Wednesday, November 18, 2009  10:16 AM
A tale of two red soles
Exactly one week ago, Denise and I spent a good two hours or so chatting in the Christian Louboutin storeroom as I accompanied her during her press walk-throughs. My first impression was that it looked more like a post office's storage room; the place was exploding with recyclable-brown boxes and similar paper bags. Not one comfort chair was in sight. We spent the day trying out lonely red soles waiting to be worn on the cement floor, and looking up in fascination when the sales assistant rushed in swiping platinum credit cards and chalking up receipts of $3000 at one go.
The experience was nothing like what I expected. I used to walk into Louboutin with fear that someone was going to judge me for what I was wearing, or if I didn't look rich enough. These days, I walk in not caring without what anyone thinks, and I'm done with the mindset that I need to look the part when I window-shop at branded stores. At Louboutin that day, it was nothing special - nothing fluttered in my heart nor a sense of pride that we had a part to play in the prestigious family. The people working at the store were really fun and down-to-earth, and behind all that glamour of advertising and labels, it really is just a shoe store.
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The thing about me is that I've never been one that follows typical fashion trends. I don't really know what next season's big trend is, nor do I read fashion nation or style.com daily to keep myself updated with fashion news. I do know more than the average person perhaps, because I have stacks of magazines piled up waiting me to thumb through in the office, and I like walking into shops to simply observe - but I'm definitely not in the know like some fashionistas are. When it comes to dress sense, I wear what I like and I love rummaging through my wardrobe digging up things from years ago and treating them like brand-new items waiting to be worn. At last month's Topshop fashion party, everyone looked like carbon copies of each other in high-waisted shorts, harem pants, bandage heels or gladiator sandals. I felt like I just walked into a crowd of Topshop minions, and felt slightly out of place. I don't own harem pants or a boyfriend blazer. So what does that really mean? I wonder if I'm dated sometimes; but then again, who sets the standards for these things?
That worries me sometimes, if I want to eventually venture into fashion writing or anything along those lines. Should I be more concerned about the demise of super shoulders and the advent of studs in the months to come?
I still believe a whole lot in personal style though. I admire a person most when she or he defines the things they wear, and not the other way around. It's fun to see someone in something, know that you would probably never wear it but still love what the person is wearing. When the GGs are together, I see four other individual styles - classic, funky, eclectic and sophisticated. It makes very good photos.
In the meantime, two of my favourites from Christian Louboutin's SS10 collection! -
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Monday, November 16, 2009 12:13 AM
Citizen escapism
This felt like a decade ago - My first Disneyland experience, at age 21. I've been thinking about how far escapism can take someone. Disneyland is escapism personified in a place where millions go every year to tear away from the busy clicking of shoes along marbled floors at train stations and dreary rushed lunches where one hour is hardly enough time to hold a decent conversation with anyone. So Walt Disney obviously had that in mind when he created a world "where dreams come true"; every person taken to a place where only the good childhood memories remain in happily ever afters. It's the only place where exorbitant prices are accepted with smiles and people fork out wads of cash for a HK$25 for a Mickey Mouse chocolate ice-cream bar and US$3 for a sugary churro. People stand in line for hours under the hot sun in noisy chatter waiting to get into haunted houses and Peter Pan's world. Others dash off in search of their favourite princesses, two and twenty-year-olds alike, for that one moment captured on film. I did all of the above: had my fair share of ice-creams, churros, candied apples, candy floss and Mickey Mouse shaped burgers; made sure I went on every single ride in the different lands by strategising fast passes and running all over the place and sacrificed the go-kart ride to take pictures with all the princesses. I was very happy that day. It peaked when I stood rooted to the ground, transfixed by the magical blend of fireworks shooting through the pitch-black sky in Hong Kong. I look forward to escape all the time. When I'm upset about something, I rent a hk drama serial or start reading a book and never want to stop doing so as I lose myself in the plots. When I'm reflective and nostalgic, I look through old pictures and think of endings written by me. When I'm bored, I walk into Chanel and YSL and hold the bags against myself and pretend I can really afford them. The only thing I'm looking forward to about the end of this year is Christmas in Hawaii and Japan and knowing that I'll be away from here for awhile. In a place where no one knows me and the unfamiliarity breeds hope in fond memories on a clean slate. But how long can that sustain me; I have no idea. Will there ever come a point where reality is where I really want to be?
