November 2010
41 posts
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Ribbon shoelaces
The bows on these Lanvin shoes look a little more 18th-century than the contemporary man might be comfortable with, but the idea of using ribbons as shoelaces is definitely cute.
Hit up your local haberdashery store for colours that contrast jauntily with the shoe. Or for a subtler look, opt for the same colour and let the ribbon’s satiny sheen be the contrast.
via nirvana, nevada,...
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Wolverine Originals →
Our mate Stuart recently got himself these Wolverine boots. Founded in Rockford, Michigan in 1883, the company has been selling boots to workers, hunters, hikers and the US Army since 1914; Stuart says these ones were worn by the construction workers on the Empire State Building. They were promoted as “1000 Mile Shoes” and were originally made of horsehide. Neigh! you say. Yea.
The...
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Don't perch at precarious heights
The other night we were at the tram stop and saw a group of four hipsters attempting to have some drinks on a precarious window ledge above a shop. They were holding beer bottles and glasses. Someone clearly lived in the flat above the shop and had the brilliant idea to drink al fresco.
We were debating taking an iPhone pic of them to put up here, but they must’ve realised what a dick move...
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DIY ruby slippers
There’s something undeniably alluring about sparkly stuff. Rappers know it. Nomi Malone knows it. And friends of Dorothy know it. Judy Garland’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz were sequined, but you can get your own twinkletoes by painting PVA craft glue over any old pair of shoes, covering them with red glitter, then spraying them with clear gloss enamel to fix the glitter.
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Instant Austin Powers chair →
Clearly it’s Chair Day here at the Hipster Tipster. You might not be able to upholster a chair, but you sure can tuck a fluffy throw rug over a chair you found abandoned on the street, instantly rendering it shagadelic.
This trick depends on the fluffiness of the rug – if it’s too thin, it’ll just look like an unusually thick dustsheet. Also, the last thing you want is for it to...
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How to do your hair in victory rolls
Even if you aren’t into rockabilly, burlesque, swing-dancing or other retro dress-up scenes, at some stage you will definitely be invited to a themed party where it’ll be appropriate to wear the quintessential Forties hairstyle, the victory roll – as modelled by Betty Grable, above.
We have done the hard yards of trawling through all the bazillion YouTube tutorials on the subject...
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Vending machine piggy bank
How often do you actually pay for something with five-cent coins? They just weigh down your pockets and bulk up your wallet, and the only time you scrabble around for them is when you’re 15c short.
Yet how can you spend them? Hospitality staff will think you are the worst kind of tightarse if you tip them with five cents – or even a bunch of five-cent coins. And the heady days of five-cent...
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Kitsch wall murals
This is from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. It’s not wallpaper; some awesome parent sketched their terrible sketches, and painted their terrible paintings, until Max said, “Be still!”
We also love these old-school wall murals that look like a peaceful nature scene. You can still get them from...
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Be a grownup; fix your clothes
If your shirt’s missing a button, your hem’s falling down, there’s a hole in your sock or your favourite pants get a cigarette burn, there’s no excuse for looking like a bum when it’s so easy to fix them.
Get a sewing kit. By this we don’t mean some exhaustive, Etsy-ready setup. You need a needle, a pair of scissors, some thread and a container to store them in.
You can start with those...
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Disposable razors, reviewed →
Nick Drewe has reviewed a range of throwaway beard-scrapers, from Home Brand to “the leased sports car of disposable razors”, so you don’t have to carve up your face trying them yourself. A great read!
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Save $20 on iTunes gift cards – today only!
From the latest Kmart catalogue. Basically, spend $40 and get $60 worth of iTunes. Keep one for yourself and give one to someone else for Christmas…
This special ends today – most Kmart stores are open until 10pm tonight, and we suppose they’d honour it until midnight at the 24-hour stores.
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An easy trick for carrying books
Sure, in these days of e-reader ascendancy, it might soon be outmoded to carry a book around. But your iPad doesn’t have an intimidating girth and the words “David Foster Wallace” written on the front, so books still win in the show-off stakes.
However, some books are just too big to fit in your bag. You might still want to read them when you’re out and about, or you...
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Don't call or text the wrong person by mistake
If you’re anything like us, your phone contains eight Andrews, five ladies called Jess and several other people listed only by their Mess+Noise usernames. If you mix them up, you risk embarrassing yourself with an overly personal text message; rudely telling someone you didn’t actually want to talk to them; and that dreaded return text, “Who is this?”
