très occupé

I thought I could cover the NY fashion week and then maybe follow on with London then Paris.. maybe Milan as well but I obviously did not anticipate how much effort it would entail. I went away this week for 4 days to visit my friends in H-city and now uni's starting tomorrow!!! ah, so much to do, so little time.

Anyways, here are some of the highlights of the shows so far:

Missoni - layers, layers and layers. totally wearable separates. people have been gushing about this show everywhere ( on the blogosphere)

Jil Sander - Raf Simon obviously did a brilliant job. Barbara Atkin of Holt review dubbed it a "Dior New Look moment" (as told by Jak & Jil)

Marc Jacobs - not really feeling the 80s (or is it the 70s?) rehash but he did have quite a few excellent pieces.

Anyways a pic by Schuman aka the Sartorialist taken at the Carnival. ZOMG cute!

Image credit: Style.com

Dude!

I was having a fight with my sister. More like me scolding her and her smart mouthing back. I got more exasperated and more exasperated and started:"Dude, you're just totally being..."

She looked at me completely outraged, so I thought I finally got a point across then she loudly proclaimed:" I will not be addressed as a boy! Don't call me dude!" and walked off.

Most anti-climatic end to an argument ever...

Day... whatever

I'm told by Fashionista that it's like Day 4 of the NY Fashion week. Bloody hell, I haven't even started blogging about Day 2 yet. I'm so behind so I'm just going to blog about whatever I catch on Style.com and various fashion blogs.

Karen Walker -
Ah, fellow Kiwi. I'm proud of her for making it to NY for the 6th season in a row now but I've gotta admit that I'm not really into this season's designs (but I do love that long double breasted coat). I really liked her Spring08 collection, full of pretty, light clothes that I'd totally wear.


Jill Stuart
Jill Stuart always design such cute, floaty dresses. Perfect for riche jeune filles. There are handful of looks that are mature but neverthesless still sexy. Apparently the collection was inspired by iconic women of music so there were the leather leggins and quite a few dark, fitted tops and pants. But it still mostly look like something a under 20 year old girl would squeal over (I'm turning 21 this year, so I'll just squeal a bit over Tanya's heels/boots. They're gorgeous!)

I totally recommend Fashionista and Fashionologie if you want first hand and totally current fashion week goss and updates. That's where I get my daily fashion fix from, lol.

Image credits: again Style.com

New York Fashion Week Fall09

It's the time of the year again! Fall09 NY Fashion Week has begun (ok, it started couple of days ago but forgive me, had a busy weekend) and I'm just going to cover it sporadically, whatever I can find on the net and give a few words of my opinion along with some (not my) pictures. Here goes!

Day 1
Jason Wu

the show that everyone's been waiting for and trying to get into. Who liked the dress that he designed for Michelle Obama wore at the Inauguration Ball? I thought it was pretty but somehow didn't quite suit Michelle Obama... Anyways his fall collection had plenty of prim and proper lady-like looks, super pretty gowns and only a handful of coats, jackets and pant suits. (if you want to dress pretty, brace the cold!) I quite like the gauzy grey gress on the right, it's got a very pretty look to it.

Abaeté
had a mostly somber palette of black, white and grey. I liked the collection as a whole, the lines were sleek and the looks were clean and polished. I can imagine myself wearing most of these designs.The last look on the right just looks like what everyone's been wearing the past couple of seasons...

Rag & Bone
I love, love the preppy, tailored look that Rag & Bone has got going! (Sorry, I haven't noticed much of the men's clothes) The looks just remind of some cool European student, dangling a ciggy in their fingers, hanging out with their friends whilst bracing the winter cold looking très chic. I gotta get me one of those blazers.

Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist has started doing his street snaps for Style.com since the start of the fashion week. I love this girl's outfit. The colour coordination of the outfit is great. I'm mean, have you ever seen a bright yellow shirt look this nice? (I had bright yellow shirt for my high school uniform. stayed clear from yellow shirts ever since...)
Image credits: Style.com, The Sartorialist

Alfie Patten - 13 year old father

I was absolutely shocked when I came across this (Alfie Patten, age 13, is the father of a baby girl with his 15 year old girlfriend). Now I'm not going into a big social commentary on sexual education of the youths today and where the responsibility of teen pregnancies lie.

When I was 13, I couldn't even look at boys. They scared me (to some degree, they still do...). Even with the boy that I was crushing on, I couldn't talk to him. I stalked him from the safety of 50 meters. I finally told him that I liked him at a party, after downing a bottle of beer at 16. Needless to say, nothing came out of that (I moved to another city and he was obviously way above my league).

So this brings me to my next question, is it even possible for boys to have sex and impregnate girls/women at the age of 13? It just baffles me (me, the nerdy, virginal, loner and bookish girl).

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Did you have a good Valentine's day? It completely went pass me. I went to a hen's night the night before Valentine's Day and then I completely slept through the next day... Oh well, it's not like I have someone to celebrate with anyways...Post Secrets had some Valentine's Day themed secrets that are incredibly sweet.

