4 FASHION STYLES: GOOD CLOTHES, BAD CLOTHES, WELL OR BADLY WORN

Good Clothes, Bad Clothes, Well Worn, Badly Worn are four factors that can result in four possible variants of style. Who are you in this scheme of style?

1. Good Clothes Well Worn:

Attractive, well-fitted clothes worn with confidence and deliberation

eg Hillary Clinton

After a long career of failures of dress, Mrs Clinton are now well-tailored classics of simple design and strong colours. She will never look great, but she looks as good as she can possibly look.

2, Bad Clothes Well Worn:

Ill-fitting, or ugly clothes that nonetheless project the desired image. 

eg Justin Bieber

Often quite strange, borderline-trashy, badly fitting, clothes but warn with great charm and confidence, contributing rather than subtracting from, his effect. 

The President and the Strange Blue Dress/Belt

3. Good Clothes Badly Worn:

Attractive, good quality and fashionable clothes worn without sense or understanding.

eg Michelle Obama

Mysteriously acclaimed dresser, Mrs Obama has a dream wardrobe budget; Unfotunately, she's assembled some good clothes that sit uneasily on her person and her role. Her hair is increasingly desperate and she seems to harbour delusions about her actual size.

4. Bad Clothes Badly Worn:

Ill-fitting, ugly, poor quality clothes worn without care or taste.

eg Madonna. 

There is no shame in this category when you mean to be in it, but Madonna doesn't. 

Singapore Diva Tracy Huang Sings Again

PEACHES AND CREAM
One of Singapore's earliest pop successes, Tracy Huang has survived the vagaries of the industry by shrewdly shifting her act to the right places at the right time. 
Daniel Goh  fathoms the woman and her image.


"Fat, fat," says Tracy, slapping her thighs. "Fat, fat. I've put on weight,. Three pounds. Fat, here," she says, cupping her cheeks. She lifts her arms and flaps them, making the flesh on her alabaster-white upper arms jiggle. "Fat, fat, do you see?"

Tracy's preoccupation with weight, her looks, her age is understandable. After all, her feminine and fashionable image has always been a strong selling point for her albums. As such, these vanity concerns, inherent in most women, must seem even more vital to Tracy. But today, just for the moment, Tracy, relaxed and light-hearted jokes, "I'm 28, two years older than Alan Tam!" Later, she would give me her age as 39.

Tracy Huang is folded neatly onto a black sofa in the photo studio. She's just completed a photography shoot, part of her efforts to promote her new album Traces of Love, but talk is not about the album. There is nothing so crassly commercial about Tracy.

Even relaxing, her legs are elegantly crossed, ending in pointy, stiletto-heeled ankle boots. She's wearing a two-year old Azzedine Alaia: A black stretch one-piece with a white patent leather belt. "It gives me the illusion of height," she says.

Her hair is straggly now, and is loosely tied back; her eye make-up has run a little, there are black smudges; her lipstick has bled into a crooked pout. Plumes of smoke from her cigarette surround her like an aura.

Tired and slightly dishelleved, even while chain-smoking Virginia Slims, Tracy Huang still exudes a glow. Her skin is not only just fine and creamy white, it has a translucent, jade-like glaze, like rare Song china.

As Tracy talks, her small, white hands flutter about her in arabesque, like twin doves. "Hands are important," she says, flipping through the lyric pages for her new album cover until she finds the illustration of her silhouetted hands, reaching for a bird on a branch. "Look at this picture, I like this very much. Hands can express so much. You don't see my face here at all. But it's me."

Her small, flower-like hands. They are not money-grabbing hands, nor dish-washing hands. No, these are the hands of a princess. I tell her so. "Oh, but I'm not a princess!," she says, laughing. "More like a Cinderella. My father was from Guangdong, a military man, a colonel, so he didn't earn much. My mother was from Shanghai. When they came over to Taiwan from the mainland, they had absolutely nothing, not even a roof over their heads. We were very poor.


"When I was young, I had to help my mother do all the chores. I was the oldest, I had to take care of three baby brothers. All I can remember of my mother from those days was that she was always cooking, cleaning. She'd give me some money and I would have to go to the market to buy vegetables. And I had to cook after school.


"I still found time to play, somehow. I ran around barefoot. I have memories of a little barefoot girl, piggy-backing one of my brothers – maybe that's why I'm so short and all my brothers are so tall!


"I remember one day, while out in the open fields, an aeroplane flew over. At that moment, I made a promise to myself that I would be on that plane someday. I would fly out into the world. And it was a big wish, for a little country girl like me."


She continues in a rush of words; she is enjoying the reminiscences. "Singapore put me on that aeroplane. I was discovered by a talent scout from Neptune Theatre. Here I was, a Taiwanese singer singing English songs – wow! What a novelty, you know. I was billed as 'Angel from Taiwan' at the Neptune!"