Here are some tips to...
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Ethics: Stealing flowers
An ex-housemate of ours, who also lived in the same house that boasted the milk crate bed base, used to stroll around the neighbourhood stealing posies of flowers from other people’s gardens when she couldn’t afford to buy them.
Flowers from markets – or, mysteriously, that stall at Flinders Street Station – can be pretty cheap ($5 or less), so stealing your own is not really...
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Ray-Ban re-releases its most iconic sunglasses →
Ray-Ban has just released “Ray-Ban Icons”, a set of the company’s best-loved designs dating back to 1937.
It includes the classic Aviator and Round Metal (aka “John Lennon glasses” – hilariously, now being marketed as “grunge”), as well as the Wayfarer and Clubmaster styles that have been popular for quite a few years now, plus some...
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Invisible bike helmets
It’s the eternal hipster cyclist’s dilemma – how can you avoid dorky bike helmets, yet also avoid death and brain damage in a crash? Two Swedish ladies may have an answer – they’ve developed a bike helmet that’s worn around the neck, and inflates like an airbag before impact.
Of course, naysayers are already pointing out that if you land on your face, this cartoonish...
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Risoni: your ticket to picnic heroism
Sick of being the person who brings supermarket dips to every picnic when your friends have made parmesan and anchovy crostini, pineapple and cherry syrup cupcakes, or other ridiculous gourmet dishes? We have one word for you: risoni.
It looks like giant grains of rice but it’s really a pasta variety that’s used mainly in soups. You can also find it labelled ‘risi’...
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Don't preen your hair in public
It’s dick moves like this that give hipsters a bad name. Wait until you’re not being observed to fix your hair, and use products and accessories that will reduce the need to fiddle with it at all.
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Kris Kringle shopping
Uh-oh, it’s that time of year again – Kris Kringle time! Also known as Secret Santa, it’s the practice of being compelled by your workplace to buy an inexpensive, anonymous gift for one of your co-workers!
If you are unlucky, they’ll all be doled out at the work Christmas party by Craig from Accounts sweating under an unconvincing Santa suit. If you’re extra unlucky, Craig...
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Free cats until this Caturday
Have you ever thought about getting a cat? They are fluffy and awesome. You can stroke them and take funny pictures of them and make up stupid songs about them. And if you live in Victoria, the RSPCA will give you one for free this week.
Usually, shelter cats come with nominal adoption fees that cover desexing and vaccinations – the RSPCA usually charges $85 for an adult cat (aged over four...
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Dress like your favourite iconic male musician →
We don’t necessarily think everything on this list is instantly recognisable, but the illustrations are great and if you admire any of these guys, it might guide your sartorial thinking.
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Don't buy crappy op-shop shoes
We know you’re going to buy shoes in op-shops, but there is a point at which ‘vintage’ and ‘grunge’ shoes become ‘broken’ and ‘a waste of money’. To avoid looking poor and homeless, and being stuck with annoying shoes you’ll end up throwing away, here are some things to look for in op-shop shoes.
Buy leather. Vinyl (aka...
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Mi Goreng instant noodles under investigation →
This is worse than the time Bonsoy was recalled.
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The mysteries of Coke's taste
Hey hipsters! Time magazine is shouting out to you! Specifically, that Mexican Coca-Cola might be a myth.
You’ve probably heard this legend that in Mexico they make Coke with sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup, which makes people (or by Time’s reckoning, “hipsters”) believe it somehow tastes better. Seems it might be made with HFCS after all.
But anyway, we think...
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Glossary: "Typefaces"
If you want to stay in a designer’s good books, don’t talk about ‘fonts’. Call them ‘typefaces’.
Thanks to digital layout software, the difference is now one of pedantry. But back in the days when text was printed by pressing metal shapes against paper, a typeface was a stylistically consistent alphabet of letters, numerals and punctuation. A font was a set of...
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New look
We received a tip that our typeface was difficult to read, and so we have just spent an hour in the rather hipsterish pursuit of agonising over which theme best ‘represents us’, and then tinkering around with the CSS so it looks more the way we like.
We hope the result is both legible and edgy. Ledgyble.
October 2010
11 posts
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Milk crate bed base
We once had a housemate who made her bed base out of milk crates. When she moved out, there were milk crate-shaped dents in the carpet. While there’s something rather undergraduate about this, it’s definitely more advanced than sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Perhaps a milk crate bed is ‘postgraduate’.
You could put a sheet of plywood over the top and secure the...
