Playing Dress-Up: Suzy Bishop

1. Vintage binoculars on Etsy $25-$250 // 2.Tara Jarmon peter-pan collar dress $460 // 3. Cicada earrings on Etsy $25 // 4. MAC eyeshadow in Aquadisiac $15 // 5. Vintage tackle basket on Etsy $50 // 6. Portable record player on Etsy $70-$300 // 7. Jeffrey Campbell saddle shoes $115 // 8. Falke London knee socks $24 // 9. Vintage books and handwritten love letters on Etsy $5-$35

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This is probably going to be my Halloween costume this year! Not surprising, right? I'm just so thrilled to have another Wes Anderson female character to emulate. I've wanted to re-do Margot since I embodied her several years ago, but recycling ideas seemed cheap, especially for a Halloween über-enthusiast like me. 

So yea, Suzy! 

 

{ scene from Moonrise Kingdom }

Of course, I will find a way to MacGyver most of it and keep my budget to a minimum. I'll scour Value Village over the next couple of weeks, and maybe pick up the odd Etsy item to round it out. 

Hubby is obvi going as my pre-teen love-interest, Sam Shakusky. It will involve a hearty face-shave (i'm nervous). We both get to pretend to be 13 again. Pretty cute, since we were 13 when we first met on a yellow school bus.

Photos coming soon!

p.s. I even curated a little Etsy treasury for more great Wes Anderson costume inspiration!

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Additional image credits: Collage by me, Portable record player via Ubiquity Records, Cicada Earrings via The Village Idiot, Binoculars via Bruneau vs Bennett

l'halloween!

We can't disappoint. Not now. Not after 6 years of blood-sweat-and-hot-glue costume-making.

My mother says she knew Alex was "the one" when he agreed to be hauled half way across town to a costume party. In May. Several months yet until Halloween. After only 2 months of dating. Surely a boy with this much enthusiasm for playing dress-up was meant for me. Match! Made! In! Heaven!

We even discovered that we had both painstakingly (and separately) recreated separate characters from The Royal Tenenbaums on the same Halloween BEFORE WE EVEN MET (ahem, the second/adult time). That year I cut seven whole inches off my (then blonde) hair mere minutes before a party and smoked half a pack of cigarettes (I was a non-smoker) so as to be unfailingly Margot.

He already had the hair. And the sad eyes. A perfect Richie. Or so I'm led to believe. Without proper photographic evidence, I can only speculate.

Knowing his dedication to Halloween (he's a purist), I'd betcha he was spot on.

Maybe we'd have (re)met this way, instead of via a fated newspaper photo:

Perfect.

But ever since we did meet (against not quite as heartbreaking a soundtrack) we planned out our costumes each summer, scouring thrift shops, trimming wigs, sewing faux fur, and hot-gluing 1000s of sequins late into the fall. We earned ourselves a nice little reputation for our costumes. A retrospective:

2006: Black & White (yep, this is a full-colour un-touched photo!) 

2007 Pan + Hook

2008 Mr. Tumnus + The White Witch

2009 - Fisherman + Lunch

2010 Katy + Russell

This year, however, we somehow lost our spirit. It was just days before the big day when I decided: NO, we can't skip Halloween. What? Us? No. So we decided on a costume that would be simple, require no sewing, gluing, or epic shopping trips. Our costumes cost $15 each and only required a little planning and painting. Cheap, yes. Simple, sure.

But yeah, 2 days of straight painting due to the unexpected transparency of the cheap craft acrylic. Sigh.

We have a penchant for self-torture. How very appropriate. I think, in the end, we were glad we didn't snub best-day-of-the-year. The result was pretty cool:

 

 

Maybe next year we'll just buy big gorilla masks.

Yeah... no. I may or may not have a few ideas up my sleeve for next year. Easy this time. Really.

3 Things.

OK, it's not Wednesday yet, but I already have three things to love this week! 

ONE •

Dolce Vita shoes-shoes-shoes! They're actually affordable. Y'know, for people who have real jobs (my shoe-money these is limited to getting the heels fixed on last year's purchases).

So maybe I'm a tad tall for 5" platforms. "...and I want to be 5'10" like Cindy Crawford." (Clueless) Be careful what you wish for, sister. I'm pushing 6'3 in some of these babies. Whatever, I could pull off 6'3", right? They're too, too yummy. ATTTTTAAAACK of the 50 Foot Woman!

