I finally managed to go to the National Museum over the weekend. Main aim was to see the Christian Lacroix exhibition but we ended up buying a package that included the Panton exhibition as well. At the point of purchase, I had really no idea who Panton was (is?) and just went along for the ride. It's only an extra $2 anyways. The ticket for Lacroix is only $8 and it was a total of $10 for the package. Cheap huh.

Dear Jun as usual, she plans ahead and we manage to reach the entrance at the right time for a guided tour. Basically, the tour guides are volunteers, so if you guys are interested in that kind of thing you can look it up. I had briefly considered it when I heard about it too. But... stage fright told me it was a bad idea. Hahaha.

I going to add some of the nicer pictures I'd taken in the museum. These aren't the only displays but I don't see a point in uploading everything, for one, it already took me half a day to upload these. Oh, I forgot to mention that I used my great G10 for these which was really lucky because if I'd taken my consumer Canon camera, the images who have been blur and dim. The place had minimal lighting and almost every display was covered with a translucent black netting to prevent people from touching the clothes.

Hopefully, my memory retention is good enough to recount the history of the costumes. If nothing else, at least I have the free catalog to guide me along. Heh heh heh.

The first exhibit was of the costumes Lacroix designed for the opera, Eliogabalo. Eliogabalo recounts one of the most immoral Roman emperors - Heliogabalus. A dictator and a playboy, he used seduction and violence to conquer his women. He had created a senate made entirely of women and eventually turned it into his harem. Unfortunately, the photos I took here were blur. I was adjusting the camera and wasn't very used to handling it yet, so the two pictures I took of it came out blur! >.<

Next, Cosi fan tutte was about a wager Don Alphonso made with two officers on the fickleness of women. He bet that if they were to pretend to go to war and return in disguise to woo each other's fiancees, that these women will fall in love with them.



These are the costumes worn by the two sisters and two officers. The one with pants and a frilly lace skirt is supposed to indicate a woman in disguise. You can't tell from here but the first dress and the fourth dress from the left included some ingenius traditional method of heating two layers of cloth with something in between them to create that embossed look. 

There is Carmen after that of which I'm not loading up any pictures because I seriously didn't like the flamengo dance costumes with the exception of the bull-fighting like dress that she was murdered in.

Phedre was perhaps my favourite exhibit there. Not surprisingly, Lacroix won his first Moliere award for best costumier.

( Visual Treat )

I can't believe we had spent three hours here. I headed for the next destination - Panton. I eventually found out that this dude was a furniture designer and he had designed many gorgeous furniture and interior designs that we see today. For example, do you remember this chair? This is called the tivioli chair and he designed in 1957! I'm pretty sure we've seen the old foggies sitting on these chairs very long time ago. So long ago that it surpasses retrodom...



( Other more contemporary designs )
There are some other retro designs as well. I mean, superbly retro man...

The Christian Lacroix exhibition ends 7 June so you may want to hurry down there soon. After all, how often do we get to see a world famous fashion designers work on display in Singapore?

It has been a while since I last browsed through a copy of URBAN (The Straits Times) so when I picked up today's newspaper, I noticed a number of changes.

Firstly, under the HEY GOODLOOKING section where they post up street photography, there is a remarkable difference in type of people featured. When they used to have ordinary people in street casual (whom don't look like they deserve to be on the page), they now feature more mature and formally dressed characters. I really believe this is due to Vogueite's critical comments on what they did before. LOL Even with the marked improvement, I still think they don't get it. I feel that people with an interesting individualistic sense of style is better than expensive, follower of trends style. But ah well, that's just my opinion. 

The sections on Spring/Summer 09 trends (pages 10 to 15) seems like a severe rip off from popular local fashion bloggers like Vogueite and Fashion Nation which makes me think that maybe bloggers can do a better job than these bloody journalists. I'm not eating sour grapes, I swear.

However, I thought the write up Pretty In Pose and the interview with Nina Garcia was good. Why can't we have more of those?

Oh yeah, I need someone's Kinokuniya card because I want to buy Garcia's new book The One Hundred.

