Ruby Velour

When I was in Tokyo in 2009, I discovered the most wonderful thing on earth: mameshiba. Mameshiba is a Japanese cartoon based on various types of beans with doggy features that come to life and freak out people by stating rather obscure facts about various things, typically food and biology. If you’re familiar with mameshiba though, you probably just know the edamame bean, which is most famous for being an adorable keychain novelty where you pop him out of his pod and he’ll have a funny face:

Source

But there are many other types including a peanut, black bean and coffee beans and they all have some random facts to give their unsuspecting “audience” (victim might be a more appropriate choice given the reactions the beans tend to get). In fact their name is a play on the Japanese word  for trivia “mamechishiki”. Literally the name means “bean dog” (a shiba is a breed of dog) which is basically the most adorable thing I have ever seen in my entire life!

Mameshiba is so big now, apparently 78% of Japanese adults recognise the characters! It’s also infiltrated the USA and Canada and one can only hope it will make its way to Australia shores soon. You would not believe how much merchandise you can get. Personally I got a couple of bits and pieces while in Tokyo (notepads, stickers, keychains etc) but at Supanova last year one stall had a giant edamame pillow that I simply could not refuse!

If you’d like to get into mameshiba and their wonderful world, I suggest checking out all of their videos. Then once you’re hooked, you can get all of them as wallpapers! You’d better believe my work desktop now scrolls through all of them throughout the day!

Japan, have I told you lately how aesome and CUTE you are?

A friend of mine pointed me to StyleTread today, which was very convenient as it was only this morning that I looked upon all of my shoes strewn across my bedroom floor, I thought about how badly I need some new, interesting shoes to mix things up a little. I have so many shoes, we’re talking about 50 pairs, but I tend to be a bit samey with a lot of them. Black patent? Pink leather? Sequined flats? I have heaps of ‘em. I guess I tend to just go for what I’m used to, often without really thinking about it. But I need a change! As I browsed through their hundreds of goregeos shows I came across a few that are unlike what I currently own but are still very “Ruby Velour”.

First off is Leo by Diavolina in Black. I love the suede, the wood and the studs. Three sexy textures in one shoe! The heel is just thick enough so I know I would be able walk in these without too much stumbling and the thick sole means enough padding my feet won’t be ready to fall off at the end of the night. Oh and they have grip! Oh how I love the thought of heels with some grip! They are so simple, but definitely not boring. I have about a dozen LBD’s I could team up with these. They’re just $139.95 too.

OK so allow me to explain… I love the 1920s very passionately. I love the fashion, the art, the music and the decadence of the roaring 20s. I swear I was a flapper in a former life, visiting speak easy’s, getting drunk on bootleg liquor with my long pearls, short hair and low-backed dress. I absolutely adore in these shoes (Louisiana by I Love Billy in Black/grey) and would wear them with so much. Just because they look like they’re from the 20s, doesn’t mean you can only dress like you’re from the era when wearing them. Because of the colours you could wear them with just about anything. Personally I have a few black and white dresses that would look outstanding with these and at $89.95 I may well just have to get them.

And now for the totally ridiculous! Please welcome Faya by RMK in black! I was only talking to a fiend recently about the ghetto fabulous boots that used to be around in the early – mid Noughties. These are by far the most ghetto-fabulous yet completely wearable type I have ever seen. They’re hiking boots, with sexy heels. Aaaah it’s a match made in heaven for me. So impractical and fun, I think these would look amazing with black skinny jeans. I honestly don’t know what I own that would suit these, but I am sure I can work something out! The brown ones are also very special. These babies are $189.95.

So you’d think that now I’m well and truly in my late 20s that I’d stop having themed parties. WELL YOU’RE WRONG. I love having themed parties, but not just one of those boring decade parties (like 80′s parties or the dreaded flapper/gangster parties you see everywhere) but really specific ones. Like out Doomed Lovers party for Valentines Day one year (Anthony and I were Rihanna and Chris Brown) and our excellent Superheroes on a Budget party! For my birthday this year I decided I’d go for Vampires since I missed out on Halloween this year thanks to the zombie walk (and boy am I sick of zombies these days). I’ve loved vampires for years, especially the old ones starring Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as well as the recent, sexy TV shows like True Blood and yes, even Vampire Diaries.

I knew it was going to be a smaller sort of party considering it was on the last weekend before Christmas (damn having a birthday on December 23rd) but that didn’t stop me from going all out on decorating the place. I got some awesome vampire decorations from Martha Stewart’s Halloween range from Scrapbook.com and I also had a lot of help from my mum who made gravestones out of cardboard and cut out dozens of bat shapes before spending hours making almost 100 mini cupcakes with me the night before. I scoured the internet in the weeks leading up to the party looking for good ideas but found few that weren’t totally tacky and/or aimed at children. So we just used fake spiderwebs, lots of bats and dark decor to make my unit look like Dracula’s lair and had lots of red foods and drinks to keep the theme. It was so much fun to set up, but I was totally beat before the party even started. I might try not to go so crazy for my next party, I think (haha yeah right).

WHAT I WORE:

Dress: From Retro Metro, Paddington (I think it was some sort of costume as they had heaps in various colours)

Boots: Bought off a good friend who got them from Pulp – an amazing investment!

Gloves: From Adornments, Paddington.

Necklace: Not sure, probably from Diva or somewhere similar.

Hat: From my sister – from Dollars & Sense of all places!

Hair: My trusty extensions from Price Attack

Stockings: Ambra from David Jones (the best fishnets ever, I assure you).

And just for fun here are few snaps taken during the night (hover for descriptions):

Oh and in case you’re wondering how I got such kickarse vampire teeth, you’ll want to check out Dracula House. We got the werewolf fangs as there are four teeth which seemed like a good investment. They stick with this weird putty stuff that sets and become small plates that come out easily but stay put amazingly too. Don’t try and use these with crazy acrylic nails like I did – they stick like shit to a blanket! Get someone else to put them in for you, which is probably the best way to do it anyway as you may end up throwing many tantrums if you try and do it by yourself!

See the rest of the photos on my Facebook gallery.