I originally put this outfit together over the summer to wear out, but it was too hot outside at the time for this outfit. The weather has been getting cooler, so I was finally able to wear this out! I'm getting a little better at braiding.

top and skirt from Taipei underground mall, vintage petticoat from flea market, Tree House shoes from Taiwan.

I don't like wearing pants very much and often paranoid if my skirt is too short, so I really like the length of this skirt. Cute and comfy, currently one of my favorite pairs of shoes. I have a really big critique on Thursday. I hope it goes well. Love, Kaia

melancholic mondays.

working on an outfit post.

sometimes it rains.

A few days ago we were getting some major rain.

collared shirt from free market at school, galaxy top from thrift shop in Taiwan, jeans from Sassy, Taiwan, Doc Martens, Kangol knit hat from Beacons Closet. Umbrella from Morning Glory.

New York tends to get a lot of rain during the summer so not long after I got to New York I went to buy a new umbrella in Flushing. My old one was crushed or something while in storage and doesn't open up anymore. My first day of class, it POURED, and we still had our windows fully open when class ended, and Emily and I sprinted back to our room. Fortunately nothing was damaged. I bought an umbrella soon after that. I take it out every time it rains, but somehow whenever class ends and I get out it stops raining. I suppose that's a good thing, but I kind of want to use my umbrella. Christina and I took our umbrellas on a trip in the city and carried them around for hours and didn't get to use them. It felt like a waste carrying them around for so long without using them that on our way back we just had them open even though it wasn't raining. There were some curious looks. On another note, here's something cute I got in the mail recently. Hang in there, kitten. Love, Kaia

where have the flowers gone.

Yesterday's outfit. Monday is one of those days where I don't want to get dressed in the morning, so I pulled out an outfit that was already conveniently by chance put together on a hanger in the closet. I don't have very many hangers, so I layer clothes on top of each other to conserve space. I didn't want to have my hair down so I did a bit of braiding.

Dress and scarf from H&M, top from Tokyo Fashion Co, shoes from Taiwan

I got these shoes over the summer. They're currently one of my favorites! I've always loved oxfords, and this pair is a cute shape with cute cut trim and side cutouts for lace and a super small kitten heel. Toooo cuteeee. I love wrapped and braided hair, but it's something that I've always been terrible at. Braiding, I mean. Even now, I still don't know how to french braid. It's been years since my hair has been long enough to braid, so I haven't had the practice either. After putting my hair up, I had the urge to stick flowers in my hair. If only I had some! I had a couple flower clips from Forever 21 some time back, but I don't know where they could have gone. Maybe the next time I go to a dollar store or craft store I'll buy some and make my own. Love, Kaia

child at heart.

Something pretty exciting, the dressforms we ordered for class arrived, so I relocated mine back to my room! Unfortunately we need it for class too so I'll be carrying it back and forth which is a little difficult to do. Sometimes I feel like Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle with my hair (that's my favorite movie, by the way). The weather is finally starting to cool down. Mid September, seems about right. I don't do well in warm weather so I like the current weather. Last Saturday I went to Princeton to attend a Children's Book Festival at the Princeton Public Library. I want to be a storybook author/illustrator so I thought it'd be good to check out the festival. There were over 70 children's authors and illustrators there, and so many books I wanted to buy! At the festival, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of authors about their work and the industry. I didn't stay for very long but it was worth a trip. It was supposed to be thunderstorming the day that I went to Princeton, but I was pretty lucky and the weather was great the whole time I was there. Not five minutes after I returned to the city and to my dorm, it started heavy raining. I got lucky. Love, Kaia

i am not a goddess.

It's pretty apparent that I try to steer away from any talk of hair because ever since I bleached my hair in April, I haven't stopped experimenting with different colors and dyes and methods of dying. All the talk about my hair makes it hard for me to talk about anything else. I'm going to talk about it this time because it feels weird to have my hair suddenly change in outfit posts and not talk about it. It'd been four months since I bleached my hair, and my roots were completely visible and I had to find time to fix it. I hadn't decided what color I was going for, just that I wanted to fix up the roots. After bleaching roots the first time I had to go back and have my roommate touch up all the areas that I missed. I mixed too much bleach and ended up bleaching the rest of my hair. Some pictures I took after bleaching. When Emily saw the pictures she said "oh my god, Bianca. You look like a goddess." I couldn't stop laughing. The first picture was taken on high exposure while the second one was taken on medium. The latter is a pretty accurate representation of the color at the time. It was bright and yellowy, but not nearly as blinding as the orange I had gotten in my first round of bleaching earlier this year. This other picture was taken after I dyed it with Revlon Colorsilk Ultra Light Ash Blond. Also when I took the pictures from last week. I liked it okay, but didn't think it suited me. Pale yellow blond looks fantastic with fair skinned people with an even skintone. I have a medium-uneven skintone, so my hair color requires me to cake on foundation every morning, which I don't like doing. Since my hair was light, I had the liberty of going pretty much any color that I wanted. I've wanted to try La Riche Directions hair dye for a while, so I bought myself some online. I highly recommend this website! It only took two or three days to get my order. My top choices were pastel pink and silver, but since I went pink relatively recently, I bought the silver. La Riche Directions is semi permanent like Manic Panic, for those who are familiar with it. It can be left on the hair as long as you'd like because there isn't developer in it to harm your hair. It works kind of like applying conditioner. The silver comes in a little indigo tub and looks pretty indigo-blue when applied (similar to purple shampoo but more blue). Silver was what I was attempting when I bleached my hair earlier this year. I've wanted silver hair since Tavi first went silver. It didn't work out because my hair was still in the orange phase so it wasn't nearly light enough to take the silver tones. The results weren't unpleasant, though. Silver worked out a lot better this time around, though. Silver goes relatively nicely with all clothes. It photographs unexpectedly well (meaning the pictures are nicer than in real life). The dye works better the lighter your hair is, so in all of the parts my hair was a pale-nearly-white-yellow, it washed out as an aqua silver. The parts where the yellow was a bit darker, it came out more like a haystack-sand. From far away it mixes pretty well but the difference is very visible up close. So far I've only washed my hair once since dying so I don't know how long the dye will last yet. If it washes out and I'm back to yellow blond by October, I'm dying my hair pink for my birthday. Love, Kaia

the girl with the spiral earring.

Here's an outfit from last Tuesday. It was before I bleach/dyed it in the previous post so the color is a little darker.

Obey t shirt from Buffalo Exchange (mens section), drop crotch pants from wufenpu, Taipei, Doc Martens.

My two roommates and I watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo earlier in January this year and I've been OBSESSED with Rooney as Lisbeth since (ended up buying the special edition of the movie too). Emily said she really liked Lisbeth's spiral earring so I looked it up and found a pair. I got these from Tribal Style on etsy. They're made to look like gauges but they're actually post earrings. I only have my ears pierced on once side so I kept one for myself and gave Emily the other. Love, Kaia

if we parted ways.

photo update