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Monday, November 02, 2009 2:56 PM
Turn up the sun
It's pouring outside and I'm actually liking being in the office on a slow, quiet Monday afternoon. Mondays are hardly fun to wake up to, but it was more than made up by the stroll down to ann siang with denise to gloss over the moving out sale at front row during lunch. It was still way too expensive but we smiled at our reflections for two seconds without feeling the pinch in our pockets; her in an eley kishimoto navy blue chiffon dress and me in a wood wood white shift dress.
Today, I started thinking whether I made the right decision. I was thrown into the deep end from the day I started due to lack of manpower; would PR have been better given a full headcount at work with accounts I call my own, instead of being flitting around helping out on everyone else's work never feeling the sense of satisfaction because above all, I'm bits and pieces here and there? But then I pictured myself staying more than December's worth and I began to feel dread again. I've had enough of being the middle person and doing costings and picking up after everyone else, and garnering coverage for the client which I honestly don't care about.
I want to be writing again. At school, I never missed it much because I was always doing it, article after article, and the nights at the Chronicle over and over sub-editing for the slightest mistake. I miss it very much, and this weekend I felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins as I sat at starbucks and started applying for journalism jobs. I hummed to myself as I dug out my old writings that would form my portfolio - from Female, the Chronicle, school and the final-year project - and I was happy just holding on to knowing what I want to do, for now at least. I've never been so motivated, excited or joyful applying for any job, but now I am, with an uncertainly pool ahead of me, not knowing where I'll end up eventually or if I'll even get there, or what if I'm bad at it? I'm past caring; all I know that He's leading me there.
My boss says she hates the word "eventually". She chided, "What is eventually? Are you on the right track of getting where you want to be? What are you doing about it? Stop wasting time. If you are, then when is this eventually going to be? Work your way up there girl, go ahead and be a writer. But I don't want you to be just any writer on the street. I want to see you become editor."
I'm trying to find my footing again. It's stopped raining by the way, and I can see the building in front of me again. This reminds me of the classic case of removing the tinted glasses and moving onto another place where you think you belong better. It's a journey called discovery.
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Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:40 AM
Break my heart for what breaks yours
Of late, I feel like the outer part of my life is intangibly disconnected from my inner being, my emotions and who I think I really am.
I attribute it to the busyness of work, of course, and this need to meet up with people and fill my days with a multitude of activities after. I never have time to myself anymore, I can't even hear my own thoughts these days or my heart speaking to me. When I'm thinking, it's always about work or thinking about when Friday will finally come, and mulling over the fact that I want to write for things I'm passionate about.
And so I've become this stranger, even to myself, on weekdays. Suddenly, I feel like whenever I'm having a conversation with anyone, I stray away from talk of emotions or how I'm really feeling because I don't want to break down. Two months ago, my life was all about me and my feelings. Now it's simply built around the hours I surround myself with and that makes me. I don't particularly like it, but it means I've buried you, you and you at the very back of my head and forgotten what it's like to unlock it.
Which is a great thing, for now at least.
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Monday, October 05, 2009 10:13 AM
But the greatest of these is love
Love is a very intricate thing - the world plays it out to be complex, entrenched in a constant equilibrium with happiness and contempt, but I think pure love is really very simple.
I've never read 1 Corinthians 13 so many times over in my life, but over the last week, I keep going back to it, and it has spoken to me in so many ways. The standard that God set out for love is truly great, and all-encompassing. The Bible really does give the purest and highest level of love there is, and every single word it speaks rings true, because if any of those things mentioned were lacking, it wouldn't be love. It's difficult to attain, sometimes given our wilful human nature - highly impossible - but it's worth trying. Because when you try, you realise there's no point dwelling on past hurts, what-if's, people who have let you down, concerns about the future, fears or anything the you, the world or the devil imprints on your heart - cos God's love, and that being the love we strive for, conquers all.
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
I see a reflection of myself. The years of being there for my friends, the hours of counselling, confiding and celebrations. Community projects, community service for what? The hours that we so needed to complete in secondary school. Tossing a coin into the box of that blind man as I walked past him, feeling more compelled to give only when he started strumming lines from The Old Rugged Cross. Was that gesture more out of guilt? Giving to the tissue paper lady at hawker centres, was it more because I needed the tissue paper or was I doing it out of love? 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
I felt an inexplicable sense of comfort dawn on me after reading these few lines. It's true isn't it, all these qualities of love that God possesses. And to think that there really is such a love as that which exists in this world, how can I then not love the King of the world who has given up so much to love me in this way - how can I not try to love him back the same way? Loving others is only an outpouring of my love for Him, and I need to be able to love Him first. In another version it says, "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things". I went through a tumultous period of hurt this weekend. If not for these words, I'd have become entirely bitter and cynical. But "it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs". Maybe one day I'll understand you and why you're made the way you are.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
The revelation of love, the day when you can truly see His love for you is the greatest day. Today, I see how all the setbacks in my life, the trials, tears and rejection has only made me the person that I am today. If not for those, I wouldn't be writing this now. This constant spiritual growth and this wonderful plan that He has - I'm in awe.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. :) I'm happy.
