Hong Kong - Singapore - Cape Town

another change in location and another heavy dose of jet lag. i will be back with you shortly.

Forever21 in Singapore

who can guess how high i jumped when i stumbled upon a Forever21 at Wisma Atrium on Orchard Road?

he styles it good.

Marc by Marc is probably one of the cheapest and most affordable diffusion lines on the market, but it never fails to looks like a million dollars on the runway. why you ask? because the man can undoubtably style!! i don't think any of the models in the AW09 show were wearing less than 5 items of clothing. it's not about one key piece summing up the season's look. it's about mixing it up a little - colours, textures and shapes. let's take a few pointers, shall we?

window shopping.

window shopping. that's what i do these days. no real, satisfying shopping, just plain old window shopping. for two reasons. let me share. one - lack of luggage space. i'm a frequent traveller... but i can never keep the weight down. a skill that still needs to be perfected. two - my working holiday is coming to an end and depressingly, so is my cash flow. so my last few days in Hongkies will not only involve around the clock goodbye lunches/dinners but also a good lashing of window-peering and bag envy. i spotted the Chloe 'Sally' Flap Bag - undeniably the most covetable bag this season (okay, maybe coming a close 2nd to the YSL 'Easy') - in the On Pedder window today and fell hopelessly in love... Hannah MacGibbon, new creative director at Chloe is working worldly wonders! just wanted to share with you the adventures of window shopping.

picking up PRESTIGE.

i've been in Hongkies for nearly 5 months (gosh, time flies!) and i'm always popping in to book stores and visiting newsstands, but i've never noticed any local fashion titles in english. my chinese writing/reading is crap - almost non-existent - so i always keep a look out for local english titles... i've checked out a few but nothings really caught my fancy. i've pretty much just been feeding off international titles which are generally quite affordable over here.

today however, i was picking up a few magazines for my flight to Singapore and i happened to notice Prestige - an english luxury lifestyle title here in Hongkies. i never took much notice of it before. this issue, however, had Stella McCartney on the cover, which is probably the only reason i looked twice. and isn't it a great cover?! she's got such a great face. not really what you would call pretty, but let's be honest here, you couldn't do a close-ups like that unless you had a great face! don't think i've ever seen Stella on the cover of anything before and this cover really does her justice. i met her just over a year ago at Selfridges during London Fashion Week (there was lots of champagne and macaroons involved!) and she was just ridiculously sweet and sophisticated. i remember there were two elderly ladies asking after her father and telling her to please send their regards - really sweet old ladies. not sure if i would buy Prestige regularly though... maybe just a once off... for the Stella cover and interview and the fantastic/exclusive photos of Coco Chanel taken by Douglas Kirkland.

Lane Crawford Campaign SS09: The Insider

no one can compete with Lane Crawford when it comes to retail ad campaigns in Hongkies. i've been eagerly waiting to see what they had in store for SS09. everyone remembers their last campaign right? if not, click here to see what Susie Bubble had to say.

so i know there's been talk of many retailers cutting back on campaign costs. to put it simply exotic locations abroad are being rapidly replaced by good old studio shoots. the wonderful team at Lane Crawford have outsmarted the failing economy and completely upped their standards this season. they have commissioned (under-the-radar) fashion photographer and blogger of Jak & Jil (check it out - especially the NYC Shoe Gazing// SS09!!!) Tommy Ton to shoot this season's The Insider Campaign on the streets of New York. the campaign is set up much like a blog - titled posts, post date, street photography images, etc. although, the images come across as candid and au natural there's little doubt that there's an army-esque crew behind the camera. regardless, the campaign really captures the sophistication & edginess of street fashion during Fashion Week and we all know nothing sells better than the glamour of Fashion Week.

Ton's also currently blogging from NYFW for the LC site. LC has obviously realised the power of the blogosphere and using it as a source of inspiration for this season's campaign. love it, love it. no doubt my favourite campaign of the season - hats off to the LC team.

there isn't much on the web in terms of images atm - am working on that.

UPDATE: spotted outside Harbour City in TST.

digital polaroids.

Backstage at NYFW SS09

Photographer: Eric Ray Davidson

umm, so this isn't really fashion-related... but we all know what sort of crazy mess the fashion industry would be in if they didn't have polaroids. check out this download >>> clickity click here. also, check out New York-based photographer Eric Ray Davidson!! 

graffiti like you've never seen it before.

here's some of the work belonging to Dutch, garment graffiti artist, Thomas Voorn. Voorn is, unsurprisingly, a Central Saint Martins graduate and now works as an artist, designer, stylists and conceptionalists. he started out experimenting with garment graffiting on the streets of Denmark and has recently turned his unusual talent to visual merchandising. his work has already been commissioned by a number of boutiques/concept stores in both London and the Netherlands. and did i happen to mention he's also quite brilliant?

using clothes to make letters is hardly rocket science. that's what you thinking right? i mean kids could do it. it's just such a simple concept. yet... no one's ever thought of using it as a form of expression or a form of typography for visual merchandising. well, at least that was until Voorn came along. i guess, the most simple ideas can sometimes be the most innovative ideas. now please do go try this at home kids!

