Sunday, November 30, 2014

Monki + meet up

Usually on Saturdays we take our time and wakeup without alarm clocks. I'll go out for a jog, come back and cook breakfast and we catch up on news and weekly stories we may have missed whilst getting through the week. Today however we were out of the house before 11 to meet up with our girl Rhi and also Tiffany of Fat Shopaholic (she's also made the move over to the UK for 9 months to study). We went to check out the East London Thrift 1 pound sale.

I was really excited to check it out because the 1kg 10 pound sale in Bethnal Green was good. It was clean, organised and it had a great selection of clothes. But yesterday we had to wait like an hour and half to get in, only to find a whole room full of clothes that were basically rejects. Stained, ripped and mouldy. SO NOT WORTH IT! The sectioned off part to their normal store had a pretty nice selection but the pieces that I managed to spy where all 20 pound and over so I was really disappointed in that. If you're looking for some key pieces to add to your wardrobe and don't mind paying some pounds then definitely check it out.

To be fair, if you are a straight size there were some cool jeans and overalls available for the pound but I wouldn't go again. The selection inside was not worth the wait. So I'm going to have to get out of London if I wanna thrift. I picked up a denim top, vest and 2 dresses that I'm going to cut them up and rework it.

Yesterday I wore my Monki Carla Tee available HERE and I decided to wear my good old faithful City Chic skirt because I didn't have to go to work and it wasn't freezing or raining! Boots are from New Look, these seem to be the closest one to them available online HERE.


Top Monki / Skirt City Chic / Lips Velour Australis / Glasses Street Stall NYC / Bow Philippines / Bracelet Samoa 

Waiting outside. The line went down the road and around the corner. Everybody was out hoping to catch a bargain.






Big Love & Seasons Greetings,

Mele 


Sunday, November 16, 2014

Cut for Evans

My Look /  Dress -Made it / Boots-New Look  / Makeup NYX on the eyes / Peach Lips
Met these blogger beauties Nancy, Rosie & Becky. 






Two weeks ago I attended my very first unofficial blogger event in London. Even though I've been off the blogger radar for a while, it was nice to dress up, go out and meet new friends. Since arriving in London we've been extremely busy basically setting up our lives and doing boring stuff like work and we're usually buggered by the time the weekend hits.

So after randomly bumping into Callie at the Portobello Road Markets in Nottinghill, she invited us to come and check out the new Cut for Evans range launch at the Marble Arch store. We were running late and we didn't know what to expect, but we were surprised at the turn out of wonderful bloggers, fun music and flowing drinks.

My highlight was meeting the lovely bloggers, I recognised a few from Full Figure Fashion Week in NYC. It's also so nice to know that there are real things happening in Plus Sized Fashion here.


It's pretty exciting to witness young female designers have their dreams recognised. I'll applaud Evans on providing that opportunity and for being open to new ideas when it comes to plus size fashion. They definitely hosted a fun evening. My fave piece was the Purple Digital Print Bomber Jacket and that retails for 55 pound. Be sure to check out the collection and shop it HERE.


Managed to snap a quick shot of Ellie who designed half of the collection. Doesn't Cheryl Fergison look glam?
Doing those cool 'robot-arm' poses

Meeting these beautiful blogger babes <3 Picture from @daniellevanier
 Big Love,

Falala Mele

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Beautiful people: CJ Wello



Our beautiful Koori girls sang and brought down the house. Keep an eye out for them in the future.

The visionaries of Waminda and current CEO of Waminda Faye Worner.

Proudest moment watching my best friend shine <3 You're the bomb sis!


Two months ago I was invited to attend the Waminda Ball that was held to celebrate 30 years of service to the Aboriginal Women on the South Coast in New South Wales. I've known of Waminda for as long as I can remember because my best friend's mother had worked with them for years.

It was a familiar office that we'd call into when walking through town. We would see the same faces and feel that sense of community when walking through the door. When you're a young Polynesian girl growing up in a predominately white community, you find community in a sense of familiarity and belonging and this was one of those places for me. 

As I've grown up and gone out into the world, I've had the good fortune of possessing a loving family, a hefty collection of true friends and a chance to travel and see outside of my community. I seem to come and go on the regular and upon my return I notice that too many things remain the same. Same jobs, same pubs, same people, same story; so much so that I could only ever seem to stomach the place for a good couple of months before getting itchy feet again. 

