Black and cream zigzag maxi skirtAnother trophy from Spain, a black and cream zigzag maxi skirt. I love maxi dresses and skirts because I feel feminine in them and (big advantage) they look good with flat shoes. Most shorter dresses don’t really look good with my flat feet in flat shoes.

Announcement
Up till now I have been complying with Google rules to get more exposure for my blog and for people to find my blog easier. Like mentioning the ‘key focus word(s)’ in the first sentence. I find it pretty restraining and actually I don’t give a flying fig anymore whether somebody will find my blog. So from next week on, there will be slight changes to the posts to make it nicer to read.

I also hate Instagram, I am not keen on Facebook or Pinterest and I am only on these platforms because A) exposure leads to interesting contacts and B) it forces me to keep up with new digital things and I want that.
So I am still contemplating whether I will leave these platforms or not.

Over to the skirt and this impromptu photo shoot.

Meeting Katrien in Leiden again was only to return a borrowed book but it turned into a fun afternoon. Katrien took photos of the outfit with my iPhone and I wore sunglasses most of the time. It is another week before I can put eye make-up on again.

Below: Without eye make-up. As my eyes are hooded, you don’t actually notice it that much haha.

Black and cream zigzag maxi skirt

Below: Katrien. She is a quirky, arty, fashionable dresser who is not afraid of being different from most people. She actually would hate to be mainstream I think. I love her guts and her creativity. She is the one who created my long coat.

Katrien

Katrien suggested we’d go and see an exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal, which is always nice so I agreed. We have been to this beautiful museum before (see this post).

Below: As we were walking to the centre of town, we passed this building and Katrien shot the back of the skirt. The skirt consists of 6 panels and they differ in length as you can clearly see in the photo below. Also, if a panel has a horizontal zigzag at the back, it will have a vertical zigzag at the front. And vice versa. Although I am a sucker for a pattern to continue from side to side, I really like this different approach/design.

Black and cream zigzag maxi skirt

Below: This house with the blooming jasmine was too good to pass up as a photo background and I sat on someone’s window ledge.

Black and cream zigzag maxi skirt

Below: Another one, pretending to ring the doorbell. The bag is Demellier and here is the link to the original post. The cream blouse is from kpa.haarlem (link to original post). The pearl earrings from Lara Design you have seen before. I wear them a lot.

Black and cream zigzag maxi skirt

Below: Beautiful canal. See the church at the back? Further down, you will see it more up close and from the other side.

Leiden

Below: We arrived at the Lakenhal Museum where the exhibition of Christa Ehrlich was held. I will show you quite a few things of the exhibition.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: A head-to- toe shot of Katrien without raincoat.

Katrien

Below: Christa Ehrlich was a designer of fashion, fabrics and silverware (a.o.) from Austria in the beginning of the previous century (1903-1995). A time when a woman had very limited chances of being independent, recognized and hired as a designer. She did it all and from a young age.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: Take for instance this fabric which she designed. (I love fabrics.)

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: This is the suit Christa is wearing, made from the blue and cream fabric in the photo above. Such a shame that photo isn’t in colour as well.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: Or take the close-up of this vibrant flower.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: That flower is part of this wallpaper she designed and exhibited in 1925 at the World’s Fair in Paris. She would have been welcome to decorate our living room.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

She moved to the Netherlands at the age of 27 and was employed by Zilverfabriek Voorschoten (Van Kempen, Begeer & Vos), a manufacturer of silver objects.

Below: Christa was also part of a creative hub, the Wiener Werkstätte, where artists created together. Her early Dutch work sometimes reveals her ornate, decorative Viennese style, like with this vase from 1930.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: The design of the vase.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

Below: The managers of the silver factory had installed a deep drawing press which could form a deep hollow shape from a sheet of silver in a single movement. Christa experimented with this machine and quickly came up with silver objects with simple cylindric forms, like table ware, totally in sync with the new modern world.

Christa Ehrlich design exhibition

I hope you liked this little tour around the exhibition. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Below: Looking at the map of historic Leiden.