A DESIGNER POEM

VM FOR B STORE - LONDON

rediscovering LOOKBOOK.nu

6 months ago i wasn't the proud owner of a macbook. my life, pre-macbook, was pretty tough - as some of you might remember. basically my old notebook, which i spent a small fortune on (my heart still aches at the thought) had a very slow and painful death. it eventually crashed and burned within a year of me purchasing it. it was beautiful-looking but crap... like the dresses at Primark. so deceiving. you only begin realising when one by one the buttons start falling off.

okay. back to the point. so with my over-priced and good-for-nothing notebook went all my precious bookmarks. this probably sounds petty, but one's bookmark list is like one's contact list. a lot of work goes into building it up and losing it is annoying, if not heart-wrenching. so stumbling upon LOOKBOOK.nu for the second time around was pretty "yeeah". i honestly forgot about the awesome-ness of this site and their great spin on the ever-popular street style blog. now, it's back on my bookmark list!

the lowdown. "real people" get other "real people" to take photos of them in their trendy gear. they upload it onto the site. then members vote what they like or rather hype what they like. it's pretty simple stuff. there's nothing mediocre about this site. not only is it super-styling, but there's also some really inspiring photography. you can only upload images and hype photos if you've personally been invited to become a member. talk about fashion elitism, right? well at least you guaranteed a glimpse of the bona fide international fashion crowd.

Dree Hemingway - the next it girl?!

it's absolutely freezing in Hongkies. it's all wind, rain, storm and thunder outside. so, i've spent most of the evening at home watching some of my favourite old films - Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim and Woody Allen's Manhattan - with a wild craving for popcorn and missing my old-film-loving sister terribly.

i've just sat down to my mac again to check my mail and i've received my daily newsletter fromWhoWhatWear. apparently, Dree Hemingway - yes, that would be grand-daughter of Ernest Hemingway and daughter of Mariel Hemingway, who plays Tracy aka Allen's ridiculously underage girlfriend in Manhattan - is girl of the month. i'm assuming we have an it girl in the making here. she's got all the necessary prerequisites - famous parents, fashion friends and fabulous threads. also, she's featured on WWW and they almost always spot on with things like this.

i find it rather intriguing, actually. novelist then actress and now it girl. the Hemingways aren't doing too bad for themselves, are they? must be all in the genes.

Givenchy trickles on down to H&M.

apologises for the ambiguous title. if you were thinking that i was going to break the news that Givenchy was doing a capsule collection for H&M you would be wrong. we can only wish. what i meant was... Givenchy's AW08 necklace - you remember, the runway images were everywhere - has finally made an appearance on the high street. At H&M of course!

when this happens - as it did with Luella's sweetheart prom dresses from SS08 and Wang's baby blue denim bags from SS09 - i always think of the scene from The Devil Wear Prada. You know, the one where Meryl Streep criticises Anne Hathaways sweater and then proceeds to explain the relationship between high-fashion and low-fashion. that scene probably got her her Oscar Nomination:

"... that sweater is not just blue, it's not torquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then, I think, it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? [...] And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin."

totally love Meryl and her onscreen magic! 

since i'll be jetsetting again in 2 weeks, the plan was to keep all new purchases to the light minimal. as you can see, the necklace isn't nearly as tiered as the original, but it's weighty as hell! i can only imagine what the real Givenchy weighs. i just couldn't walk away from it. i'm going to wear it with everything. starting with this jumpsuit - which is also newly purchased. no worries, it's light as a feather ;)

this clever amish boy and his hairdo.

i've just stumbled upon this fantastic image at Style Guide Cape Town. the post basically raves about this dude's diy t-shirt, which has been pimped (aka customised) with a simple strap from a military uniform. clever boy. love it of course! but what about the hair? that definitely deserves a mention. the hair would make me stop dead in my tracks. he looks interesting thanks to that hair. okay, i know, enough about the hair. my point is... Japanese men's label, N.Hoolywood popped into my head instantly. their SS09 collection was all healthy Amish boys and good clean clothes, which was a little out of the ordinary as far as Japanese runway shows go, but also v. refreshing and totally wearable. do you see the resemblance here?!

making a statement.

i never ever pass up a visit to the jewellery department when i'm shopping. i've spent the better half of the last 2 years looking for the perfect statement necklace. i don't mean beads and pendants - believe me i have plenty of those. i mean a neckpiece - something heavy, weighty and beautiful, something that can pull a simple outfit right out from it's comfort zone, something that will make your fashion f(r)iends go "ooh, where did you get that?" with a heavy dose of envy!

there were some fabulooous examples on the runway for SS09. i'm talking Marni, Louis Vuitton, Burberry. unfortunately, these are one of the few things that the high street just haven't been able to reproduce for the masses. who knows why... but i haven't seen any out there. someone needs to have a chat with the people at Topshop, seriously. 

London-based Hong Kong duo, Daydream Nation did some really covetable pieces for AW08 and sooo affordable compared to Marni. a little bird tells me that some selected pieces from the AW08 collection have gone on sale at Kapok... but surprisingly i'm actually more tempted to wait and see what they have in store for SS09. in the meanwhile i'll be scouring the jewellery departments as always.