TWO ••

Gelaskins "Peeking Under Leafs" skin. I need a skin for my newly inherited Powerbook, to keep it scratch-free for the day when Joey might need it back. Honourable mentions to: "Kurumachi" and "Toxicity". Ok so actually, I can't decide. Also, problem: the laptop I have is 15" and they seem to only have 12" skins for Powerbooks. Hm.

THREE •••

Fall! Ahhh, cool weather, crunchy leaves, scarves and saturated colour! And... Halloween! And... the Royal Winter Fair. Oh, and we were married in the fall and it was lovelier than words can describe. Yeah, so obviously, I looooove this season.

[ photos: shopdolcevita.com, gelaskins.com, and the lovely Courtney Price (wedding), all others by me/Alex ]

Good, good things!

I have news.

But I can't tell you. Argh. Oversharing would be detrimental, considering my news is only probable/most-likely rather than fully confirmed. To share now would mean extra super-duper heartbreak for me if it didn't happen. I must not get my hopes up. I should know definitively about both job-related news items in a matter of days. But for now: ziiiiip!

We have been laying low lately - Alex had two shows last week, and I've been extra productive with all of my millions of sewing/writing/job-hunting/dog-petting tasks. My "Best Sex Shops in Toronto" post went up this week. Check it out here. Gotta say, I hope my family/in-laws DO NOT read it, as it definitely has some anecdotal parts that are best left a mystery to those folks. But, *sigh*, my mother has probably already read it twice.

Miss M and I checked out Girl and Boy: A 90s Dance Party at Clinton's on Friday. While fun, I admit that post-dancing nightcaps at her house were much more so. A product of oldness? No pics to remember it by, but the taste of Sweet Tea vodka still lingers. Have you tried this? It's fantastic! Especially with Ginger Ale. Oh wait, I did take ONE photo, in the bathroom stall at Clinton's:

Graffiti warning: " Halloween is on its f*cking way. Pick your costume." A harsh reminder that I do NOT have a Halloween costume yet. Not even a clue! Alex and I are usually on this by August. We love playing dress-up. Sadly, we may have to be ghosts, or something equally as cheap to pull off. Our usual $100 budget ain't happening.

So we didn't do ANYTHING for Nuit Blanche. Are we pathetic or what? But really, I found the whole thing to be so underwhelming for two years in a row, and we were exhausted. So Indian Food and movies won out. Of course. Predictable.

 [ via BlogTO.com ]

Oh, and another good thing: Alex and I spent Sunday the way Sundays SHOULD be spent: ghetto-breaky at Future Bakery (the site of our very first date) followed by lazy strolling/biking/window-thrift-shopping. Alex bought the most amazing Ben Sherman jacket with a Winners credit note he had from ages ago, and we traded in clothes at Common Sort. I managed to score 75 buckeroos in store credit and Alex opted for cash. I spent 12 of mine on a western-style floral shirt. Sooo pretty. Lots of spending "money" left for some good fall thrift shopping. This is really the only shopping I can do lately! Check out my BlogTO review of Common Sort here. 

[ Common Sort by Dennis Marciniak ]

We ended our weekend with shrimp quesadillas and a few episodes of Mad Men on Netflix. Ahhh, good times!

Killing time now before bootcamp. I should have been on a date with Cathie, but we opted to cancel because of rain. Biking to Exhibition Place from my house in the rain was not my idea of a swell time. Nope. Although I'm a tad bummed to miss the TFI Pop-Up Designer Sale. It was one-day-only. Might have been depressing to not be able to spend anyway.

That's news, folks. Until I can spill the REAL beans, of course.

In Sweet Thing Land, the boys have a few odd shows planned here and there, and there has been some chatter about the next single/video, but it's otherwise unusually quiet (for now). The biggest piece of excitement is a stadium show with Metric next month! Yay! We're crossing our fingers to hear more good news about some show/tour dates for later this year... stay tuned.

In the meantime, I swiped this eye candy from Much Music's site (Tyler and Owen serving lemonade at a charity event last month):

[ via muchmusic.com ]

Yup, that's all.

XO