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Fashionable Fiction: Edie, from Diary of a Crush

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Me again, trying to stay true to my word and post more often! This is a new series that I’ve been planning to start for ages, partly inspired by all the blogs that create outfits for film and television characters, but instead I will be creating outfits for fictional characters based on the descriptions in their books!

Over on my book blog, this fleeting dream, I’ve been celebrating the re-release of one of my favourite teen fiction series, Diary of a Crush, with a themed week, and today I decided to take it over here and create some outfits for Edie, the diarist herself, based on her own descriptions in the books. If you want to know what store or brand an item is from, click the book/date link to go through to Polyvore.

Edie is a bottle-blonde with a Sixties fringe and a love of vintage hunting and eBay shopping. She went to secondary school in Brighton (where she must have acquired much of her wardrobe – Brighton has great shops), but then moved to Manchester to do her A Levels at college. She loves dressing up and swapping clothes with her friend Shona, though Shona seems to borrow from Edie more of the time!

French Kiss, November 9th

Edie, November 9th

Edie goes to a gig with Shona, and wears a Sixties cherry-print dress and a little red cardie. Alas, I could not find a dress that matched the description, so I picked two that I thought would work. I added in an eyeliner pen, so that she could do her eyeliner to match, and glittery red nail varnish like she wore to college when she first met Mia. Finally, it is a gig, and Edie loves her Converses, so I couldn’t resist including red and black options!

French Kiss, first morning in Paris

Edie, first day in Paris

The trip to Paris features a lot of outfit changes, and after a chaotic first evening, Edie wakes up early the next day to get dressed in plenty of time. In the new edition of French Kiss she wears a Nordic sweater dress but I didn’t like any of those on Polyvore so I went back to my 2004 copy for inspiration. I replaced the pink cord miniskirt with a skater skirt to make it more up to date and added some accessories, including a striped scarf as worn in the 2013 version!

Edie, 5th March

Edie wears a vintage floral dress for a date – of course there isn’t much in the way of vintage on Polyvore so I picked a couple of appropriately-styled new dresses to go with the headscarf and boots.

Edie, 20th July
It’s the end of college party, and Edie dresses up in a pale pink Sixties shift dress, which again, I couldn’t really find, so I picked out another couple of dresses that, combined with the hair slides and nail varnish, would make anyone look a bit like a ‘strawberry milkshake’!

None of these outfits are much like my normal style, but I do really like them! Maybe I’ll be taking a leaf out of Edie’s book (groan) and trying to pull off one of these ensembles in the near future. What do you think?

Glamorous Witches

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At the start of July, Wookey Hole Caves in Somerset, England, announced that they were looking for a new witch to live in their caves and entertain tourists, after their previous witch had retired. The new witch, they said, must be able to cackle, and must not be allergic to cats.

3,124 people applied, 278 suggested their mothers-in-law (nice), and 23 church groups sent letters of protest. 300 people made it to the auditions, video footage from them can be seen here, and here. The job was finally given to former estate agent Carole Bohanan, who has reinvented herself as family-friendly glamorous witch Carla Calamity. Picture here, interview video here, handover-of-the-broom ceremony here! Doesn’t she look fabulous? Stripy tights, corset, gorgeous scarf, and that hat! Puts all my half-hearted witch costumes at Halloween to shame. I think I’ll go as her this year!

Looking at her picture in another commuter’s copy of the Metro last week, I started to think of all the variations of witch costume that I could, and then today I spent some time writing descriptions and when I felt inspired, putting outfits together on Polyvore. Perfect way to spend a Sunday!

Carla Calamity
Just add a stripy scarf and wind some tulle around a plain pointy hat. According to her Twitter, her corset is from Flitterbat, but I think you could create a similar look with several belts.
Carla Calamity


Designer Witch
This witch is the most powerful of all – she can magic herself up endless money and defend herself from would-be muggers. She doesn’t wear a pointy hat – you can’t get those in boutiques, but she does ride a broomstick – limousines are so last season, darling.
Designer Witch

Charmed Witch
Just wear a pair of blue jeans and a fancy pastel-coloured top.

Hogwarts Witch
Charmed Knits has patterns for all the clothing you’d need to start the new term at Hogwarts. Sweaters, socks, scarves, hats, robes, even owls. I personally have no desire to have my own Hogwarts uniform, but I looked through it in the library and it seems like a really useful and fun book for those who do.

The Worst Witch
White shirt (grey for The New Worst Witch), pinafore, diagonally striped black & white tie, black tights, ‘sensible’ shoes.

Miss Hardbroom
Black cardigan or jacket zipped up to your chin, hair in a bun/Croydon facelift, dark red lipstick, scowl.

For those who can’t make up their minds/think witches should have wings and glitter.
Fairy Witch

The Witches’ Cat The Cat That Owns The Witch*
The Designer Witch needs a well-dressed familiar, and I thought this post was rather lacking in purple up to this point.

The Witches' Cat/The Cat That Owns The Witch

*because of course, there’s no such thing as a cat owner 😉

Can you think of any more variations on this theme? I thought about doing Polyvores for the witches from Hocus Pocus and Eglantine Price from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but I don’t own a copy of either film and I couldn’t find any good pictures to work from.