that girl

I have two very finely in-ground obsessions right now. First of which is Justin Timberlake (please don't get me started, it's bad enough that he's coming here on my birthday and the amount of money I have is less than satisfactory) and the second of which is Ulyana Sergeenko's Haute Couture S/S 2013 Lookbook:




I'm not sure if it's the color scheme or what but I'm hooked. I'm channeling a lot of (gothic-inspired) Gone with the Wind vibes. It's a damn shame that fashion trends nowadays tend to be less cumbersome than they were in, oh say, the '60s (and when I say that I mean the 1860s (why can't you italicize numbers??))

Sources: Here and here.

The next few pics are from her Fall 2011 collection which radiates '30s and '50s pin-up-y looks:

Sources from top: Here, here, and here.

I really admire this collection so much because I myself adore vintage inspired collections. However, I also like that she has a very distinct touch to every outfit. The shoes, for example, in the second picture down don't really go with the vintage-y vibe but it works well. The emphasis on the big poofy skirts is a lot more prominent than the bodice in each outfit. Nothing is too glittery or overdone but it's not what I would call minimalistic. The poofy sleeves are another branding of her collections that make them unique. The eye is instantly drawn to the sleeves as well as the elaborate skirts. Her 2013 Lookbook is a lot more dramatic than her fall collection as is noted by the sallow cheeks and neutral makeup. In this way, I have definitely noticed that she takes many elements from the past and incorporates them into her own eclectic mix of ideas.  Ulyana has her own blog where she posts images of her work (she is also a photographer) as well as other fashion related posts.

Cry-Baby Walker

I was in Denver for my spring break (or what was left of it) but spent a day in Boulder where I went vintage-ing at this store called Goldmine. My life literally ends when I can't fit into a 1972 pair of baby blue super flares or a long sleeved, button up, Gunne Sax blouse. SMALL SIZES ARE OVER!! To channel my inner Victorian vibes, I like to sweat it out on Etsy where there is literally nothing you can't find. I'm gonna name my first born child Etsy because I'm just doin' me ya kno?? Etsy. So far, I'm looking at the Gunne Sax tag and everything just looks like something Laura Ingalls Wilder would wear???? Can we not????? I'M CHANNELING GOTH VIBES NOT 1860'S PILGRIM IDK UGH. Do I even know the definition of a pilgrim ((probably not)).

1970s Gunne Sax Pale Blue Gown (not available anymore but here's the shop)

It's a damn shame this dress sold but I don't think I would've even bought it due to the fact that I rarely buy anything over 30 dollars ((cus I'm a bargain shopper let's face it)) unless it's imperative (i.e. the entirety of this shop).

Top and bottom: This gleaming shop I mentioned previously

I have no idea what to do when these things come into my life because I'm 16 and unemployed ((maybe not for long though because things might be looking up for this job opening at Cafe Patachou!!!)) so money is always TBA.

If any of you are aware of my tumblr, I posted pictures of my DIY Peplum Skirt ((thanks Marlena!)) that I ((made out of a bedsheet)) really wanna show off! Sidenote: Should I change my URL/Title to Narcissist Nina?? That pretty much sums up my life.





xox Nina

ringo starr

From top: Harold and Maude, fsgkjhd, Marie Antoinette as a child, Kirsten Dunst in Sofia Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette', Hall of Mirrors, Serpentina

despite all my rage i am still just nicolas cage

SHALLO! I'm actually not that sorry that I haven't blogged in awhile because I just recently realized that I should never blog when it starts to feel like a chore. I was really stressed about that for a few weeks and I just feel like I have so many obligations when I actually don't. I go to school, come home, do minimal amounts of homework, and practice piano (if I'm not feeling lazy). Sometimes I think that my outfits during the school week aren't "good enough" to post on here. In my head, blogging just seems like such a difficult task (WHEN IT ACTUALLY IS IF YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT IT). I gotta get out my mom's Canon, go in the basement and get the tripod, move shit out of the way by my bedroom window so I can take some pictures with natural ACTUAL light and not that orange-y light in my bathroom that gives you a headache and makes you wanna just turn off all the lights and light candles. I feel like I'm overthinking it but I really don't think I am.

Throwback for a sec. So you all know how I kinda sorta got scammed from this jank Korean wholesale website called Sammydress(?). Well the reason I say that I *sorta* got scammed is primarily because I stated how if they do send you something in the mail it's possibly a cheap fake(?). (p.s. sorry bout all the parenthetical question marks lolz).Well I believe this brodie right here got supplied with a PSEUDO FAUX BROKEASS FAKE. To be honest, I don't really know if it is the real deal or some pseudo-faux-brokeass BS. Shortly after purchasing the dress, I stumbled across arabelle's tumblr and wide-eyed some FW 2012 Dolce & Gabbana glory.

