin and used a grey pencil instead of a black one) but it does look sort of... cool, I guess.

p.s. I usually edit my pictures into infinity, but I decided to keep these as real as possible. So, in spite of my usual oh-my-god-it's-a-closeup-people-might-see-I'm-not-perfect-anxiety, I didn't change anything about this pictures except the saturation. 

docs?

For a long time, Dr. Martens were the height of ugliness in my book. The only people who wore them were, in my opinion, emotionally unstable malcontents who moved in groups where everybody had too-wide ripped trousers with chains attached to them, wore enough eyeliner to paint a room, and wrote lousy poems about how their life felt like a big black hole filled with painful words and how the only way out was to scratch their arms with a cheese grater. While the blogosphere was slowly showing more and more pictures of grungy girls wearing Docs, I contented myself with the knowledge that I, for one, would never ever succumb to the evil-looking Doc-wearers, but would instead fill my closet with lightweight, cute, utterly unpractible shoes.

And then my whole world was shredded apart by this picture.

A couple of months ago, the Cherry Blossom Girl showed Dr. Martens in a way that didn't quite match up with the images in my head of emo girls who paired their fluorescent pink Docs with acid green shoelaces and mismatched stripey socks. Combined with polkadot tights, cutoff Levi's and a sweet vintage floral print, I suddenly wasn't too sure that Docs were the ugliest shoes around - in fact, I wasn't sure about anything anymore. What was next? Were Crocs going to be fashionable, too? In five years, would we be walking around in Nike sandals with socks and feel like the styliest thing around? (Little did I know that a few short months later, the blogosphere would be filled with wooden clogs. As in, Swedish Hasbeens, not the yellow Dutch ones - although Viktor & Rolf did an awesome job with Dutch clogs in 2007. But I'm getting of topic here). So as the Doc Martens started trickling into the Stylish Photos-folder on my computer and every single blogger on my blogroll seemed to own them (and be able to make them look cute), I knew I was sold. And that it wouldn't be long before I myself would be walking around in... oh, maybe those very floral printed Docs! Or the simple black ones that make you look like you should've been born in another time. Or - hey, how cool would it be to come back from London with a pair of Union Jack-printed ones!? Now, for me Dr. Martens have completely lost their repulsiveness and are - I never, ever thought I would say this - incredibly cute.

wipe the eyes of the dewy morning

Today, I was supposed to be working on a school paper, study for the finals next week, and such. Instead, I made pictures of myself, tried on different kinds of makeup, and invented a new way of editing my photos that makes them look vintage and of better quality at the same time. Ah well.

New Look dress worn as shirt, H&M bubble skirt, skirt I used to wear as a seven-year-old underneath, Hema two-tone tights

youtube favorites part 2

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1 Such a cute Dutch band. I even think they're from the same city as I am? Not sure though 2 This is so incredibly funny 3 I watched this movie with Ben a couple of months ago. I'm still not over how cool it was 4 Gossip Girl S3 is now on TV in the Netherlands, but I've already watched all of it and I'm really sad that it's stopped until March 5 We saw this in class the other day. Yes, we have cool classes 6 the funny thing is that he's right. He understands more about than all the boys I know (why, oh why don't boys seem to get it?) 7 She just looks absolutely stunning. 8 Still one of my favourite songs 9 Spinvis. Yes. 10 Incredibly well-made and funny

oh lover boy you're hiding out

Today I went to Amsterdam with Judith and Thessa to find out if we liked Language and Communication at the University of Amsterdam. And in fact, I loved it! It's sort of a combination of rhetorics and Dutch language, but you have to study a foreign language as well - which will be English for me, obviously - and after you're finished, you're perfectly qualified to work at a magazine. And that is my final goal in life. I wore something like this:

..but with a longer black skirt and sensible black tights, because you just can't walk around Amsterdam with nearly-bared upper legs covered in not much more than polka dots when it's 5 degrees celcius - you'd get cystitis and even if you don't, all the tourist will probably think you're a hooker. After the orientation day we went looking for earmuffs in all the tourist shops, but somehow they only sold silly-looking ones that go around the back of your head, or huge heart-shaped ones that make you look like you have big, fluffy ears? So weird. Ah well, I can't wait to be done with school now!