But when I arrived home late last year, I was eager to be back to rejoin with my Dead or Deadly Sisters. Dead or deadly is a well-being program offered by Waminda to Indigenous women in the community. This program taught me so much about health and well-being. It taught me how to move my body, how to increase strength and how to grow and encourage others to train and make healthier choices. 

Not only do Waminda offer programs led out by local Indigenous women but they are also committed to training their workers. These women are valued and it shows as they are paid above award wages. Waminda offers a whole bunch of SERVICES to the community and are continually growing every year. Services like this don't just pop up over night. Services like this are rare and I'm so proud of the women who continue to pursue the dreams of their Elders who envisioned a service to help Koori women thrive.

It is something that I am honoured to have witnessed. I've watched women walk through the doors and have been transformed mentally into a whole new vibrant life force. I was so caught up in my passion for this particular program that I failed to notice the metamorphosis of my very own best friend. 

The once well-known 'shy girl' -who asked if I could attend school Koori camp with her because she didn't know anyone else- was standing up in front of a room full of Elders and politicians proudly directing guests to their seats. I don't know how the hell I missed this one.

CJ was far from the quiet Koori girl who would only write me letters with the initials of the boys that she loved inside them. She had outgrown the girl who'd preferred not to walk to the school canteen alone. 

She was exactly what she was meant to be. 

A strong, knowledgable woman of culture and apart of Australia's future. She is driving towards closing the gaps of inequity for her people. She is a special soul sister and I'm thankful I was home to witness this. To Waminda and every woman who is apart of this service, thank you. 
I can't wait to see your achievements in the next 30 years.








Big Love,

Mele Falala


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Shein + Jadey

A few weekends ago I met up with my wonderful college friends to celebrate Jadey's lovely little bundle of joy. Shein and Jadey met whilst studying nursing and they've basically been inseparable ever since. Jadey is such a loyal and giving friend and she was so nice to allow my sister and I host the event before we moved to London and we thought it'd be fun to arrive with baby bumps of our own.

Jadey loves all things novelty so we picked up anything that was fun or cute. All of our friends were given an item of food to bring or to organise a game and it meant that everyone contributed to a relatively stress free baby shower.




Worn: Thrifted skirt (it was a tiny waisted dress and I chopped it because I wanted it so
badly! Worn with my thrifted floral blouse and a Kmart tee. Probably still in store now.
Also my thrifted vintage earrings found in original package and only 20 cents. WINNING!


Time to put the diapers on!


Pauly was an awesome games host. Guess the baby food flavour?










It was so lovely to catch up with our college friends. Such fun crammed into a few hours and it's something we need to do more of. Lol, so who's having the next baby??

Big love,

Falala Mele

That nu nu London vibe

Damn, guess who's back? Yessir it's your girl Falala. 
I'm celebrating the connection of our home wifi with a blog post. 

HOOOOORAYYYY!

All I can say is I've missed my humble little online space and I've been extremely busy adjusting to the life that is 'living abroad'. I've had some wonderful adventures and some heavy-eyes rolling-in the back of  my head- shoot me now moments, but I've been in London for a month now so I can safely say it's starting to feel more like home, rather than an extended holiday.

We literally spent the first 2 weeks on the hunt for a place to live and doing all the boring things (agency meetings, bank accounts, signing leases etc) and then spent the third week gradually  moving our two suitcases of gear each from Deptford to Leyton.  Amongst all that we started working! We are officially East siders E15 2BX yo' and I'm close to E17 bless. That's where the boys of my fave boy band East 17 were raised. A bloke from church said one of them lived around the corner from his grandma back in the day and he still remembers when the street would be packed with cars and hordes of screaming girls.  "In a west end town and a dead end world, East end boys and west end girls." Still my jam.

Cool things that have happened within the last month.

