Fran Robertson - Decorator of People and Things

Told myself I was going to start taking outfit photos again, and then immediately didn't really do that, but today's kaftan is another unsung favourite that I made out of a tartan shawl in the most spectacular emerald green, with pink, purple, and yellow woven through it, and a remnant of garishly pink quilting cotton covered in tone-on-tone flowers. I love using scarves and things in my scrappy nonsense kaftans, because there are so so many of them at opshops and they're great starting points for colour combo ideas.

This absolutely adorable wicker fish purse was a gift from some friends who found it on their trip to Viva this year, and it's just such a delight ❤️

Oh and all my bangles are from Splendette | Vintage Jewellery today!

This outfit I've called 'Growing up out of the Muck', and it's an ode to all the people out there with mud between their toes as they try to put their best face out into the world. The ones who have been slowly cleaning up the space around them so they can flourish. The ones who haven't always believed that they can have a beautiful life, but worked towards it anyway, just in case.

Sometimes things catch you by the roots and drag you down, but we've got this. Just like lotus blossoms, we are resilient enough to bloom again.

As someone who has an affinity for water lillies and other swamp dwelling flowers, and loves a print with loads of hidden details, there was no way I was passing on this clearance end-of-roll bargain from SPOTLIGHT to make myself yet another fantastic kaftan with.

Paired it with a woven belt that I made, another fabulous pair of second-hand clog sandals that I got on Trade Me, and a bag I made out of two vintage doilies.

The flower crown came about because I bought these fake water lillies for a client project and they arrived looking like hot garbage, but I don't love throwing things away for just being a bit ugly, so I revamped them with some steam and paint and a bit of TLC, and they came up great!

The necklace and earrings are some of my favourite jewellery bits that I've made lately, because there was a bit more problem solving involved than usual, and I love a challenge! I cut some mirror into irregular 'pebbles' and poured resin onto them to get a swirly blue base that looked pond-adjacent, before attaching the flowers and leaves and teeny tiny frog friends 🐸

And obviously there's always a bangle stack - The pink and green ones are from Splendette | Vintage Jewellery, and the others were gifts ❤️

Ever get really caught up in the minutae of an idea and find yourself hand-sculpting individual tiny food items so you have the right number of tiny food items on your book accurate hungry caterpillar necklace? No? Just me?

This outfit I called 'The Hungriest Caterpillar', and frankly how could I be the hungriest caterpillar if I didn't have all the right snacks 😅

This outfit I called 'Strawberry Fields of Daisies' and it's an ode to my lawn in summer - We live just across the road from a strawberry farm, so the local birds fertilise our yard with strawberry seeds and we wind up with little clusters of strawberry plants and daisies popping up everywhere in summertime. It's frankly rather delightful, and one of my favourite things about living in Māngere ❤️🍓

I made the components for this jewellery set over a few months - any time I had leftover red resin from another project it would become strawberries - as I wanted it to have that slightly eclectic 1940s novelty fruit jewellery vibe with clusters of leaves and fruit and flowers.

Bangle stacks are a forever favourite accessory of mine, because any opportunity for colour coordination is my jam - The pink and white ones I made myself, and the red and green ones are Splendette | Vintage Jewellery

It won't come as a surprise to anyone that my handbag collection is truly out of hand, but this sweet little vintage embellished strawberry bag doesn't get nearly enough love, so I'm pleased I 'rediscovered' it trying to find a good match for this outfit!

Headpiece wise, I wanted this one to feel like a strawberry plant rather than just a flower crown with strawberries in it, so most of the fruit are hanging loose and have plenty of movement, giving me heaps of options for how to position it and style my hair around it, and there are both strawberry flowers and daisies in the mix.

When you are the kind of person who makes anything but content, it's only fair that you'd entirely forget to take photos of this outfit all at once, but have enough video to make a whole reel about it.

This one I've called 'That Fern's a real fun guy' because when your name is audibly very close to a real name like Fern, particularly in the classic kiwi accent, I'd say about one in five people I meet wander away from our interactions thinking my name is Fern.

And, ya know, any opportunity for a fun guy / fungi joke.

Getting the headpiece for this one right was a fun challenge, as I really wanted it to look like somewhere the ferns and fungi in the print might grow, so I collected all kinds of ferns leftover from a number of recent projects, along with some terrain moss to build a forest floor base.

I also sculpted mushrooms in polymer clay to match all the different mushrooms in the print of the kaftan, so a whole heap didn't make it onto this headpiece but they'll likely appear in something else one day soon.

The jewellery set I made to go with this outfit is an absolute delight - There are two kinds of glass mushroom beads so they kind of gently clink which is a fun noise for someone who loves a good clickety-clack jewellery sound (see: giant bangle stacks; heavy earrings that clack against big bead necklaces)