The Haggis Hunter

I finally managed to bag a new camera just before we headed up north for the weekend.
As someone who takes customer service very seriously I have to say that I was utterly appalled with  Jessops.
Not only did they have me road-running throughout London all of Wednesday afternoon but when I came to pick up my "new" camera from the third shop on Thursday morning, I found that they had in fact stuck a shop display camera back in its box and tried to palm it off as new.
I just shook my head..."-mate, would it be at all possible to get a brand NEW one in a sealed box"...the dude realized that he'd been rumbled and got me another one.
They might have got away with it, had they cleaned the lens cap and replaced the battery pack seal before sticking it back in the box.
Apparently this sort of practice is not uncommon so if you are buying a new camera always make sure you check it out before you leave the store.
I mean don't get me wrong, if I had been offered a reasonable discount on the display camera, I may have considered taking it off their hands but if I'm paying for a new one then I expect a new one.
Anyroad...Jessops may suck rotten eggs but my new camera ROCKS!
It got its first proper outing in the Scottish Highlands over the weekend.
I've been wanting to shoot some of my own designs for ages and Glen Coe creates a magical backdrop.
We headed out in the early morning hours so that we could have the hillside all to ourselves...if you don't count a gazillion midgies that is.
Everyone was saying...
 "You're doing what tomorrow morning...where? You are going to get eaten alive! The midgies will have you for breakfast!".
It wasn't too bad to be honest, thankfully there was a slight breeze blowing through the glen so we managed to shoot for an hour before they started getting to us.
It was very early and a tad nippy to say the least and although I tried my hardest to stop it, my face was all too keen to bear witness to this.
However as per usual we took a mother load of photos and some came out not too shabby.

I brought four kilts but we only managed to shoot one of them. I wanted to get the other stuff done first and by the time we got around to the kilts the midgies were biting and we had to pack up and RUN AWAY!

Vintage kilt, 90s mohair jumper, tights, DMs, Frocktasia 'Dear Darkness' chiffon rose headdress, bangles galore & etno-earrings.  

For me tartan is an autumn/winter style perennial, it just feels right at this time of year.

I tend to team my tartan with stuff that make it a bit more punk than prim...

DMs or a pair of battered lace-up hiking boots, a washed out band Tee or a shaggy mohair jumper.

Tartan inspiration...

Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks looking prim, two pics from a grunge laden 90s Marc Jacobs collection and Liv Tyler wearing a cute mini kilt in the 'Empire Records' movie.

Fan-tartan-tastic!

I'll leave you with a tartan OTT look from the Frocktasia archives...

'THE HAGGIS HUNTER'

Take care y'all!

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Camera Woes & Cosmic Ordering

Today I've traversed the length and breadth London Town looking for a camera doctor for my snappy friend that decided to have a midlife crises at the beginning of the week. 

Once the patient had been checked into hospital and I had been told that it could take up to four weeks before he may be better again, I totally panicked!

It is quite impossible for me to live without a camera for up to four weeks,
impossible I say!

Besides critically needing it for work purposes, I feel totally lost without my camera cause it chums me everywhere...you just don't know when the next 'must-capture' will occur,  it can happen when you are doing something quite ordinary and dull like popping to the post office.

So when I got back home I threw myself on the compy (it did hurt a little but I am fine) and ordered a replacement on the Jessops website, to be picked up in store on the same day.

Huzzah, thought I...in two hours I will be cameraless no more, sadly I was wrong!

I jumped on a bus and after a 45min ride found myself being told by the dude at the store that due to an stock update error, they didn't actually have the camera I had ordered in stock but that I could have their old fusty display model for the same price...
thanks but NO THANKS!

Still, I'm not one to give up that easily so I got hubby to order one from another Jessops in town.

Another 45min bus-journey later and lo-and-behold, the exact same thing is repeated in the other store.

I'm again told that I'm either facing a three day wait for the model that I am after or that I can buy one of their greasy display models at no additional discount....
the barefaced arse cheek of it!

By now invisible fume is bellowing from my nostrils cause I provided both stores with my telephone number on-line when making the orders, so they should have called or at the very least texted me to tell me that the camera wasn't in stock, utter slack-ass behavior, they deserve to be slapped in the face with a rotten cucumber or perhaps even several cause I'm in that sort of mood! 

Anyway, on the way back home I called hubby to have a moan down the phone and he said that he'd try to order yet another one and then give the store a call just to make sure it was there.

So hopefully tomorrow morning I shall be the proud owner of a brand spanking new camera...third time lucky?! 

Before my other snapmonster decided to have its breakdown we managed to shoot a second lookbook for the shop.
We entitled  this one 'Indian Summer'.

Yes, autumn may be lurking just around the corner here in the northern hemisphere but I am cosmically ordering an Indian Summer for us all, lets see how that one works out ;)

I've just added lot's of stunning vintage frocks to the shop and I'm slowly wrapping my head around the whole process of running it.

Here are the 'Indian Summer' lookbook pics...

All the dresses and the skirt above are already available from the shop.