Literally, I cannot stress this enough; if you cut off the sleeves in the second picture (god forbid) and lengthened the bodice, you would have my dress. The trim and the Michelangelo inspired mosaic print go hand-in-hand. The heavens were in my favor that day because someone who loves me obviously wanted me to buy that dress before I even knew about this collection.

FURTHERMORE. I can't believe I haven't talked about this earlier but gUESS WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND IS GOING TO EUROPE THIS SUMMER. YEP. THIS GUY. My school (and probably a gazillion different high schools) has a program that isn't exactly studying abroad but more like a "hey pay a couple thou and youll b on ur way 2 europe corndawgie" trip. My mom has the brochure explaining the trip in her car but it's five nights in France and three nights in England (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) excluding the two days on a plane. This is a HUGE deal for me because (1) I've never been outside the country and (2) IT'S PARIS AND LONDON COME ON DO YOU ACTUALLY THINK I'M ABOUT TO PASS UP THIS OPPORTUNITY?!!!!!!!!!!!???????? I figured that during this time I probably won't be blogging but instead taking many beautiful pictures of Normandy, my meticulously planned outfits, and Versailles (and about a thousand other sites that I will then fangirl about). I think this trip will be an eye opener and a culture shock and just an all around enlightening experience for me. In all retrospect, I figured that this time away will help me grow as a person and hopefully allow me to utilize my amateur French-speaking skills rather than unsuccessfully cursing people out in said language.

Yesterday, I went to goodwill with sydney and thrifted this wonderful Isaac Mizrahi, color blocked (literally), suede number. Sydney actually suggested that I buy it since it wouldn't fit her and I happily obliged. 

 Heels: Jellypop

 Checkered skirt: Thrifted (Goodwill)

A couple years ago I would've probably thought that this skirt was a gaudy piece of work (cus i mean converse, heavy eyeliner, and rubber rainbow bracelets were edgy as it was). Great find sydney! ^-^

Nina x

16 candles

So it actually took quite a bit out of me to sit down and not be a butthead and actually blog rather than rant about online scams. I don't know why I'm so awful at following up with things in general, it's in my genes I guess. Or jeans, whichever will probably work. I literally come home, get on tumblr, compulsively check my grades, and don't do my homework. That's about right. So last week was actually my birthday (FINALLY 16 BREAK OUT THE CIGARETTES AND-- wait nevermind) and I was planning on writing this post a lot earlier. But thanks to finals and the fact that we'll all be dead tomorrow, I decided to do it now whilst I'm not at school. The Sunday before my birthday, my mom and her boyfriend took me out to eat and got me the most wonderful Tiffany's bracelet a precocious teenage girl would most certainly enjoy. My mom told me she would get me a corsage to wear to school on my birthday cus apparently that's what they did when she was growing up. Instead, I made a wonderful, Rookie-inspired, flower crown! PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

It's really hard for me to take a picture with a serious expression as you can probably tell.

 I actually made this detachable collar awhile ago but never mustered up the ability to actually put it on. I really like this outfit because pastels and greatness and sequins and candy hearts. I have another detachable collar that's white with the same red hearts (seen on my dress in this photo) and little pinkish, ivory-ish, pearls lining the bottom of it. I put them on my tumblr and Rookiemag reblogged it which I was (and still am) very excited about.

Dress: from Charlotte; Collar: handmade

This'll probably be a really long post seeing it is that I have numerous amounts of pictures from various birthday events. Well maybe just one really awesome event. My school has something called open mic club where anyone can come and read poetry, sing, do stand-up, drop some mad beats, eat cookies, drink juice, etc. It's supposed to be once a month and I usually just bring my keyboard or guitar. Or I just go and watch and talk to people. It was really nice cus they all sang happy birthday to me and my boyfriend came and and and and it was just really amazing, what a wonderful 16th birthday present. I took a buttload of pictures there (along with some embarrassing selfies) of the various talents that went and performed. 

It was Christmas sweater themed and an all around spectacle. I brought my guitar and sang 'My Number' by Tegan and Sara which I was supposed to do with Megan but she got there kinda late. This was the first open mic I've been to where people actually read poetry which was incredibly rad because I would be way too nervous to basically read my diary out loud (.....that's what poetry is right).