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Thursday, September 17, 2009 10:25 AM
Beautifully wrought fashion
This morning, NYdailynews.com somehow found its way into my browser and I finally paid my tribute to the currently ongoing New York Fashion Week as I popped little nuggets of chocolate into my mouth - note: the chocolate habit is very bad, I need to start kicking it but somehow endorphins are highly necessary while at work and the cartons of tudor gold lying around the office make it impossible to resist happiness.
Well, in particular, I was reading an article about Marc Jacobs' 80's look at fashion week as they drew inspiration from Whitney Houston's heydey. It's amusing because just yesterday over lunch, my intern asked me how fashion trends start and who decides it and I was trying my best to educate her with my puffed-up knowledge on the subject, much of which is just what I gathered from the powers of observation and deduction - not that I actually really knew.
Marc Jacobs' confirmed it though, fashion trends go round and round in cycles and there is never one set trend for the season, it's simply who comes up with something that hits the shops first and the rest of the brands follow suit, somehow. Like how super shoulders are in this season, and how I think anyone skinny should pull off that look - yet florals haven't gone away since its sudden inception in late 2007 - early 2008, and those gladiator sandals are still around, just that they've morphed into tamer versions and varying shapes. It's like a game of luck and chance on how long that particular trend will last.
I loved the Marc Jacobs collection, to say the least. Bubblegum peppy, all bright colours and mismatched patterns. It was all about hybrid stuff, bootie platform sneakers and lacquered neon strappy wedges, and what looked like the child of an espadrille and a Converse. To me, that's what fashion is. Breaking boundaries and not sticking to one boring archetype. Who said stilettos have to forever be stilettos, and boots boots, and sneakers made of rubber and thick soles? Fashion needs a change and a revamp, and we need to start breaking rules.
That being said, I admit it would be hard to wear a Marc Jacobs' get-up downtown in this country and not be stared and scrutinised to no end. If New York remains our goal with it being the financial centre of the world, maybe we should start taking a cue from its fashion statements.
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:57 AM
Dreams be dreams
How did it get to mid-September so quickly is beyond me, it's like time passes doubly fast when you're working. This year has flown by like a tunnel which accelerates time, just a few months ago I was rushing my final-year-project and suddenly I'm sitting here in my Ikea-like shophouse office churning out a press release for men's beauty products. It feels rather segmented, or slightly disconnected somehow, like that was a life I left behind, only for now, but I'll somehow go back to it again. Much like an internship, but it's not. This is for real now and I'm not sure how much I like it. Perhaps it's a path of self-discovery, maybe I'm just not one of those motivated career women on top of their lives at every minute, having their work days drive them forward. No, instead I'm struggling to drag myself out of my comfort cocoon every morning, and I'm pretty much in my half-drugged daze all the way until 11am. So much for convincing myself I'm a morning person.
The only thing I think of every morning that makes me happier is the fact that working in chinatown reminds me of mong kok, and the cacophony of sounds, smells and the old man shouting into his mobile phone on the street puts me in a two-second trance of being in hong kong.
If I could see my life in an idealised glinted state, it would be a box full of a myriad of travel destinations, home parties, constant lunches and dinners with friends and loved ones, long conversations under the stars, writing my own book, styling and writing for a magazine, counselling youths, playing with children, learning to bake in an open-concept kitchen, designing shoes and swimming in the Pacific ocean. Maybe I should have thought of all these things before I succumbed to the magnetic force called peer pressure to find a job.
But I'm not unhappy, this job is not bad to be honest. I just have whimsical dreams.
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Speaking of dreams, last night's was vivid and I can't stop thinking about it even after three hours of waking up. Why did I dream of you and in that fashion? I'll never understand what happened, by this I mean, with us in reality.
Work, drool, a bespectacled friend, wrapped up in a thick blanket, the hug, the scary slide with the ninety cents entrance fee.
I never quite have nightmares or bad dreams, they occur rarely. But I always end up having dreams to the point that I wish it were a real existence. I wish I could fuse them together, and call it my own life, instead those happier ones are simply figments of my imagination.
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