That was in 1969. The Angel from Taiwan took flight. Tracy appeared in countless TV variety shows and eventually recorded her own albums, mainly sentimental ballads and cover versions of Olivia Newton-John hits. Over a 43-album career, Tracy established herself as a major star in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. Now she has set her sights on Japan with her album, consisting of English songs by Dick Lee.

Not only was she a major recording artiste, Tracy was also a style icon of the 70s. The image conscious artiste embraced every 'look' that emerged – from frosty purple eye-shadow to padded sweaters, from tattooed eyebrows to cowboy shirts.

The correct 'look' no doubt contributed to her enduring popularity, but she attributes her success to a determination to better herself. "I want to learn something new everyday – then that day is not wasted." And indeed, there were many occasions during my meetings with her when she whips out a little electronic organiser and enters all sorts of information, with a great urgency: names, numbers, movies to see, authors to read, phrases, ideas.


"When I was in school, I only studied music and Chinese folk dance – these were subjects thought to be more befitting to a girl. I learnt to read only after I left school. When I first came to Singapore, I had no friends or family. There were long spaces of time when all the friends I had were magazines and journals and books. I read so much during this time. And all those English programmes on television here. Education is the world around you. It does not mean that if you go to a university you become educated. A lot of people don't realize that experience is so important – you can learn from the people and the environment. I feel that my education is still going on, never stopping."

But something that Tracy feels she has not learnt enough of is studio production and other technical aspects of recording. So last year, she formed her own production company in Taiwan called Inner Music. "I'm at a turning point now – or rather – I'm in a period of flux. I feel that Tracy, as an artiste, is fading out and Tracy, the producer is fading in."

Her energies, and her accumulated knowledge and contacts in the music industries, are now concentrated in production. "It is not that I don't want to perform anymore. Working behind the scenes on a recording is also like performing. What's on show is what you produce, is how Tracy sees it. Inner Voice is where she put together her last three albums – of which two became award winners and hits. Tracy is also casting about for new talents to groom, record and promote.

Next year, in her role as producer, she will launch a 17-year-old Singapore girl, Gina Tan. There are several uncanny similarities between Tracy and her protégé : Tracy herself started her musical career at about the same age (at 16, Tracy was already singing at the American Club). Gina has the same sort of demure, feminine beauty that has served Tracy well; she sounds remarkably like Tracy. They sing like they look: all peaches and cream. There is tinkling clarity in their singing, there is a breathy languidity.


"Also, I really want to act. I really feel like making a movie, something meaningful. Maybe it's a bit late. But I was really inspired by my experience doing the music video which Wong Kar Wai directed."

The video for her Mandarin number entitled Making You Glad has generated more than the usual attention because it features Tony Leung, the star of The Lover.


"All the reporters keep asking me about it, as if Tony Leung was the main thing. At my press conference a reporter asked me if I felt flattered and thrilled that I had Tony Leung to act with in my video. Just imagine.


"I replied, 'How so?' Tony Leung should be the one to be flattered and thrilled."

First published in 8 DAYS Nov 28 – Dec 5, 1992 edition, as a cover story

SPRING 2016 REVIEW: J W ANDERSON

Tough And Tender 3

Henri Matisse, Woman in Blue, 1937

A romantic version of the tough/tender trend can be seen in the courageous and confident collection by J W Anderson – how new and fresh to bring Edwardian dress to the present! Prim leg-o-mutton sleeves were exaggerated to such extremes that they ceased to look feminine, becoming instead aggressive. The constrain of structured little black bras and corset type belts, worn on the outside, with a bold squiggle of a Vivien Westwood print is again unseductive and aggressive. Ruffled Edwardian tea dresses, a couple clearly recalling Woman In Blue in the paper doll outlines, are truncated, worn with bloomers showing, look rakish if anything. Lace, little ruffled collars, bowed sleeves and legs, the pretty style touches that make up a Matisse woman, is always undercut with something quite angry, like an insistent zipper, or unfriendly proportions, with a cross hatch of two messenger bags. Anderson's vision is thought-provoking and idiosyncratic - and for me, always memorable.

Vivien Westwood dress with Matisee print, 1982

Jackie's Capri

Tod's sent me this book just last week and I must say it's one one of the things that really delighted and inspired me! It's a catelogue from the Tod's sponsered exhibition in Capri called “JACKIE’S CAPRI”. The exhibition is a selection from the photographs taken by the papparazo (one of scores that dogged her every move)Settimio Garritano during Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s frequent visits to Capri from 1969 through 1972. The evocative pictures capture moments of Jackie’s habitual pastimes on the island: frequenting shops, cafés and restaurants, with her husband Aristotle Onassis, her two children John-John and Caroline Kennedy, and various friends, during walks and visits to Capri’s historic sites and legendary attractions. I had the good fortune to be in Capri in 2009 and I bought, and still wear, many of the Capri sandals made by the same cobblers that Jackie O frequented! She had such style!