**SCAM ALERT**

HELLO EVERYONE THIS WILL BE KIND OF AN ANGRY POST SO MIND THE CAPS.
So I haven't blogged in like two weeks for a lot of reasons. The first reason is because all of the choirs at my school participated in this huge, holiday extravaganza, winter choir concert. That took up a lot of my time along with finals coming up after this weekend. THE SECOND REASON ANGERS ME THE MOST. A few months ago I discovered this wholesale, Korean, online web-store called Sammydress. I know what you're thinking, why would I even bother with something that sounds so sketch (BELIEVE ME, I WAS ASKING MYSELF THE SAME THING). Everything on there "claimed" to be between five and ten dollars. There were a lot of other websites out there like Sammydress but the shipping was outrageous, ranging between 20-25 dollars because of its shipping location somewhere in Central Asia. I then stumbled across Sammydress.com which had a very different, but unique, shipping method. They ship their items based on the overall weight of the order. Part of me thought it was too good to be true at first (I later figured out it was), but I said to hell with it. So getting back to the second reason I hadn't been blogging, I was waiting to show you guys this dress I actually ordered from there grand totaling $17.46 (including shipping). Before I say anything else, I just want to show everyone how incredibly duped I was. I found this post on Yahoo! Answers, answering the question of if Sammydress is a legitimate website, and it completely sums up the overall foolery of this money-guzzling garbage disposal of a "web-store". If you don't want to read that novel of an answer, I can basically just tell you. Sammydress is a fake website pretending to sell cheap merchandise. The reason it looks so legit is because they have all the information that skeptic buyers want to see (including myself). Below is a screenshot of the bottom of their website where it can tell you all sorts of "legitimate" company information. Also, the icons at the bottom suggest to the buyer that they have different means of shipping and payment (which they DO NOT because they will simply take your money and sometimes won't even bother to supply you with a fake). Besides getting mad and contacting the organization itself, I've only decided to make this post as a helpful tool to keep everyone away from scams such as this. Hopefully this post was helpful to all of you and I'm sorry I've been M.I.A. for awhile (I won't be anymore ^-^).

Nina x

queen me

So I took these pictures yesterday but couldn't find the energy capacity to actually upload them. BLOGGING PROBZ UGH. I got this baby blue blouse (you can see where my English-10 alliteration skills come in handy) at Modcloth over the summer during their end-of-the-summer-hurrah sale. I was kind of disappointed about the overall quality and sheerness of the shirt (but who am I kidding, it was 13 dollars). The dangly pieces of fabric in the front are actually two separate pieces that are attached to each shoulder. When I first bought the shirt, the pieces came together in the middle held only in place by a single thread. I had a pretty good feeling that it would eventually come out after I'd washed it a few times (it did), so now I hold it in place with a bobby pin. Oh, and there are also some minor holes behind each of the fabric pieces. I guess this is what 13 dollars on Modcloth buys me. If it would have been some Esther Williams inspired dress, then I probably would've cried.

I got these shorts at Forever 21 for probably around 16 or 17 dollars. They're ridiculously cute (AND high-waisted) but I wish I could've gotten a better picture 'cause it was already getting dark outside (even though it was only like 6 o'clock) by the time I was ready to take pictures of these hot pants and the lighting started to get icky. These shorts pretty much spawned from the same womb as my Modcloth shirt. One of the buttons had fallen off so I tried to sew it back on, but when I did that with my machine, the needle cracked it in half. Using my half-ass sewing abilities, I tried sewing on a little heart-shaped button that was about the same color as the other buttons, but it fell out a week later.  You let me down Forever 21 (not that they hadn't before, pff).

 Hopefully in the coming months I'll be able to get a job so I can actually buy some decent clothes rather than buying a bunch of semi-cute, wadded up items on the clearance rack.

Nina x

I am the illegitimate child of Gwen Stefani.

So yesterday I felt kind of special because I looked totally fab in this outfit I threw together. I think I can easily vouch for a lot of people by saying that online shopping is Satan himself. Since when was clashing ever a fashion "don't"? I find that it looks both appealing to the eye (I mean c'mon, just look at me) and it's just so fun to wear. I couldn't help but feel like Ms. Bellum (sp?) in these photos because her face was always hidden by her huge red fro. I feel like she'd either look like Scarlett Johansson or Christina Hendricks. And she had a great bod as well. Kinda adds to the suspense I guess. 

Dress from Target; Top; vintage (from Etsy)

There was also a No Doubt pin on my collar but it fell off and now I hate myself. Just pretend that Gwen's bleached hair is strategically placed next to my Dresden Dolls pin.