Once, I watched a B grade movie called Black Sheep. It was about mutated sheep becoming violently cannibalistic. They even acquired a taste for human meat.

The following design from Comme des Garcons reminded me of the deceptively demented sheeps. Although it does vaguely resemble cotton candy as well. But I haven't seen any movies with cotton candy monsters, Ghost Busters not included.


Comme des Garcons Spring 2009 Ready to Wear

I haven't been writing about fashion for the longest time ever! I attribute this to my lack of spending power. It's true, the more you earn, the more materialistic you become.

I haven't been looking at the spring 09 styles either but I picked the names I remember liking back previously.



Vivienne Westwood Spring 2009 Ready to Wear

I've always loved Vivienne Westwood. I can't agree with many of her designs but those that I like, I adore. Strappy heels seem to be all in again. And I like the loose socks that she brought into the runway. The low riding trousers, loose drappy but clingy fabric... *hearts*.



Yohji Yamamoto Spring 2009 Ready to Wear

Yamamoto's collection is all monochrome. Too much black and white and severity for a spring collection, in my opinion but I like the style. Now, this is what I call smart casual.

Today's breakfast! And yes, coffee will be a consistent part of my daily breakfast.



Durian omelette and coffee

There just something really attractive with the way this guy dressed.

The nonchalant attitude, coupled with the sloppily rolled up sleeves... wrinkled shirts and the on-the-whim rolled up neck scarf. Nice.

Doesn't help that I have a similar hairstyle now. LOL

I'm still going green apparently.



This shot from the Face Hunter has me oogling. Her hair and the exact tone of green looks pretty damn good.

Green has never been my color. But the girl in retro green below is inspiring. Short cropped hair, green vintaged-inspired (or is it retro?) patterned dress, thick belt. Oh, she wore some neon-colored tights with it which is a little too overwhelming for me. I'll prefer matching it in purple brown or black stockings with high pumps.


Coincidentally, I just bought a green striped dress from Pull and Bear last weekend. I haven't worn it yet but this serves as a good illustration of what I can do.

It's been a pretty long time since my last entry on new collections. Just picking out a few of the looks here.

I find that the "slouchy" sometimes come in tandem with the androgynous look. But "slouchy" doesn't necessarily mean androgynous too. I love the real life examples shown below.


Jenni Kayne Resort 2009

More than that, I feel that the "slouchy" look gives a certain air of attitude.

I know... I know... The whole belt over cardigan thing is so overused. But ever since I saw Keira Knightly in Silk dressed in such a way, it was love at first sight. Unfortunately, I don't think there are many people who can pull off this look. Namely, people with thick waistlines. 


Burberry Prorsum Resort 2009

I haven't  tried this look on myself yet. But I recently got a long thin cardigan from POA and I'm just dying to try it. Wait... still looking for the perfect belt! :: faints ::

Looking Prada Resort 2009 collection, my first thought was Wizard of Oz's Emerald City. ^_^ I'm not into the color green. But the brightness and the tone of emerald green on black is sheer beauty. This kind of makes me feel like getting some nice sparkling green blings to go with my often black working wardrobe.



The black on green looks gorgeous too.


Prada Resort 2009

I always seem to find something new to drool over. This time it's a Kenzo jacket. Thinking maybe I should pop by the Kenzo at Paragon to see if they have GSS discounts? LOL

:: hearts ::

High waist cut and thick belts have been on the market for the longest time. Even an ignorant fashion idiot would have noticed those trends glaring out from display windows. But what I really like is that the thick belts and high waist clothes have evolved into what I shall term (as a personal reference) as the kimono belt.


Gianfranco Ferre Spring 2008 Ready to Wear

Doesn't it give a really elegant twist to the whole high waist culture?

And on a totally unrelated issue, I am so digging this look:

I love flared jeans. It does justice for me - who has chicken legs - and I read on some fashion magazine that it's back in fashion. Not bell bottom like flared, not boot leg cut flared either. But somewhere in between.

I'm glad because I bought one pair of flared jeans while I was away in Cambodia. ::pirouettes ::

Remember when I LJ-ed about the baggy pants and how much I dig it? Seems like the baggy pants is in vogue. =)

How sporting! A world famous designer posing for a street photographer.