I actually have the same wish as the secret above. Actually I'm quite afraid that I'd never find that kind of love and companionship and I doubt whether it exists. My parents are still together but they fight all the time and it's incredibly rare to see them share a tender moment or actually do something nice for each other. I keep wondering if I'd end up like that and if that's why I find it hard for myself to commit in a relationship.

But on a happier note, my friend got married today! It was a beautiful outdoor wedding, with an island theme to it. She was simply radiant and the groom was shy but happy. I'm just so thrilled for her :D The fact that she's only 19 and he's 21 doesn't matter at all, because today, it seemed that they belong to each other forever.

Jewellery Box

I'm doing a massive tidying up of my room (seriously, the debris has been collecting since 2007). It's such a hassle and I always seem to get hayfever from the dust. Anyways I really need a jewellery box to put all my jewellery in.

I went to Trademe (a NZ version of EBay) to have a look at some jewellery box and look at what I found!
Doesn't it look just gorgeous? It remindsme of a Fabergé egg, except of course less extravagant and decorative but still be-yoo-ti-ful!! I think I'm going to buy it, it's only starting at $1! Imagine that sitting on my dresser :D

Freaking Conjoint (or double degree)

I spent the entire evening planning the remainder of my degree. I'm doing a conjoint (or double degree) in Bachelor of Arts and Commerce. It's such a hassle planning this, I have way too many courses still left to do and have to figure out how to fit in stage 2 and stage 3 points. Gosh, it's just a nightmare!

I went to the Arts and Commerce student centres to get some help but they were useless! They just gave me this piece of paper and said follow the instructions. Hello! If I knew how to do it on a a stupid piece of paper I wouldn't have to come to you! But yeah, 2 months and 3 days later I finally gotten it sorted it out, kinda.

I'll have to do 10 courses this year (instead of the usual 8) and 9 next year to make sure I can finish in 2010 and graduate in 2011. So that's 4 years I've spent doing my degree, not too bad I guess. Hopefully it won't end up dragging into a 5th year.

Good thing is that I've decided that I'll do 3 Art History papers to fill up my Arts degree. I have a feeling I'll love doing Histoire d'Art!

Google AdSense

Google is the great online advertising powerhouse and Google AdSense is pretty much everywhere in the online world. Google AdSense places ads according to the webpage/website context so that the content of the ad matches with the content of page that the user is reading. This way, ads are better targeted and click counts can be improved.

Which is no surprise when I saw this little ad was placed under that article.

My first thought was WTH? Taylor Momsen has urinary tract infection? How the hell did they know? Who reports that kinda stuff anyways? But alas, no she just has a throat infection...

Source: Gossip Girl Report

Funny Graffiti

Saw this funny graffiti from List of the Day. Gotta say, damn straight!

There are more funny graffitis from here.

Don't Leave Things Half Done!

Le Chat et l'oiseau

Un village écoute désolé
Le chant d'un oiseau blessé
C'est le seul oiseau du village
Et c'est le seul chat du village
Qui l'a à moitié dévoré
Et l'oiseau cesse de chanter
Le chat cesse de ronronner
Et de se lécher le museau
Et le village fait à l'oiseau
De merveilleuses funérailles
Et le chat qui est invité
Marche derrière le petite cerceuil de paille
Où l'oiseau mort est allongé
Porté par une petite fille
Qui n'arrête pas de pleurer
Si j'avais su que cela te fasse tant de peine
Lui dit le chat
Je l'auris mangé tout entier
Et puis je t'aurais raconté
Que je l'avais vu s'envoler
S'envoler jusqu'au bout du monde
Làs-bas où c'est tellement loin
Que jamais on n'en revient
Tu aurais eu moins de chagrin
Simplement de la tristesse et des regrets


Il ne faut jamais faire les choses à moitié.

I'm catching up on my French reading during the holidays. Seeing as almost all of my friends in my French class have taken a French language course in a Francophonie country during the holidays whereas I haven't, I really need to catch up. Came across this great poem in Jacques Prévert's anthologie. Gosh, he just writes the such awesome witty, heart-warming and noir (is that even a description?) poems.

Take the one above, I wouldn't be so bold as to translate the whole thing since I only gotten about 80% of the poem upon first reading, but it's talking about the only cat in the village ate half of the only bird in the village (a bit gory.. I know). The mourning village threw a marvelous funeral for the bird: there was a straw coffin, the little girl who couldn't stop crying and even the cat was invited! Seeing all this commotion, the cat groused: If I had known that all this trouble would happen, I would've eaten him whole! Then I would tell you that the bird flew away to the far end of the world and was never coming back. You would've had less sadness, regrets and chargrin.

The moral of the story? DON'T LEAVE THINGS HALF DONE!

If only the cat in question behaved like the cat below...

