Fourth Daughter retrospective
Talking myself up is something I am extremely bad at, as I was reminded today when I was asked to prepare for a little informal presentation to the Social Studio at the end of June. I’m going to be talking about working at Vogue Nippon in Tokyo, the Fair Trade project I did with People Tree, kimono and my label Fourth Daughter, sustainable fashion and generally a whole lot of other stuff which I realise I have not mentioned at all on this blog yet … and which is too much to cover in one post.
This is the sort of stuff I’m actually trying to get organised to put up on my website, which is currently under construction (read: am still scanning stuff from Vogue etc to upload in a half-arsed fashion when I have five minutes in between writing articles, translating books and playing with my cat… hmm, which of those is most important? I’ll leave that up to you to guess).
Anyway, I had to send some pictures of my dresses to the moderator of the talk so that it can be promoted to all those people out there who want to listen to me crap on for ab
out half 
an hour, and found a few shots that I thought I’d share… really need to get on to making dresses again but the deadline for my translation is looming so I’ll have to blatantly flog my talents at a later date. The magazine shots are of a model and Mischa Barton in my label, and the other two shots are (extremely obviously) not a model, as they are ME.
I wore the green dress to the Cox Plate last year and I could have won a bet if I’d ignored the horses and instead put my money on the fact that I had the least expensive and greenest outfit on the field in both senses of the word…
Dress – made from recycled kimono which cost maybe 
$5 in Tokyo and is HAND DYED in the shibori technique… felt like a criminal cutting it up, but otherwise I would have had to go to the races naked, and I think that would have been more of a crime. Hat and belt – I made both myself from a straw hat from the Salvos, $3, handbag was $1 from an op shop in Tokyo and I coloured it in myself with fabric textas, earrings also from an op shop, gloves $7 or so from the Salvos, and shoes from Nicole when she was having a crazy spring clean (probably to make way for new Balenciaga heels or something equally fancy!)… so that’s a grand total of about … well under $20 anyway!! It comes close to being my cheapest outfit, probably. What’s the least you’ve ever spent on a whole outfit, I’d be interested to know…
I absolutely love your style and am amazed that you manage it for almost nothing. I never really consider how much my outfits cost to put together but it would be some challenge to look fab for less than $20 each day…dependent on shoe gifts perhaps! good luck with all your projects – looking forward to seeing your dresses.
Hello you absolutely gorgeous, wickedly funny being!I love your style…not just your fashion style but your whole attitude.I love that you know Taiko!! Why did you stop playing? Okay…I never wear and tell but most days my outfits are less than what anybody would ever expect. I am a master sales/op-shopper!AND…the blue jacket reality/red jacket desire meaning can be read in your 'About Me'. red="rampant creativity" blue="dislike of reality". All this means you Indonesian Princess you is that you are not where you are supposed to be, which I realize may not be new to you but… it's apparent. Blue is beautiful on you and is a wonderful colour to be immersed in, it's the colour of communication and self expression BUT too much blue is the colour of daydreaming. And self negativity, self doubt, melancholy, cynicism…Subconciously you know this, hence your desire for red…which will create a 'tunnel' for all this rampant creativity and focus it.At the moment it seems your wonderful vibrant energy is shooting off in all directions without any focus therefore it's going nowhere fast. You probably have ideas and thoughts zapping through your mind but you may not be able to 'ground' them.Actually wearing and thinking more red will help to funnel these thoughts and ideas. Do you understand what I mean by this? Red can create the gun barrel to your blue bullets!!You know you can just delete this comment if I'm speaking s**t!!!!!!Anyway… glad to have 'met' you. you're pretty darn fabulous.
I'm so impressed that you cut into a kimono! I have a collection of old kimonos – some to wear, and some to recycle, along with bags of the most beautiful pieces of japanese textiles collected in snippets on work trips to Tokyo – NONE of which I've been able to bring myself to cut – STUPID! I consider this attitude equivalent to my mother putting ugly plastic on the new carpet to preserve it.From now on I'm going to try to live by the mantra "Use it, love it, wear it out, move on". Look out for some of those textiles in some upcoming illustrations…Your dress is beautiful by the way!
ooh thank you!! but it does take me AGES to make stuff from kimono as I always have to agonize for so long about the cutting part!! Do a post about your kimono, would love to see an illustration of them!
Wow. You have something pretty special going on over here! I am saying a quick hello and thanks, but I am going to go and have a proper look around now. xxx
Sooo beautiful, you are so clever for an Indonesian princess!!!!
Have you seen the blog 'New dress a day'? For one year she has a budget of $1 per day to buy clothes – eek! I don't think you could even buy stuff in our op shops for that? Then again, while I love the idea, I can't say I'm loving her outfits!http://newdressaday.wordpress.com/
stunning dress. 🙂
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