Dia De Los Muertos

Day of the dead shoot my friend Alex and I did last week. I, of course lagged on posting it. I have been planning it in my head for a while, like locations and what not. We did our own makeup and chose our own outfits. I asked my roommate Camille to help shoot us because I lost my remote and she is awesome but we all collaborated on the photographing. It was cold and foggy, like Marina tends to be. In other words: perfect.


In this:
On me: BCBG lace top, thrift maxi skirt, topshop shoes, pamela love cuff, vintage conch belt, vintage veil. On Alex: Thrift lace top, BCBG lather skirt, doc martin shoes, her DIY skeleton earring, vintage bracelets, vintage acid wash denim jacket, blanket from Mexico. 
All headpieces and spike headbands made by me.

remind me never to go here alone at night again

To get here you have to park far away and walk through a dark scary tunnel that is practically pitch black even in daytime. It leads to a bike path, some abandoned buildings, then the dunes. I'm not afraid of the dark but fort ord is crawling with who knows what. I like the lighting, and you can see the ocean from here. I see this little tower from the highway everyday, I finally went exploring for it.

in this: little girls thrift velvet bell bottoms, thrift boots, free people top, vintage bag & scarf, f21 jacket

jipiteca

wearing: vintage skirt, 90's top, vintage jacket with d.i.y. faux fur collar, vintage horse belt, vintage purse, miss sixty boots(borrowed from camille ), jewelry: mix of thrift, vintage and gifts. 
Josh and I decided we needed a nice meal for a change and we didn't really get a chance to celebrate our five year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We don't really make a big deal out of those things, we mainly just wanted to enjoy each others company with some good food. We decided on, well, I persuaded him to go to The Haute Enchilada in Moss Landing. The food is wonderful, fresh Mexican-fusion and it has this cool eclectic-Mexican feel to it. The inside is full of bright bold colors and amazing original Mexican-inspired art and decor. The whole area deserves a good visit every once in a while. 

The weather was overcast but warm and breezy, which is a nice change around here. I wore this beautiful vintage skirt. I love the print, and the fabric is so light and soft. It even has bells on the drawstrings.  It just makes me happy, and it doesn't eat me, which is a major plus for my petite self when it comes to garments with a lot of fabric. 

The belt I have on used to be my big brothers from when he was little. It has a bronze horse head set into the silver buckle with some old school horse brands all around it( I despise the practice of animal branding but the symbols themselves are kind of cool, it's also where we get the term 'brand' as in clothing). The belt itself has flowers embossed into the leather. I re-discovered it in high school and haven't let go of it since then. I have a vivid memory of this belt from when I was eight or so, my uncle needed a black belt for his son one day when they were visiting. He took this one, it used to be brown, and painted it black with some shoe polish. Now it looks like it was meant to look all distressed with it's brown undertones. I'm sure my mom will want it back some day, but for now it will continue to be a token of my childhood.

rustic

wearing: everything vintage except for J.C. tardy wedge

This dress just reminds me of rust, but pretty tie dye rust, so it was only natural that I go hang out in some abandoned building in Fort Ord. The place is teeming with them. Can you believe it was only $1? The main compliment I got was the sleeves, It's really hard finding vintage dresses that have well fitting long sleeves! The best part was no sweater required, this particular day was a nice one but the sleeves helped. We don't get summer here. The weather here is basically mid 60's year round, which is why I pretty much dress the same year round. Hopefully we get a few weeks of warmth soon, or days would be nice.

The bag is from one of those pawn shop/gold buyer/vintage accessories & jewelry(yeah, random I know) store in Salinas. It's an authentic military bag used in combat. I saw it months ago but passed and could not get it out of my head, so I went back and got it. I am so glad I did! It is amazing, it fits so much, even some school books so I don't have to switch bags. The main thing I like about it, aside all the little military details and belt hook-up, is if it could talk it would have some crazy stories.

As for the belt, I found it at an extremely random yard sale last year. I say 'extremely random' because it was on a Wednesday at 3 p.m. and it was hooked up to a plant. It wasn't even for sale, but out of all the junk it was the only thing that caught my eye. The people running it gave me the weirdest look when I asked how much. I had to reconstruct it since it was all dirty and the elastic was worn out. Coincidentally, I have seen the same exact one on etsy but much nicer. It's a small vintage world apparently.