sleigh bells ring.

iphone snaps by me... sorry for quality, but this editorial is the perfect christmas theme - tim walker esque in its whimsy and fantasy. love it!

'Be Good For Goodness' Sake'

Vogue Australia December 2009

Styled by Meg Gray

Shot by Liz Thompson

Christmas for me will always be candy canes, gingerbread houses and burning puddings. Every year my mum burns it, and every year we eat it anyway. Christmas is the floor rustling with torn up wrapping paper, hardly ecologically sound, but so satisfying in the way that only things that are bad for the environment can be. Christmas is my birthday. Christmas is feeling like a child all over again as you rustle around in the foot of stockings and giddily eschew alcohol in favour of kiddie champagne and sit with your little toddler cousins instead of the adult table. My little pony is infinitely more engaging than shop talk...

I seem to have missed the rush of christmas this year. It's already the 10th and i haven't really made inroads into a long list of gifts, we haven't got a tree, i haven't been watching christmas movies incessantly (although that will all be rectified when i watch love actually tonight, i think). I think i've been too preocuppied with thinking about my birthday to think about christmas (my birthday is christmas eve). I've been trying to plan a dinner party and have met with opposition at every turn. But, i realise, it’s just a short fortnight until i turn 19. And a short fortnight and a day until it is christmas, and the whole manner of lovely things that that brings.

I love that feeling of christmas. You know the one, underneath all the materialism it's that warm-hearted fuzzy sort of thing related to being selfless and trying to make other people smile. Because, really, big gestures are all well and good, but it's the ones that really have thought behind them that make the most impact. For the christmas of my 18th birthday my sister gave me a scrapbook she had made herself, with little bits of coloured paper, postcards and lined, notes that she had scribbled in every other corner reminding me to 'smile!' or 'call cally!', stickers and ribbons... It was beautiful. I thought, at the time, too beautiful to write in. But i took it away with me and filled it with thoughts of other cities and places, stark morning light and the hallowed peace of urban evening.

Often ripping open that package is enough. I've never seen anything so happy-making as the sight of little dimple-cheeked cousins and brothers tear apart painstakingly wrapped gifts with such excitement and fervour, their eyes sparkling. Often the gift within is by the by, what is more exhilarating, more fun, than the present itself is the opening up. The journey is better than the destination, or words to that effect.

And then there's the food. My mum always puts on a spectacular feast, a mix of the traditional christmas foodstuffs like pudding (burnt, of course), ham, turkey, potatoes, roast veg... and the australian - seafood so fresh it could almost leap off the table, bushels of lemons, frozen dacquiris, ice cream, asian salads, all things cold and wonderful. We all sit around and we eat. and eat. and eat. Is there anything quite like Christmas to make people forget their differences and have a nice meal?

I may not have bought any presents yet, or put up a christmas tree. I may be working so hard in the next couple of weeks that i won't have time to think about such silly season staples as egg nog or mistletoe. But waking up this morning i was hit by the thought that christmas is a mere couple of weeks away. Christmas! Oh how marvellous.

All i want to do is wear red and green, eat buckets of candy canes and wrap up presents. And what do i want for christmas? I'll have to get back to you on that one.. :)

X

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love loss and what i wore - blonde ambition

My aunt is a real Linda Evangelista. Not in the only getting out of bed for $10 000 way, but hair-wise. You know how people always quote Linda as the female anomaly when it comes to hair in that she suits every colour - blonde, red, brunette? Well my Aunt Fleur is just like that. She has been every colour imaginable, and looked great with them all. Her natural colour is a mousy brown, but she was born blonde, lived through her 20s as a dark brunette, hit 30 and went copper red and now is settled somewhere in territory i would describe as 'auburn'.

Fleur used to tell me that her hair-dying phases used to spring out of emotional whims of the time. When she went from brown to platinum blonde in her mid-20s she cited a 'quarter life crisis' as the motive. She was becoming complacent with her job, her love life and her brunette hair. To shake things up a little she bleached it all Debbie Harry style and dug up some of her favourite clothes from her teens, like a thrifted versace shirt with fruit on it (sounds hideous, but really, there's something magical about that shirt). She ran away from Australia and ensconced herself in Greece where they loved her quick wit, easy smiles, and bright, sunny complexion (and hair).

I'd love to go Blonde, just like that. It helps that she's fair with stunning grey blue eyes, like my mum. Eyes are both my mum and aunt's best feature. I'm a little too olive to go blonde, my eyebrows are too dark and my eyes more caramel than azure. However recently i've had a quarter life crisis of my own, and marched into my hairdressers demanding to be turned blonde. Something snapped within me last week, after having no inspiration, energy or thought for a while I realised it was me that was the problem. I was lethargic and bored. I was stuck in a rut.

My hairdresser calmly explained that going blonde for me would be a huge process that involved bleach and then foils. There was no guarantee the colour would stay the way i wanted (a honey-ish dark blonde) or that it wouldn't react to the bleach and go something horrid like acid green or orange. He urged me to consider something else, like highlights or balayage. I went the balayage route, considering i've been wanting it for ages. The result is marvellous, my hair has these beautiful toffee coloured caramel bits that wink out as the sun catches them, hidden behind darker strands. Its so natural and easy-going, just like me. With a slick of Nars 'Venice', a frosted lippie that is so 90s it's not funny, i'm out the door.

I think the problem for me is that i've been so singularly focussed, both with life and my hair, that i've forgotten to pause, smell the roses, and have a little fun. Despite all my excitement about the end of uni I went straight from exams into a job at David Jones (australian department store) which is great in terms of having money, but not so great in terms of stopping me from burning out. Similarly, i've been so focussed on growing out my bob that i forgot to have dead ends trimmed or layers cut in. My hair was a weighty mess that hung from my head and dragged me down (so my stylist says). As he snipped away and created subtle layers I saw a new me emerge, one that was a little less bogged down both by life and by hair.

When people asked me how it felt being on holidays I answered that it was like a weight off my shoulders. The fact of that matter is, though, that weight was being carried by my hair, not by any uni stress or exam woes. I think some of the energy and inspiration problems were caused, if not by my hair itself, but by the lack of excitement that my general appearance caused with me. That sounds self-obsessed, but think about it. Your ability to engage with the world, especially on a fashion level, stems from your ability to engage with yourself on that same fashion level.

With my toffee-toned hair I know i'm ready for summer - whether its relaxation or work-filled. It's light and carefree and easy to manage, just as how i hope this summer will be.

X

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