都是祝福

black is not a colour

i can really count the number of times i do arty farty stuff. haha. the last visit to the museum was in jan. and goodness gracious we've lived almost half of twenty eleven already...

i finally got off my lazy ass to see this exhibition. i don't know if it's just me, anything to do with clothes just seems to be easier to enjoy. lol. i definitely preferred this to the pompeii ones. today it's just 18 dresses and some photos. i also visited one of the galleries, which features singapore's street food culture. i realised only now that i missed the exhibits at the Fashion Gallery. idiot. can you imagine my legs were tired out in under two hours?   

 

and i'm never going to be a good reporter. i can't even tell you which is my favourite dress. thanks to this event, i finally got wind that Thomas Wee's indeed back! his label "First Lady" is now available at Tangs (iirc). he made this dress recently. a pity there's no shot of the dress from the front. the black and white bustier dress was by Benny Ong, if i'm not wrong. i snapped a photo of an Andrew Gn dress:

i took the pictures of the cheongsams because they depict what i've said about black being the perfect canvas for arresting cheongsams, and i like this silhouette the most.  

read this article for more pictures and writeup about the evolution of black in fashion globally and locally.

开窍

a good thing about writing a blog is that you look back and wonder with [insert word deemed most apt for that moment in time] at what's happened before. as a friend's once pointed out to me, "we are forgetful". the context was different from the one on which i'm framing this post, but it certainly holds true for me most of the time.

it was accidental how i finally had my locks chopped off. our work day had ended 'prematurely' thanks  to someone's error, the boss allowed us to stay out of office for the rest of the day. so me and my colleague went shopping. lol. my colleague scored a whole lot of things, i got two canvas totes from kino. it's really quite unlike me. i think the first and last time i did that was when i was in tokyo with my friend. her friends had tompanged her to get the agnes b free tote that came with some catalogue at kino (they did this very often - it's a culture). so i thought i should get one too since i was right there in tokyo. people were paying more than double for those things back in singapore. 

don't ask me why i'd fork out more than double the costs to buy the totes. i'd planned on the YSL one (it's a north/south style with a bow) but i already have a YSL black east/west and a black baggu  duck bag, and  there're stacks and stacks of them i figured they'd still be around if i decided to get it later. so i ended up with a SR. it came with a makeup catalogue - that's how i came to know about the lady's mantra. the other free  bag i got was a better buy cos it's cheaper: the bag's smaller but prettier and the magazine offered great fashion inspiration. 

anyway, i ended up at the salon cos i boarded the wrong train. my colleague told me i should get on the one that just arrived when i went to confirm the train route (i'm a bus-er, you see). so i hurried into the train. so i thought why not drop by my stylist since i was heading towards toa payoh.

this photo had been re-surfaced by an ex-colleague recently. i also realised that i'd worn similar styles in the past during various stages of my life. and then it dawned on me that it's not too different from the do i wore when i was flying with SQ. too many coincidences. the scarier thing was that i'd clean forgotten about them. or i was just too blind to notice?

truth be told, i'm regretting the cut. i suppose i really didn't know and won't know myself after all? or i did know but i just wanted to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place? i think the style's  fine on me -- at least it seems that my stylist's gotten it right although she didn't layer the sides and the back the way i'd described to her (she said the 'in' thing was to leave them "straight" rather than concave).

perhaps i shouldn't laugh at what Sonia Rykiel said about looking at oneself in the mirror for one hour every day. i wonder, at what age did she decide to stop looking, cos that'd be when she knew the look she wanted to stick to, right? not a few of today's fashion icons go by the same mantra. locally, the first one that comes to mind is Mrs Fang Ai Lian. but the images on the net  show a less pronounced 'bump' on her head. then there's Catherine Lim, who's always wearing a short do and clad in her trademark cheongsams.   

i have a few reasons for the regret. i was hoping against hope that i won't have problems dressing for work or outside work. i mean, changing my do shouldn't change my life, right?? if things hadn't changed for Rykiel for more than 20 years, then surely it's the same for me as well? the strange (and funny) thing i found out recently:  the vintage eyewear suited the new look very well. ha ha. but it's not good if i don't want to look granny! and i still like my aviators very much. 