If all goes to plan with my new camera tomorrow we will be doing yet another photo shoot this weekend in a slightly more dramatic setting this time, I hope it doesn't rain...maybe I should cosmically order a sunny Bank Holiday weekend  too while I'm at it ;)

All the best to you my fabulous friends!

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

A hangdog confession

Forgive me friends & frockers for I have sinned, it has been many days since I last made a beep in the blogosphere.  

I accuse myself of the following sins, stalking your blogs without commenting & admiring your fabulousness from afar without giving credit where credit has so blatantly been due.

I have also made my own blog into a drought zone but rest assured my dearest blog sisters I aim to redeem myself within the coming weeks.

It is my intention to post much more regularly from now on and this will be a much easier task come Friday when I free myself from the shackles of the old nine to five.

Yes it’s true, I’m giving up the day job to have another bash at making FROCKTASIA my livelihood.

This time I have a much better mindset and I’m going to work my ass off to get it off the ground.

The FROCKTASIA on-line shop is already up and running but I am still adding stock & tweaking stuff.

Mark and I shot a ‘lookbook’ for the shop a few weeks ago and here are the resulting pics… 

I'm doing all the modelling for the shop myself at the moment but I am hoping to work with other people in the future cause as much as I love pretending to be Jessica Stam (in my dreams), I'd actually much rather crack on with the styling malarkey.

So it's all excitement, adventure and really wild things for the Jen monster at the moment and come Friday evening I'll be doing summersaults all the way back home from the wage slave labour camp.
Only three more days of  working for the man, huzzah, I'm almost wetting myself  in excitement :)

If you want to keep in touch with what's going on in the shop then why not head over and LIKE my new Facebook page, that would really
ROCK MY UNIVERSE!

Hope you are all doin' grand my dears!

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

Meanwhile at the base of the Pyramid

We've been back home for almost two weeks, the post holiday radiance has all but ebbed away and the dreaded back in Blighty blues has come knocking.

When I went back to work after Easter I found that my hours had been changed.
I'm doing more hours, more work (for the same pityful pittance) and as if that wasn't bad enough they've given me a much crappier shift too.
Employers really have the knack of wringing every last drop of joy out of your soul don't they.

What really infuriated me though is that I wasn't even consulted beforehand about these changes just expected to fall in line like a good little epsilon-minus semi-moron, needless to say I'm back on all the jobsites looking for another gig. 

Och, the joys of being a wage-slave.

One day I will be my own boss and it will be frocking fabulous!

A bit like this awesome get-up that I won on eBay last year...

This was in the same bundle as the INTERLINKS - LONDON frock that I also brought with me to Egypt. 

I really hit the eBay jackpot that day!

Again I apologise for the mirror image overkill but I really like the Rorschach effect that you get when you do this. 

Just look at the pic above, can you also see the big face in the desert sand?

I think that one is quite obvious but when you study the others mittor image pics a bit more closely you can see all-sorts of weird and wonderful things... 

if you just let your imagination run riot ;)

This is a very versatile get-up, so ideal holiday garb.

You can wear the top with shorts on the beach, the skirt with casual top for an outing and it looks just like a frock when you wear the two pieces together, so that's the evening wear snorted too ;)

Only two more days until the weekend, huzzah!

All we need now is for the weather to get its bleeding act together.

Come on it's May soon, give us some Sun & warmth will you :)

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx

She who knows the widow spider

Holiday frock number ten is fit for an Egyptian goddess...

******

The Frock:

This is my "Winged Isis" frock & needless to say it was one of the first garments to hit my suitcase.

It's labelled 'David Butler at Pressler' and I bought it off eBay some years ago.

I sometimes take a punt at auctions with shockingly bad pictures and this was one of those occasions.

You never quite know whether the postman is going to bring you a parcel of hotness or a parcel of notness when you do it like this but when I received this spectacular frock I felt like the cat that got the cream.

The black parts of the dress is made from a slinky sun-ray pleated material and the bodice and top of the sleeves feature a stunning three coloured taffeta fabric with glitzy lurex & fabulous flocked detailing.

I really felt a bit like an Egyptian Goddess wearing this stunning frock in such a magical place.

The Legend: 

"Osiris, Isis, and their brother Seth were all gods. Osiris was god of vegetation, Isis the goddess of fertility and Seth the god of the desert. Osiris was a "living god", like Horus he was embodied as the pharaoh. When he became pharaoh, he took Isis to be queen. Seth became jealous and murdered Osiris. He cut Osiris' body into pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. When Isis heard, she took the form of a bird and searched until she found all the parts of his body. After reassembling Osiris' body, she beat her wings and breathed life back into him." 

The End:

I hope you've enjoyed my little post medley of holiday frocks as much as I enjoyed creating them.

A special thanks to my beloved husband who kindly gave up three holiday sleep-ins to help me take all the photos. 

Also many thanks to all you lovelies that have taken the time to comment on these posts, it really means a lot to me.

I will be doing a couple more 'holiday clobber' posts which will include random outfits that don't fall under the category frock but are frigging fabulous anyway even if I do say so myself  ;)

Lot's of love,

Jennie

xXx