zombies marching through halloween misguidedly as schoolgurls

I cannot begin to tell you how much I adore the gorgeous Brighton. From the first time I set foot here, I fell in love with it and decided it was where I was going to stay. It's been slightly more than a month since I left Cambridge and slowly built up my lair, and wander about the place exploring the multifarious delights it has to offer whilst I await my work visa. This year, for the fourth year running, Brighton held its annual Beach of the Dead, where zombies were to march about town. The Best Friend was planning to celebrate Halloween in Brighton, so I googled about for things to do, knowing full well that Brighton wouldn't disappoint me. Indeed, I discovered the event, and rather frantically, we began to plan for it. Being a last-minute thing and because I was tied up with a few other stuff, we didn't have much time to fully execute our costumes. Smugly, we decided we'd go as Zombie Schoolgurls-- the easiest look, right? The night before, she was texting me excitedly how many items she'd bought. At 1pm the next day, I left the soup to simmer on the stove and walked to the station to pick her up. . .

roll on your red socks & rock your mini

The thing about women is that we invariably tend to link outfits with occasions in our memory-- e.g. "Oh! THAT event, I remember now, you were wearing (insert shoes) and (insert dress)"-- or worse still, have an extremely acute recollection of the last time we wore some item. This condition is particularly accentuated when you have enough pieces to last you at least three years if you wore a different look every day without buying anything new. I know how I tell my mother or D that I have worn something before "three times!" triumphantly, and they'd go "Oh, great achievement huh?". Well, there are people with loads of clothes sitting in their wardrobes still with the tag on from five years ago-- clothes they bought but do not dare to wear out because they have some mental lookbook in their head following the diktats of Latest Trends Everybody Wears, which really defeats the purpose of even buying anything. I maintain that my ethos is still much healthier. Hey, at least the clothes get worn! And as long as I remain the same size (fingers crossed!) it should all be alright. One danger of having too many clothes, though, is that if you suddenly pluck something out and wear it, you'd get questioned "Is that new? I have never seen it before" and a big smile lights up your face whilst you recall how happy you were to discover that piece in some boutique or jumble sale or the oohing and ahhing your best friend and you did over that, whilst doing mental sums and jumping up in semi-fright at how time has passed by.

"No! It was six years ago! I got it for Christmas during the Mango sales, and I picked it up from this branch in__ and. . ." was my latest retort. I was telling the truth. Well, I'll be honest, sometimes I still wear clothes I bought at 12 (err. . they look good still!), which was a bone-chilling twelve years ago. I figured that if Wear History all the time with vintage clothes and pieces from my grandmother and mother, why not old pieces by me. I have a confession to make. Half the time I walk around with no idea what the latest trends are (not that I really care), it is only when I see enough people in a certain Look that it starts to dawn upon me. By which I am even less bothered after being visually desensitised. After all, Latest Faux-En-Vogue (let's face it, loads of them are really ugly and a dime a dozen and often quite boring) always has prices jacked up ridiculously and everybody wears the same thing, the last time I remember wearing uniforms was when I did my ALevels in junior college. Plus I also am attracted to odd stuff-- shiny things, ostentatious decadent looks, curtain prints (yay for wearing curtains!), and humongous jewelry-- way before anyone will start telling me "How are you gonna wear that? It's too __" a.k.a. nobodywearsthem. Well sometimes I am too glad I don't have this StyleDiktatGhoul whispering into my ears as auto-reflex and thus putting the brake on me buying odd stuff. After all, another amazing thing about odd stuff is that if nobody buys them, you'll be guaranteed great bargains during the sales! Well I could write an entire treatise on that.  I also have no idea what goes on during the various Fashion Weeks save for the blogs I surf around-- hail blogosphere education!-- and, well, enough confessions for now. Inspired by the lovely stylish Collette of Statements in Fashion's upcoming RE-Style section where she discusses re-wearing clothes bought eons ago and even charmingly labels their ages in a photograph, I thought, why not!  I trawled up old photographs of the other times I wore certain pieces-- a way to examine how you've evolved or revisit ways of styling something. My first attempt-- a colourful printed mini I wore recently; and then back in July 2008. Well, actually the only two times I've worn it.

derelict markets

There are some things that seem to last forever; and no, they don't have to be diamonds of which their alleged perpetuity really is part of a clever DeBeers marketing campaign back in the day. I remember this bangle which I had at 2-- set in Indian stones which I used to play dress-up with. It remains near and dear to me. The Mother's collection of belts, too, which probably are older than I am-- gorgeous vintage exquisite leather belts that I know I should purchase rather than my nonsensical knockoffs. I remember wearing pom-pom or anklet socks as a child too-- something that could be found at every shop in some housing estate in Singapore, but now only to be found in sex stores online. Or the choker I made from fabric roses in pots at home whilst studying for my A-Levels, thereby rendering all the fake flower pots bald during that period. Slightly less far back in memories would be this dress. One morning in Brisbane my cousin and I hopped onto a train to the factory outlet complex. A few hours and kebabs later I left satiated whilst wondering how I would fit everything to bring to Melbourne. This dress was one of the hauls. I even remember that it was only AUD$10. That's how happy I was with it.