Lilian, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

First thing: cue music! Please play yourself some Otis Redding, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, which sets the scene perfectly.
If you should so prefer, here's Sara Bareilles' cover, which is phenomenal.

Where: Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, 6th January, 2013
with elderflower in hand and sunset to follow

Outfit post is BACK. That's right. I'm so, so happy to present you another collaboration with dear Lilian at Honey In The Tea - we barely managed to meet over break since there were only two days between her last day of exams and my departure for London Heathrow. We both had to set things aside, but we made time and made our way to the Typhoon Shelter, which is a nice piece of quiet with sea view in Causeway Bay, away from central action of malls and whatnot.

Just when I was about to be sickened by the sight of Uniqlo down jackets everywhere (not dissing them - they're pretty light and affordable, but visually boring when ubiquitous), Lilian appeared in a rich brown leather coat. Don't you love her already?

1. We went to IKEA and grabbed elderflower juice, the project's namesake. We don't even drink mainstream juice.

2. Walking to the "typhoon shelter" by the harbour
Wearing: H&M sequined sweater (similar in Debenhams), vintage leather jacket (thrifted), the essential black pants and court shoes,
River Island diagonal stripes clutch (thrifted), daisy studs (gifted), ring inspired by the Cartier Trinity,
vintage Enicar watch (from Dad) and Revlon Raisin Rage nail polish

Concept by Lilian: kudos to her for taking off her shoes!
You can see the face of her watch and her daisy studs much better here - very cute gift!

The photoshoot was again unplanned, but it was not entirely unexpected - like awkward meetups/hookups between "friends," I think we both knew, on some level, that it was bound to happen.

Love how she wears gold-tone jewelry and sequins with basic cream and black. Personally I find sequins hard to pull off as you tend to look too sparkly or "festive" at wrong times; mixing the shiny elements with the muted is a good call. The leather jacket as a topper adds a flair of polished vintage and sets her apart from the mainstream "vintage hipster" pack (a.k.a where I sometimes belong hah).

Also LOVE that she nicked the Enicar watch from her dad - lovely, round classic manual wind watch. I'm a big fan of watches. In the age where everyone looks at his/her phone for time, whipping out a watch is still faster and a good watch is a timeless piece. (Get it? Get it?)

The cherries on top of all these? Vampish magenta-red nails.

***

On a technical level this project is trickier than the last: we moved locations within Causeway Bay and I shot without proper "equipment:" all photos from this post were taken on her HTC One X (which she, along with my wise and knowledgeable tech-y friends, heartily recommends) - hence the unusual heavy-handed editing. And Blogger has been an absolutely pain to work with.

Luckily I have Lilian and we spent a lot of time tweaking and discussing the pictures, making this blog post a more collaborative process. (Girl even fixed my layout.) After countless attempts of colour corrections and layout realignment, I'm happy with the results given what we had (a smartphone).

The important question is: how do you like it? :)

x

Endless thanks to Lilian as always, and credits to Julia Star of Night Fate Actions who created some actions I used here (Clean Tones, some "Creamy Grey" and tints, and Finishing Touches).