I must say, he looks pretty good for his age. The demands don't seem to affect him much.

HAHAHA~ Third entry of the day. A record. LJ-ing during work no less. I can't help it, I'm bored. I cleared too many stuff (which resulted in a whole lot of stress for me) and now I have nothing to do. Actually, I have a ton of filing to do but I shall leave that till a week before I leave this god damn place.


L Wren Scott Fall 2008 Ready to Wear

As you can see, I'm still drooling over jackets. Why the jacket fetish? I think all of us should invest in a handful of good jackets. Not only does it project your personality (I'm pretty sure that buyers only buy designs that catch their eyes), it's the most convenient "accessory" for your outfit. Even dressed shabbily, putting on a jacket remedies that immediately. No one can tell what you are wearing under it.

Jackets make good investment. You wear a jacket to work, you wear a jacket to a cinema, you can even wear a jacket when you go shopping in an air conditioned shopping mall. It's only a simple matter to take it off if the weather gets too warm.

I keep meaning to write but life at work has been bitchier than normal, leaving me either too exhausted to blog by the end of the day or too miserable to indulge myself.


Italian Haute Couture 1958. Photography by Frank Horvat.

I wanted to write about this one week ago. Recently, I had noticed the plaid trend coming back with a vengeance. More celebrities wearing plaids, either shirts or scarves. Even the runway is exhibiting the pattern.


House of Holland Fall 2008 Ready to Wear

Strangely, I bought my pair of plaid pants last year and only managed to wear it during the Chinese New Year.


D&G Fall 2008 Ready to Wear


Peter Jensen Fall 2008 Ready to Wear

And I'm not only talking about the ladies. The plaids apply to both genders!

This week, ZARA put up their new season merchandising showcase. It bore plaid-like dresses and trousers, with a slightly punk-ish tone. I'm totally drooling over the pants. It doesn't help that I walk pass the window display two to three times daily.

The plaids have also hit high street fashion outlets like Topshop and Miss Selfridge.

I always thought that certain colors should go together and certain colors should never be mixed and matched in an outfit. Like... purple and red. But this collection from Proenza Schouler Fall 2008 Ready to Wear proved how little I know about fashion and creativity. 





Instead of being glaringly obstentatious, I feel that the color combinations are really gorgeous. 



It's not merely two toned color combinations. It's three and more. This makes it all the more amazing because even though some of the colors are brighter, it doesn't totally drown the other colors. Main reason is the proportion of the outfit that were allocated to each color. The shoes are clearly the strongest color on the outfits. But it offsets and complements the duller jeweled toned clothes. 



See? When the dresses become the brighter shades, the shoes become duller. 

I'd really enjoyed going through the Proenza Schouler Fall 2008 Ready to Wear collection, and I can't say the same for the rest of the other collections for this season. Overall, it had been darn disappointing. As you can see from the previous entries, none of them contained many pictures from the same collection, just the ones that stand out.  

Friends know me to have a jacket fetish. I love coats, trenchcoats, cropped jackets, long coats, and... cloaks! The only outer wear I loathe is the formal blazer because it is almost always never easy to find the perfect fit and ends up being damn uncomfortable to wear. It makes me feel stiff too.


Ruffian Fall 2008 Ready to Wear

If Singapore's weather ain't so warm, I would have spent all my money investing in jackets and coats like this one. 

Le sigh.  

Whenever a woman starts the next stage of her life in the workforce, her eyes are always on the look out for good quality suits that actually flatter the figure. And yes, those suits discount G2000 (the suits there never suit me, the sleeves always too short, the armpits and shoulders too narrow and the length of the blazer's hem line is way too short. This results in bunching and working in uncomfortable suits.

Here are some really nice ones.



I love the glossed stream lines at the sides. I used to share Hilary clinton's opinion that in a woman needs to dress "masculine" in order for the world to treat them seriously and with respect. However, there are many powerful women out there wearing skirt suits.



This is probably something I will wear. Not to work of course,...


Rock Republic Fall 2008 Ready to Wear

This is something good for all woman to attempt wearing. Girls with fantastic figures only, please.