Living The Dream

A somewhat tongue in cheek title, as living the dream is mostly figuring out how to survive on baked beans and how to capture at least 10 minutes downtime per day.
But I am doing it… I am a self employed vintage stylist.
Slash magazine editor
Slash distributor and owner of a skincare brand.

Granted, if it wasn’t for my few nursing shifts per fortnight I wouldn’t even be eating baked beans, and living the dream would entail a cardboard box under a bridge, but I am hoping to be able to scale those shifts down in the not so distant future.
So my self employed life….
Is a little bit mad, a little bit frantic and a whole lot of fun.
Take last weekend for instance.
Wellington was hit by a terrible storm on Thursday, and the tail end of it meant freezing temperatures and torrential downpours.
Cue me, getting up at 7 am to set up stall at a local market (luckily in a covered carpark) with freshly set hair.
Strangely enough there were people around, and I had lots of fun trying makeup on people and swapping lipstick for fingerless gloves. At one point there was some coffee for whiskey trades going on also..
I put the call out for warm socks and two knights in shining armour arrived bearing socks, bananas and a dog to keep me company.
I did decide that it is much easier to be a vintage girl in the summer, but it did build a feeling of community amongst the freezing stall holders.

Straight after the market I headed to a styling session for Miss La Belle’s Frolic lounge girls.
What a bunch of lovely, beautiful ladies. Particularly inspiring was LaFemme Fantail – who described through her burlesque routine her fight with cancer. She required a hairdo that would sit under her chemo hat and look wonderful when it was pulled off – revealing LaFemme in all her 30’s inspired glamour.

This is what Miss La Belles’ Burlesque is all about – women finding their power and beauty in the face of adversity and celebrating all of it.
To finish off the day I threw on a pair of heels, a killer 60s dress, fashioned a 5 minute beehive and headed off to an engagement party.
I remembered that apart from a banana I had not eaten since 8 am, which meant of course good old dirty Maccas.
In my car, on the waterfront in high winds, wearing elbow length gloves as it was too cold to take them off and spilling sauce all down the front of my fur coat.
I’m all class.

Not that Austin Powers was complaining.