The Wonders Of AI

 Some of my husband's creations, featuring us and our cats;)

P.S Sorry for the relative lack of posts but it's like the 5th heat wave over here...

A New Dress

 Just something else for a change:

Making A Skirt Out Of Jeans

 Sorry for the lack of quality posting but I have some issues to attend to. So here is another cool tutorial for you:

Wearing Skirts

 This nice lady has a skirt-making tutorial in her links and in general, a quite interesting YouTube channel:

The Fashion Industrial Complex

 People like to talk about military industrial complex and medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex, but what about fashion industry? 

They appear to have a lot to answer for...

Here are a couple of links just to get you started. 

Modern fabrics guide

Part 1 Natural Fabrics

Part 2 Wood-based Fabrics 

Part 3 Synthetic Fabrics 

Christmas Eve

 Merry Christmas everyone!

Here are some of my Christmas decorations:

One Dress 20 Outfits

 It's hot over here. Like really hot. And it's nearly vacation, so no effort posting. I thought this was interesting. What do you think?

Real Life Summer Outfits

 I'm sorry it took me so long, but the weather has mostly been rainy and cold, so that I didn't get a chance to wear a lot of summery clothes, if you know what I mean. 

I also don't have really glamorous locations to show you. It's my living room, camping and public restrooms chiefly. Sorry about that, too;)

This skirt is new, I bought it back in April at the market.  Below is a lunchroom in Germany.

And this was at the camping.

This dress is a couple of years old. I guess you can wear it without a t-shirt, but somehow I never did. 

Bought this denim skirt online last year. It's rather warm, so I've been wearing it a lot.

 

A more dress-up variant of the same

The one above is all season dress with half-long sleeves, bought it several years ago online. The picture was taken in the restroom of the gas station on the way to camping. Public restrooms are really ideal for taking selfies because they usually have these huge mirrors. At least those for women do, lol.

The last skirt is the one I chiefly wear at home when cleaning because it's shorter and more convenient. However, wearing longer skirts outsides mean I don't have to use sunscreen on my legs so I'm quite happy they are in fashion right now. 

A New Fashion Trend I Like

 This is seriously cute:

Reasonable Clothes For Women

 Though much of what I'm going to say applies to men as well:)

I get a lot of topics to write about from YouTube videos and discussions. Recently YouTube by some reason pushed some episodes of a Nigerien (that is made in Niger) soap opera about life in a village. It is in some French dialect so I couldn't understand much at all, but I was impressed by the clothes the ladies wore. Now you should keep in mind that in Niger the majority of population are Moslem. However, women don't wear the traditional black stile garment we often associate with that faith, but rather something which I would describe as very reasonable, especially considering the climate.

They wore long colourful skirts with long leggins underneath and long sleeved denim/dark coloured blouses, turbans on their heads and lots of gold/jewellery. They looked feminine and dignified, and their clothes while cool offered protection against the sun.  

When we visit an archeological museum we see women wearing European medieval costumes. They consist of long colourful robes, head-coverings and sometimes hats worn on top of it (depending on the period they are portraying). And while Roman soldiers were known for their short tunics, female clothes were still long and covered the entire body + hair unless she was a slave. Slave girls were more undressed because their modesty and chastity were not protected by the law. 

Traditional clothes women wore in the West until recently were of the same type, though obviously of different styles. Hats and headcoverings by women were still worn till 1960s at the least, though dresses became much shorter. Men still wore long trousers and often hats. Then everything changed. Hats and wearing clothes in general was declared the tool of oppression/patriarchy and to emancipate oneself you have to prance around as undressed as the weather allows.

The funny thing is that while "they" definitely promote it, "they" in this case aren't the government officials but rather the MSM, the fashion world and (female) popstars whose skimpy clothes are eagerly copied by the young girls hoping to become just as popular by being "cool and s8xy".

Various Western governments, on the other hand, keep warning people about the dangers of the sun exposure and urge them to put on what could only be described as "modest clothing", like in this article.

 While they don't mention skirts/dresses (that would be too patriarchal, I guess) their educational video shows a girl wearing a dark knee-length dress. The stores are full of long summer skirts, btw, which offer even better protection since they cover more of your legs. And don't forget your feet. Open sandals are more risky than more traditional foot wear, or sport shoes which one usually wears with socks. 

Isn't it rather funny that all traditional cultures and religions expected folks to cover their nakedness, especially women and that it perfectly coincides with modern medical/scientific advice??? By the way, keep in mind that even when the UV index is low there are still UVA type rays present which normally don't cause sunburn, but they contribute to premature skin aging and are thought to suppress immunity. In fact, this article claims that just using a sunscreen regularly is comparable to botox in making you look younger. 

Well, I guess sticking it to the oppressive patriarchy is worth getting skin cancer and may be even dying. Or is it???

Halloween 2023

 My autumn decorations:

 

 

And the special Halloween cake:

Courtesy of this book:

My Jane Austen Dress

 

Here is a better view:

Second Sunday Of Advent

 

Should You Buy 2nd Hand Clothes?

 Several years ago I'd say, yes. Now I'd probably say, no, unless you are in reduced circumstances.

First of all, the clothes which end up in these stores are nearly never new (sometimes they get some new stuff from big retailers, but it doesn't happen very often). Mostly they are well worn out, and you can see it.They generally don't look very nice per definition, unless it's a well-known quality brand whose  owner only put it on a couple of times (granted, this happens, too).

Next, of course, I'm aware that they all get washed and disinfected and what not, but have you never noticed that people generally leave some imprint on their surroundings and the things they use? Like, for instance, in some houses you feel sad while in others you will feel happy? 

I realise it sounds a bit new-agey, but you have no way to know what sort of person wore this item before and how it could influence you. I would say it's different with the big stuff like furniture, but clothes is something you put on yourself, close to your skin and then have on a couple of days or even longer, if it's something like a cardi, for instance.

2nd hand clothes are usually quite cheap. Herein lies the problem. You aren't on your guard around cheap things, hence you are much more prone to impulse buying than normally. After regularly visiting a thrift store, you can easily end up with lots of stuff you don't really need or like which later goes direction the garbage can anyway, and you waste more money than buying some new item from a regular store.

Also, nowadays you have cheaper retail and markets which sell decent-looking, average quality clothing which is quite affordable, and doesn't look like something out of Granny's closet. I do think it's different when you get stuff from family and friends, especially for kids who are growing very fast so they only wear these donated items like several months or year at most. Grown-ups are a different matter.

That said, I still enjoy visiting thrift stores. I just noticed that of all the clothes I bought there over the years I only kept like 2 things total, all the rest was like a couple of months on average and then out it went, while most of the new things I buy I keep wearing until they start falling apart. There are exceptions, of course, but still...

Any thoughts?

Just To Cheer You All Up

 I don't know why, but when I'm looking at these dresses I feel happy (no affiliate, don't get paid anything for promotion, just found their site yesterday by chance).

May be we should return to dressing like this, at least on Sundays?

Spring Fashions

I simply had to share this cute little dress with you:

Here is the close-up of the collar:

And of the pattern:

Isn't it a darling?:)

The Fourth Sunday Of Advent

I'm really late this year with Advent posts, due to all sorts of things (and in fact, this is the first weekend I spent at home in months and only due to basically being down with flu) but I still thought I have to  continue with the tradition of showing you my Christmas decorations. We don't have a real big tree this year because of the kittens, but we still did our best to make it cosy!

P.S. There is no real flame anywhere.