Lithia Black's wardrobe: Rescued and Resurrected #2

EXPERIMENTS WITH MORI KEI

Another insanely productive and demanding year in college is finished and I've finally landed from all the stress and press alas there are lust and time for blogging again. I've created lots of thing during my schoolyear, but I will show you, dear readers, all about them in later posts. This post is about my first try of adding even one more style to my eclectic style palette, mori kei!

I've been attracted to the whimsical mori kei style since I stumbled across it last summer, but I had a hard time handling the rather loose fitting silhouette, being a full busted curvy viking woman, not a tiny little waify asian girl. But when I and M was in Spain last summer during a massive heat wave, I bought a linen dress at the market, in white from an Italian lagenlook brand. It was a huge step for me, I've never attempted dressing in all white/light colours and loose fit before. But I realised that it wasn't so unflattering as I first thought. And in 40 degrees Celsius and blasting sun, it was really comfortable to wear something that actually allowed air to circulate along my body.


A rather blurry photo of me in the lagenlook dress, taken late in the evening. I think I'm trying to give M directions about something...

When I got home, I found myself pairing it with longsleeve tops, knitted sweaters and boleros, grey thick tights and a white petticoat, still loving it all autumn and winter. Loose fit and light colours wasn't so dangerous!

So when I stumbled across this tunic in a recent thrifting spree, I decided it was time to add more breezy, loose clothing to my wardrobe:

The thrifted tunic on the right, a broken blouse from my RR-stash on the left.


Close up of the fabrics

The tunic looked cute as it was but I decided that I wanted to make it mine by adding to it. I used material from the chequered blouse and added pockets and a bow at the back. I also added a ruffle at the bottom, made from a broderie anglaise duvet cover I found at yet another thrifting spree last summer.The broderie anglaise trim was also rescued from the same duvet cover. The pockets and the bows was made from the sleeves of the blouse and those had a button tabs that kept them rolled up. I looked at those tabs, they were so cute somehow, and decided that I wanted too use them on the tunic. I played around with placement and finally decided to use one as a whimsical detail at the front and the other as the center piece on the bow. To top it all off I aded som mother of pearl buttons I had in the stash. And I love the final result!

But now I was on a roll. I decided that I needed something to wear under the tunic, I tried with my white petticoat but I didn't like the look, so I made a pair of pants/bloomers of the remaining broderie anglise from the duvet cover. They are Plinka pants, a pattern designed by Tina Givens (can be downloaded for free if you register to her site). I've modified the pattern in the crotch area, the original is super baggy drop crotch, something I hate so I used my standard loose fit trouser crotch instead. I also made the bottom ruffle wider than specified in the pattern, skipped the bottom facing due to thickness of the material (the serger is a saviour in those situations) added a separate elasticated waistband and omitted the pockets and the little patch. And gosh, I love these pants. They are super comfy and I love that if I stand with my legs together it looks like I'm wearing a skirt.

The tunic and pants together? It's an outfit to be happy,giddy and whimsical in. I feel like putting on rubber boots and jump in water puddles :P
M, my trusty photographer,had a hard time capturing these following photos, because yours truly was feeling so giddy that I couldn't stand still ;)

Clickning at the photos makes them bigger, as usual.