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

Its that festive time of the year again! I actually didn't even realize that it was Chinese new years until I came home on sunday from work and saw that my parents prepared a big dinner!! Yum, yum

春节快乐！在外乡过新年就是不如在国内。在这边都没有鞭炮放！爸爸妈妈在晚上打电话回去拜年，然后大家就去睡觉了。连春晚都没得看，哈哈。

Image credit: Joe-Ks

Flight of Conchords Season 2

I'm so excited! Flight of the Conchords are returning to HBO with a second series! I watched season 1 and they were just brilliant. No one does dead-pan humour and crazy folk tunes like these guys! Sadly, even though they're from NZ, it'll take a while before the series actually reach their homeland. Oh, well I'm willing to wait. Meanwhile, episode 1 is already available on youtube.

Sunset Boulevard

I took this photo when I returning home from the train station. Who knew that my part of town could be so pretty?

My Sister

She sits beside me, head down, legs drawn
Small, pink-nailed hand weilding a scissor
snip, snip, snip
ever so decisively
trimming her petit nails

I glanced, astonished
as she accomplished
the task at hand

When did she start to trim her own nails?
Odd feelings of pride and emotions
made me plant a light kiss
against the pink shirt, on her back

Outrage! (Gemma Ward is not fat!)

How could they? Seriously, calling my favourite model that! See I'm writing in red just to show how angry I feel about this.























ROLL MODEL? Where do you see rolls on her body? Hunh? So fine, she's gained more weight since she was 16 but for goodness's sake people gain weight when they mature, it's only natural! Shame on you, the Daily Telegraph for adding to the negative media portrayal of the ideal feminine weight. So a girl only have to gain some weight for the media to go all out and start saying that she's battling with weight or saying that she's not how she use to be. To maintain the stick thin figure she used to have at 16 would be seriously unhealthy now that she's 21. But sadly, the article already mentions that Gemma's exercising to get rid of the weight.

Gemma, I just want to say no matter what everyone else say about you, I think you're perfect at any weight that you're comfortable with and healthy at. Its not worth it to put yourself through the strenuous exercise and probably diet regime just so you could go back to the figure you used to have, but isn't healthy for you anymore. To me, you're still that gorgeous girl who strutted Prada runway all those seasons ago!

someone call the fashion police!

I was doing my daily reading of kpop gossip when I came across this photo.
























What.the.hell?! This guy's outfit commits so many levels of fashion crime that I dunno if I should either weep due to outrage or chortle due to hilarity. Now, I'd like to think of myself as at least a fashion conscious gal, I do feel I have the obligation to educate people how not abuse clothes and other people's sense of style.

Starting from top, the gold-lamé zip up jacket. (I didn't start at the hair, coz well that hair style is actually quite prevalent in Asia). If the jacket was made out of any other material, it would've been fine, but not gold and definitely not lamé. I know gold is the colour of the most precious metal and all that shit, yada yada. But it just does not belong to a casual cut zip up jacket. Words like whory, tacky, lame, attention-seeker come to mind with that kind of jacket.

Then there is his belt. The belt itself is alright (for a girl) but the things hanging off it ain't. I spot at least 3 outrageous things, the gold chains (probably plated ones), the gold tassels (again, wth?) and the most unforgivable fashion sin, price tag still attached! You'd think that as a celebrity (he's part of the korean boy band H.O.T.), he can afford a belt without having the need to return it. But no. Such is the dire situation of our troubled economic times.

Last but not least, there's a shawl hanging off his ass. I personally have nothing again shawls. They're a nice and practical accessory to an outfit, eg on the shoulders. Of your grandma. Not hanging off some dude's ass. Who's wearing jeans.

The piece of gossip relating to this dude was that a woman claimed he raped her. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true. Any sane woman with an ounce of fashion sense wouldn't go near this guy, let alone come in contact with him, with that outfit on!

Image credit: Seoulbeats

I'm with Stupid

I just finished reading the debut by Elaine Szewczyk, I'm with Stupid. (Seriously, how do you pronounce her name? I know the "y" can act as a vowyel but the three consonants before the y?... sheesh)

It's HILARIOUS!!! I haven't laughed so hard from a book since... well since the last book I laughed at (which has been so long I can't even remember what it was!). The novel details the dating misadventures of Kas, the novel's narrator and heroine, specifically, her one-night stand from a South African safari holiday which turned into a disastrous love affair back home at New York. The characters in the book are just larger than life and their interactions provide most of the comedic situations.

Szewczyk also has this ingenious way with words that totally awes me and amuses me at the same time. Eg:

Holy
Toledo,
what
a
fucking
torpedo

(*cough cough* in reference to a certain part of the male anatomy)

"Is coutryside hypenated?" he asks during a song-and-dance sequence.

"Chastity is as great a perversion as libidinousness..." Manuel Sanchez (seriously, this guy is the most unbelievable character ever, in a good way!)

Anyways those are just the two that I remember. There was also the sweet and poignant reflection that Kaz had about her brother that I can totally relate to. Overlooking your siblings (esp younger ones) and then realise later in life that you have missed out so much just by ignorance and end up being total strangers with someone that's suppose to be your family is a sad but truthful observation. Honestly this book gets a 5-star from moi!! Très bien!

Demonoid Invitation Code

getting one of those is a bitch. Are they ever going to open for registration anyways?

Image credit: Kokesh's Diary