Black and cream zigzag maxi skirt

Below: The historic building that houses the Museum The Lakenhal provides lovely photo background opportunities. The belt is new and from Loewe. Reversible and expensive. Believe it or not but I have searched for such a belt for 25 years. It closes with a knob through a hole. The sandals on the other hand are second-hand and from a charity shop (€12). Perfect summer shoes. Do they give me blisters? Sure, when I walk around town for a couple of hours and it is hot, they do. I always have plasters with me.

Black and cream zigzag maxi skirt

Below: Close-up of the sandals.

Golden sandals

Below: After the exhibition we had a drink with a view in town.

Leiden

Leiden

Below: Pretty house with a café. It gave me such a summer feeling.

Leiden

Below: As promised, the church from the other side, it is the Marekerk. Sorry I can only show you a little part of it and that is not my fault; they built it in a funny way. More photos of this octagonal church here.

Leiden

That concludes the outfit part of this post.

What happened in my life this week

I had to keep quiet again for my second eye to heal after the cataract surgery. My vision is now very sharp and clear. Hurray. Only 3 more weeks of putting drops into my eyes and we’re done. The most exciting thing over the weekend was our IT-guy coming over to fix a few things and a visit to mum.

Below: Here is mum again. I feel a bit silly showing her picture every week and will stop doing that. Only from time to time I will show you a photo of her.

mum

I did have a joyful Saturday, when I met Marita at the shop of kpa.haarlem. We both love the clothes Karlijn sells. Marita found a shirt dress and a top. The top was totally my style and fortunately Marita didn’t mind me buying it too. After all, we don’t work together anymore and I won’t wear it when we arrange to meet each other.
Had a lovely stroll around the market. I never knew it is so good, especially the food stands and one particular flower stand.

As I cycled home my seamstress caught up with me. We decided to go to a terrace and have coffee with sweets.

Monday was a really quiet day with an hour sunbathing late in the afternoon and some reading. I am really keeping quiet for my eye(s).

Tuesday I could finally wash my hair again. Such bliss. Did some shopping and that was it. If you don’t count numerous conversations in the street with neighbours. I also ‘created’ the invitation for a street party in August. One of my neighbours is going to multiply it and I will put one in every letterbox. We don’t know everybody’s email so we have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Wednesday I had cappuccino with Kitty on a terrace. We haven’t seen each other for quite a while because of her work and my holiday. No time for a photo shoot, but we had a lovely time catching up and that is most important. Wearing my cherry print dress again, this time with very old Prada kitten heels. They must be 20 years old and they are like slippers.

Kitty and me

Below: ‘Parking’ your bicycle is almost as difficult in a Dutch city as is parking your car. Look at the row of bikes at the end of the little street where we sat.

Bikes

Below: This cat couldn’t believe it either. I bet he is wondering what he can charge if he promises to guard the bikes haha.

cat and bikes

Thursday was my last visit to the pelvic floor physiotherapist and I am glad to say the problem is solved. No more loss of pesky little drops of urine. Growing older means a lot of maintenance. I have to do so many special exercises! For my knee, for my ankles, for my pelvic floor and then all the other exercises to keep my body supple. It is a good thing I am retired. I need the time to do these extra things haha.
At the end of the afternoon Ron and I had a lovely meal at the beach. When you live so close, you have to take advantage of good weather and get that holiday feeling when your feet are in the sand.

Below: Cheers.

dinner at the beach

All beach restaurants are desperately trying to fight off the sparrows. We now get a wrapped piece of nougat with our coffee instead of a cookie as the sparrows love the cookies and people give them crumbs.

Below: Staff took their time to remove the dirty dishes (it was busy). I count 11 sparrows, including the two in the air, or are there 12?

sparrows at the beach

Friday Loes came over for coffee in the morning and we sat in our garden.
At noon the hairdresser dyed and cut my hair and it’s lovely again. I cooked for Ron, actually I cooked dinner for 4 days this week as he is working hard. Groceries and cooking are his jobs, the rest of the household chores are mine. Vacuuming we both do.

Below: One of this week’s outfits. (Link to original post wearing boots instead of pumps.) Terrible colours and my ‘no make-up face’ isn’t pretty either. Oh well.

Outfit Friday

That’s it for this week.

Greetje

No Fear of Fashion

 

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