Undergrounder

Creature of the late afternoon

Count Orlok*

There's nothing much going on in this outfit - it's all a bit old hat / old bat really - and not much of it visible in the twilight gloom anyway. If you peer at the pictures very closely though, you can just about dimly make out a bit of folderol hanging off the front of me, a Sass & Bide "Undergrounder" harness bought from their warehouse sale ($70, reduced from stratosphere) and worn quite a lot ever since. The overall effect might be more Oldest Goth in Town than strictly desirable, but this thing makes any old t-shirt and leggings combo look as though care was taken, and calculated style decisions made in its (hasty) assembly - this is particularly useful on days where supermarkets are involved, and general care levels are therefore prone to be a tad on the low side.

Small mirror useful for checking for vampires and racoon-style mascara malfunctions

At this juncture can I point out that I am not at all interested in vampires, and not remotely aroused by the prospect of puncture by fang. My teenage fantasies were nourished on a diet of red-blooded swashbuckling pirate romance heroes, thrusting sword in hand and pants - even the extra-dubious "paranormal romances" I occasionally read featured time travelling vikings or space barbarians, perhaps the occasional sexy warlock or something, but vampires - nada. The prospect of a wan, plasma-slurping weirdo without so much as a pulse (let alone a throbbing...anything) was as icky then as it is now. The level of vamp-induced hysteria in this house has always been very much in the (O) negative, so I cannot really explain this state of affairs:

All his own work, as per usual.

Please note special vampire hairstyle

This one is actually a little bit sinister. The Nosferatu thing must be genetic.

Catching up with The Count on Sesame Street

There's one of those orb things that some people think are spirits of the restless dead. And a mystical pair of sheepskin slippers.

The sight of this wee toothy beastie flapping his cape round my house reminds me of my hairdresser (circa 1994) expressing her exasperation at the impossibly condescending and aggravatingly superior attitude of her boyfriend's sixteen year old goth brother. Shaking her head in disbelief, she said "I mean, come on, he was seen wearing fangs on the bus."

*

xx

skye

PS. Everyday average vampire baby. Sweet!

Twinkle Toes

In 1991 I owned these exact same boots in black. In 2010 gold is better, and so is being old enough not to care what anyone thinks about my shiny, shiny feet (or "mummy's golden foots" as a certain miniature human would have it). Also good - these cost me $61 on ebay, and I think the black ones cost me about a week's wages.

My old ikat bag $2 op-shop

In around 1999 I wrote a very undergraduate, probably unforgivably pretentious, and undoubtedly desperately earnest essay about how the internet was like humanity's collective memory, Derrida, rhizome blah blah blah. Now it seems to me it is also like our collective storage-space-at-our-parents'-house, where all manner of detritus from the past can be conjured up with a bit of late night ebay searching and a click of the paypal icon. Sure, most of it should have been dragged to the tip years ago, and almost all of it is pretty tawdry without the golden glow of nostalgia, but once in a very great while something is just as good as we remember it...

xx

Skye

Sea Urchin

Black cashmere jacket - $1 op-shop

Sage green washed silk 90s tank - $6 op shop

Camel pashmina - $2 op-shop

Scanlan & Theodore silk blend cargo pants - $8 op-shop

Brass skeleton earrings - $12 Diva

Black leather lace up boots - $10 op-shop

Very much in street urchin mode at the moment, in a tomboy mood about 75% of the time (at the least) - which is odd, considering the decidedly, ahem, womanly body I'm working of late. Or not working, as the case may be. My body and I have always had an excellent relationship, it is me and I am it and a happy animal altogether. However the last year or so have tested our bond, I'd go so far as to say diplomatic relations are at an all time low. Detente, there is not.

Emo.

Not quite civil war, but certainly neither of us is doing quite right by the other, and where once there was harmony, now there is a general sense of unrest. I am quite sure no one out there is particularly interested in my reproductive travails, so I shall merely say there have been some, and havoc has been wreaked upon my poor old carcass along the way.

Us old carcasses must stick together.

These earrings (from Diva, so no doubt some dubious knock-off-or-other) are great little dude favourites - pirate earrings, of course! A bit of judicious head waggling and I can get them dancing and jigging away in a little sea shanty stylee, like a tiny toddler-pleasing puppet show dangling from my ears. There's still life in these old bones!

More teen angst, about two decades too late.

Dr Phil and the Pop Psychologists (doesn't that sound like a really terrible student band?) would no doubt tell me I'm slouching around with my hands in my pockets, kicking pebbles along like one of those two rapscallions below, precisely because I'm feeling some conflict with my lady business. They might be right, my skirt to trouser ratio has been way down of late, which is not my usual M.O. as any old hands round here would know. That might just be the cold winds blowing in off Port Phillip Bay though.

Sorry, I don't know where I nicked this photo from, has been lurking on my desktop for ages.

I must point out that, but for the skeleton earrings, this entire outfit is op-shopped, most of it from back on the Gold Coast. Melbourne op-shops are still not quite giving me the goods, although I am persisting, and having enough skerricks of good fortune here and there to encourage me to keep fossicking and scavenging like the little truffle piglet I am. These Scanlan & Theodore cargo pants (I think they are supposed to be 3/4 length, but I am a hobbitess) are a case in point. They have some excellent assymetric detailing and panelling which is not really visible here, as I couldn't find a way of photographing my inner thighs in any way which was not:

a. unseemly,

b. reminiscent of over-inflated inner tubes.

Now I'm off to shoot rubber bands at passing cars, throw milk cartons full of water at the neighbour's house, and generally engage in petty thievery, low-grade vandalism, and backchatting of my elders and betters...

xx

skye

PS. Small, round, a bit spiky, all squishy in the middle, found by the seaside. Me and my fellow urchins!