i think i'll go shorter eventually. i might cut my fringe even. it's going to cost alot to keep short hair, that's a fact i already knew. perhaps this journey's necessary since i mentioned before that i needed a wardrobe review. meanwhile, i'm waiting patiently for the caps to arrive. they might end up wasted with the heap of scarves... that i'd said would come in handy one day. if all else fails, i'll do what Rykiel recommends.

stockholm streetstyle

corollary

this is a less dressy cheongsam i own. people can argue it doesn't even look like one. like the one i showed you earlier, it's not in the usual 'pattern'. i'd love to own a longer and dark one with cap sleeves. a colleague has been wearing cheongsams these past two days (fact, i've been seeing more ladies wear them and they didn't look obiang but really nice). she got one from metro at $36 only. the one she wore today's a tad short. or maybe it's cos she has a nice figure so the dress further enhanced her sexiness. but to be very honest, i don't think i'd have picked out those designs. i think it's the appearance of the fabric... more specifically it could be the piping and frog buttons. perhaps this is why the ones i have are collarless and not too fussy.

oh, i think i know why her dress is short. there's no slit. the slit is one of the cheongsam's features that gives off the sexy vibe. a malay colleague asked if i was wearing a cheongsam. i had on a blue outerwear over the mint one over the dress (cos i caught a cold again). i asked how she could tell. it's the slit. i think the other cheongsam has a centre slit in the back.

anyway, as you can see, my shoulders are too narrow. or i have wide hips? i believe it was the guru who suggested that i wear a belt over the mint green throw (given me by her). i didn't wear the green bbag. i switched to the new celine.

chinoi

the problem with wearing cheongsams is obvious. if it's too plain, you risk looking like wait staff in a chinese restaurant. if it's too elaborate, you'll receive no end of questions and comments from others (the dress wasn't even elaborate but painfully plain). it's funny that it's the case for asians, eh? do caucasians experience such 'discrimination' when they wear these garments?

i do not have a pic of me wearing the above dress. it's been a favourite for years. i recycle my cheongsams (a total of 4 in my entire collection, most of them sleeveless) like nobody's business. i had a cream skirt suit that's become too risque and tiny for me. i custom-made it numerous suns and moons ago.  i have a set of ao dai somewhere in the cupboards. i'm too chicken sh:t to wear  them, they're the colour of candy pink and pure white. an ex-colleague got them for me when he toured vietnam.  

i wish i'd tailor-make some dresses or suits when i visited shanghai 5 years back. i could've had all the uniqueness i'd wanted w/o having to pay too much. i'm liking some of the dresses made by this store. i'm too chicken sh:t to wear some of the colours. except on my digits. haha.     

typecast

我从山中来 带着兰花草

种在小园中 希望花开早

一日看三回 看得花时过

兰花却依然 苞也无一个

today's lesson: save the cheongsam for chinese new year or wedding functions. else you have to brave incessant questions and stereotype perceptions. wearing glasses sure helped fuel the typecasting. actually, i already knew when i decided to wear it to work. no, it's not that i wanted the attention. i was rummaging thru the mess in my room last night. i unearthed a few surprises (and thankfully purged out some stuff along the way). i got this Shanghai Tang silk number from Swirl's last charity sale. i didn't see the stains until i got back to the office and a colleague spotted them. they're really not that noticeable. i think it's a little shabby if you look at it closer (or maybe i'm completely blind and clueless). the mandarin collar and hem are subtly beaded. so i thought why not wear it today. i could hide the stains with a vest or something; the dress won't look too dressy then. don't you love that beige vest-cum-shawl thingie?   

it's been freezing cold in the mornings. i wonder how more typical i'd look if i wore socks and school shoes. i almost tied plaits in my hair. lol. it seemed really contrived but i swear it's not. if i'd chopped off my hair, would it have been less obvious? i'm sure someone could think of something else to say. i wasn't offended at all. i should be flattered anyone would take notice. i got "很nice" and "cute". all i was missing was a hat so i'd look like a vietnamese girl, so said a colleague to finish the work day. one of them actually sang that 兰花草song when i joked about my look at the start of the day. we're so in sync. lol.