Blue Tempest

Blue eye-shadow inspired by Anna Karina/ Tempest in Blue Tempest

I was on the lookout recently for some pearly powder-blue eye-shadow, for a 60s cat-eye look like Anna Karina in UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME. I suspected I'd have to go to Mac to get the desired shade but to my surprise Max Factor makes it, in a shade called Blue Tempest!

Blue Tempest eye-shadow

If you didn't already know, my name is Tempest, so I felt it was a must-buy. I get lots of questions about my name, here are the routine answers: It is my real name and appears on my birth certificate. My mother is an artist and she named me. She liked the name which belonged to one of my grandmother's friends. It's not common in South Africa and I've never met anyone else with the name, although it is a fairly common surname in the UK. Once I was accused of making a prank call because of my name.

I wore it on the day we went ice-skating:

Ice -skating at Somerset House

On that day a seven year old girl came up to me and asked me where I bought my skirt, because she liked it. Then she ran to her mother and said "oh mummy, please can we go there!" I consider it one of my proudest fashion moments.

The scarf is from a time in my life when I was very much into Japanese street style and thought Harajuku was heaven on earth. I bought it in Tokyo at an amazing multi-story Lolita shop called OIOI, and it was pretty much all I could afford there:

Scarf from Tokyo

Here is a closer look at the outfit. On that particular day the house fell onto its side a bit, which is obviously why all these photos are skew....

Top: Collectif
Skirt: Asos

Oasis is not normally a shop I go into because they only go up to a size 16, so I was surprised that their skirts fit me. The rest of their dresses and tops on sale from the lovely London Love Letters range did not fit me sadly. Here's a look at the streets of London as depicted by illustrator Lizzie Prestt on my skirt:

Detail of my Oasis skirt

This outfit was a great opportunity to debut my cat collar tips:

Collar tips by Feline Fatale

I also wore some pearly earrings from Ebay which match my pearly Asos alice-band.

Pearly accessories

The top from Collectif is not my favourite kind of fabric but it is a nice cut. I like things that are fitted at the waist and flare.

Here is a pic of Mr Zissou demonstrating some hot moves on the ice. He was really into rollerblading in the parking-lot of malls as a teenager (weren't we all) so as soon as he was on the ice, moves like the "moon grab" came back to him.

The  Moon Grab? Ice Crab?

Here are some more views of London in the heart of winter from my Instagram (@ello_mennopee) feed:

Instagram feed: snow covered London and an abandoned, frozen monkey

And since my last outfit post featured my two warmest coats, here is my medium coat from Betty Jackson Black at Debenhams, in a cemetery on a dreary day. It was the coat I bought when I first arrived in London with nothing warm, so I was looking for something that was minimum 70% wool,  in a versatile colour other than black. I think teal goes with everything from blacks to browns, and so would dark emerald green.

Cemetery blues...
Coat: Betty Jackson Black
Faux fur collar: Asos
Bag: vintage

The collar is of course faux; I don't wear real fur at all although I used to, thinking that no new animals were being killed if I wore only vintage fur. It dawned on me though that even if the fur is vintage I still may be contributing to its overall desirability and inadvertently promoting the market for new fur. I believe that in Siberia where temperatures get down to -40 degrees Celsius in winter (or -70 in extreme cases) the only way for humans to survive is to wear real fur, as it just cannot be beaten by modern fabrics.  In London, and certainly in South Africa, this is just not the case, so I'm happy to support retailers who produce a variety fun fauxs. Ironically I think it's sometimes even more expensive to buy faux than real, because I've seen mounds of vintage mink stoles that won't even sell for a few pounds. FAUX PRIDE!