  • I did like 2 weeks of supply teaching. Got over it, and I now have a class of my own. Yr 2/3 bless them. They are beautiful
  • Internet connected in our awesomely huge 3 bedroom flat 
  • QTS approved
  • Hanging with Rhianon (been too long since we were around each other)
  • Meeting up with Bonnie, my old college friend who is also living abroad
  • Joined a community choir in Notting Hill and it's AWESOME! We are preparing for a Christmas concert, COME if you're in the area. It is going to sound AMAZING and my sister and I may be leading out in one of the songs.
  • Bumped into the gorgeous blogger Callie Thorpe around the Portobello Markets
  • We were asked to chat to Channel 4 crew whilst leaving Camden Markets on our opinions/experiences with tattoos and piercings 
  • Getting around London without City Mapper >.<










I'll sign off now, with the promise of regular posts. Fingers crossed I get some blogging mojo back.

Big Love,

Falala Mele



Monday, August 18, 2014

listen

So in the past 6 months or so I've started listening to whole albums again. I swear for the longest time the airwaves, social media screens and platforms have been bombarded with an endless stream of mind numbingly disgustingly catchy 'hits'. Don't get me wrong, I'm no music snob but man..... I'm pretty sure 'music' hit rock bottom and just decided to dig a grave and die there.

So the whole maybe I'll listen to an album started mid last year during report writing time. Spotify suggested Emeli Sande's Our Version of Events and I listened. I loved that the album represented a body of work. A collection of ideas and emotions and some insight into our life and times. It offered more than a catchy 'yeah yeah yeah' hook and I gobbled that shit up.

Then came The weekend's Trilogy album on Spotify and I guess my ears started to open up to the idea that there is-in-fact real albums out there. Albums that represent ideas and experiences from the artists whom are making the music. There was something heavier than the manufactured hits on offer. Sam Smith's EP (not a whole album but a collection none the less) was rotated heavily and I continued to be delighted in whole servings of Aaradhna, Childish Gambino & Haim. Over and over I listened to these albums as they helped me write reports, pack up my house and drive hundreds of kilometres interstate.


So I thought I'd share my favourite albums on heavy rotation. Some are old and some are new but all of them are tasty. Please....if you've heard of an album that's so good you just have to repeat it, then please tell. I've got my musical appetite back and in the words of Anthony Bourdain I'm hungry for more.

Emeli Sande / Sam Smith / Aaradhna / Haim
Quadron / Lily Allen / Ed Sheeran / La Roux


Like I said, I love the whole albums but if you're not into getting/listening to the whole set then get:

  1. Emeli Sande- My kind of love / Read all about it Pt. 3
  2. Sam Smith- Nirvana / Latch
  3. Aaradhna- Wake up / Back of my mind
  4. Haim- If I could change your mind / Days are gone
  5. Quadron- LFT / Seasalt
  6. Lily Allen- Our time / Hard out here
  7. Ed Sheeran- Thinking out loud / I see fire
  8. La Roux- Kiss and not tell / Sexotheque 



Big love,

Falala Mele

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Fiesta


Frida vibes for the Mexican Fiesta party with my sissy CJ. 

So I spent last night hanging out with my home crew celebrating the birthdays of two amazing women. Both are working extremely hard towards establishing their careers (one will lead in managing a substantial women's health organisation and the other will soon graduate with a degree in medicine).

Even though the weekdays are jam packed with meetings, study, deadlines and pressure; the weekends usually consists of an opposite agenda. We catch up. Talk shit. Eat, drink, sing and dance. These moments are special because I'm always away from home so I'm usually looking at these photos from some other state. In another 40 days I'll be jetting off to another country to live for a while so I'm consciously trying to be around and connect with as many friends as possible.

 I'm thankful for these people and I'm fully aware that these moments are special and should not be taken for granted. It's special when you have friends that make you both proud and happy.   Happy birthday my beautiful sisters. Continue to strive and make those changes for your community.
The birthday girls is full fiesta-swing!


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

bucket hat



 90's obsession continues. I think this is my sisters work hat but I picked it up for the day. I love how hats and over sized glasses seem to give me a little edge when I leave the house. Just ran out and about op shopping where I picked up the most amazing haul of 80's earrings. YUSSSS! All still in their old packets and only 20 cents each >.< I'l probs wear a pair on the weekend so expect pics soon.

Top SUPRE Leggings KMART Shoes TARGET Glasses Big W Belt CITY CHIC