I gotta say ...

I'm not feeling the love from my fellow Lemms here. Sam's having exams and is therefore exempt, but Sue has been silent for millennia -- what's the deal, Sue? Nobody signed up for the all-Zen all-the-time clothes blog!

Sadly I appear to be the only one who is boliao enough to be posting here, so y'all will just have to put up with me. I haven't been posting for a while because I just had a week's holiday Berlin and then raced to Cambridge to attend my boyfriend's graduation ceremony.

Neither was an especially fashion-focused event, but I did manage to take some pictures which may be of interest ...


I tried on -- but did not buy -- these shoe boots in an H&M in Berlin. I'm surprised I haven't seen them on other fashion blogs already. I think they are adorable!



Speaking of adorable, check out the print on this dress I saw hanging outside a secondhand clothes shop near Warschauer Strasse station. It was only 4 euros. I'm not sure why I didn't buy it -- perhaps a concern that, not being much of a gamer, I'd just be posin' if I wore it.

Close-up of the print:


Berlin is home to lots of interesting graffiti. Here are two images seen on walls that I wished I could screenprint onto a T-shirt.




The pensive monster was actually on the wall of a T-shirt shop, but there were no T-shirts featuring it inside the shop. False advertising. :(

Back in England, I took some bad pictures of pretty people at the graduation ceremony. The fun thing about graduations is that there are lots of different sorts of people at them, and you get to see what they each consider to be appropriate dress for a graduation. Several impressive hats and saris, but I was struck by the simplicity and prettiness of this woman's outfit.


I know I find this attractive simply because I like muted blues and purples, but I wonder whether it also helps that the woman wearing it has short pale blonde hair? Short pale blonde hair seems to help wonderfully if you are trying to look chic. Witness Agyness Deyn.

Less elegant but more interesting -- I was impressed by this woman's gold-and-pale-blue damask suit.



You can't see it very well because Grey Cardigan got in the way -- grr! -- but it's actually a jacket over a dress. The dress is plain pale gold on the top; the blue patterning action only begins at the bottom of the dress.

Finally, a photo unrelated to any of the things above.


Seen in an Oxfam shop. The reverse of this T-shirt features a small Singapore flag -- I already knew, of course, because of the use of the word 'prata'.

- Zen

Fashion anime? Puhleez

Am not especially impressed by the anime short Superflat First Love, launched by Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami to mark six years of collaboration: news via Catwalk Queen.





The animation is high-quality and the art OK, but the obsession with and glorification of an expensive monogram isn't something that moves me. If we're talking bright colours, squeaky noises and Japanese whimsy, give me Katamari Damacy any day.





Ahhh. I challenge you to watch that and NOT feel your heart lift. It isn't possible. Katamari Damacy reminds one that beauty can exist in this world.

If only the T-shirts were sold in the UK! I guess I could order it off that website, but postage would be killer.







If you could commission people to design your life I would want mine to be designed by this dude.

- Zen

Skirts that go with T-shirts

I've been on a dress kick after years of lounging around in T-shirts, but after picking up a couple of oversized T-shirts for a song at Zara, my interest in them has been reignited. They're surprisingly versatile. Under a cardigan and belt, they are reasonably convincing dresses; they add lightness when tucked into a ladylike calf-length tweed skirt; they are super comfy when worn with tracksuit bottoms as sleepwear. But most of all, with a scarf, a pair of jeans and Converses -- I may look like a misguided hipster kid, but damn it, I am comfortable!

So when I saw that Threadless was having a sale, with their super cool graphic T-shirts going at US$5, it seemed an opportunity too good to miss.

Having dithered and finally settled on three T-shirts from the site, I started wondering how I'd wear my T-shirts. I only have two wearable pairs of jeans, and I'm very lazy about laundry, so there had to be some other option for when both pairs were in the wash.

So I went to H&M and tried on about half a million things I thought might possibly go with graphic tees.

I liked this A-line skirt the best, not least because it had a really mod feel, with the shape and the double row of buttons down the front.


This was the right size; I checked to make sure once I'd put it on, because damn, it was tight! It wasn't bad, I guess -- it didn't make my tummy look quite as obvious as it seems from the photos -- but overtly sexy is not really my style. For one thing, I like being able to sit down.

I was enchanted by this frilly mint-green skirt when I saw it on the rack, but when I put it on I didn't like it quite as much.

High-waisted poofy bubble skirt! I couldn't decide if I liked this or felt it was just too much. It's actually a very demure, non-shiny cotton, though the lighting makes it look as if it's made of PVC.

Blue-and-white striped denim skirt, though you can't see the stripes in the crappy light. Was pretty meh about this; I like the buttons, but dislike the sort of squarish shape of the skirt.

My second favourite of the items I tried on was a navy blue pencil skirt. I have mixed feelings about pencil skirts -- as I said, I like being able to sit down and for all my various bumps and concavities to be hidden from the public eye, and pencil skirts don't always cater to those desires. But this one does look quite charming.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that I also tried on harem pants!

Yeah, er, I don't know. From some angles they have a chic slouchiness, but from others they basically look like clown pants.

I did in fact buy one of the items I tried on, but a picture of it + T-shirt in all their glory will have to wait till I actually receive the T-shirts. In the meantime, I'll keep rewearing my Zara T-shirts ...


With optimistic pink shorts! :)

- Zen