He Said She Said

Be A Man About It

I think there's something darkly ironical about needing tips and what amounts to a pep-talk on how to be a man but let's hear it form the aunties Tom Ford and Glenn O'Brien shall we? In the latest issue of Another Man Miss Ford holds forth on the "five easy lessons in how to be a modern gentleman," including not wearing shorts in the city. Then Madam O'Brien— GQ columnist and author of How to Be a Man, writes down his version. In an entire book. And I always thought the appeal of masculinity was a total natural-ness of it all.

Tom Ford:

• You should put on the best version of yourself when you go out in the world because that is a show of respect to the other people around you.

• A gentleman today has to work. People who do not work are so boring and are usually bored. You have to be passionate, you have to be engaged and you have to be contributing to the world. • Manners are very important and actually knowing when things are appropriate. I always open doors for women, I carry their coat, I make sure that they’re walking on the inside of the street. Stand up when people arrive at and leave the dinner table.

• Don’t be pretentious or racist or sexist or judge people by their background.

• A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.

Glenn O’Brien:

• Having sex with women is natural and most of us manage to pull it off eventually. The trick is simply to find ways to have intercourse with women (in the various senses) without giving them undue power or influence over you.

• The girls on Sex and the City sleep with typical hetero men. But socially they prefer the company of gay men. Even the ancient Mayans probably had fag hags. In the interest of evolution, or at least more peaceful relationships, we must learn to be gayer heterosexuals.

• Since the world’s religions have spent the last millennium disgracing themselves, what have we left to believe in but fashion? It is more faith-based than anything else I can think of, and yet it doesn’t contradict science.

• Style is the way Clark Kent took off his glasses. The way Jean Cocteau rolled up the sleeves of his suit jacket when he read Le Monde. The way Louis Armstrong played the cornet with a handkerchief draped over it. The way Michael Jordan wore his shorts. The way Sinatra held a cigarette. Style is in the details, in the nuance.

Dodie Rosekrans (1919 - 2010)

“I don’t set out to be original. Not at all. I wear what appeals to me." - Dodie Rosekrans

Faye

Ms Wong in fall winter Celine.

He Said She Said

"The great danger for an American woman married to a Frenchman is to become too French. To assimilate too much of another nationality weakens you. Though on the surface I might not seem to be 100 percent American, I have tried to remain as shaggy inside as possible." - Pauline de Rothschild (1908-1976), style iconIn the 1950s, Mrs de Rothschild purchased a set of antique Chinese wallpaper from a cash-strapped young widow. She papered her Paris bedroom with it - her husband lived across town throughout their nearly 22-year marriage - and its verdant exoticism dominated an iconic photo of the baroness by Horst.
Reclining was Mrs de Rothschild's favored position.

When not greeting guests from bed, she rested her lanky 5-foot-9 frame on Billy Baldwin's ground-hugging slipper chair, reportedly developed with her shapely extremities in mind. Philippe de Rothschild once called his wife ''a glorious piece of woman, long-legged, deep-breasted.''Her personal tastes were quite simple. On her floors, for example, she liked the peppery scent of wax mixed with a bit of turpentine. On her person, she often wore a man's cologne - West Indian Extract of Limes.

Batik Print Shoe

So Black

KELLY SO BLACK
This iconic Hermes bag is now available in all-black. Using an innovative procedure, all the exterior hardware has been blacked-out with a glossed black finish. The So Black range is available in six models (including the Birkin and the Kelly Clutch) and in box and matte crocodile. The collection's special packaging: a bag, box and ribbons are all black!

He Said She Said

"I’m so happy to not pay attention to trends because they are meaningless anyway. They are over fast. As soon as you see them, as soon as you see people wearing them, they are over. That’s it. As soon as you see it on someone, forget it.” - Calvin Klein

The Roitfeld Kiddies

Vanity Fair has announced their 2010 International Best Dressed List and both Roitfeld kids Julia and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld are on it. They hardly belong up there with Kate, Carine and Pharrell (yes, he's in the list!). Julia gets tartier with every new outfit; and Vlad Vlad, while cute and all that (pity about the horriblah girlfriend), is merely as well dressed as any of those young men in the international fashion flock - they are a legion. Attractive doesn't mean well dressed, just as well dressed doesn't mean stylish, nor stylish, chic. I wish these list makers would get these definitions straight and not make lists more meaningless than they already are.

He Said She Said

"I've had my best times when trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I've always loved high style in low company." - Anita Loos (1888-1981)

Good Thing: Fashion's Espadrille Moment

It's light, environmentally-friendly, authentic, natural: The espadrille is the shoe of the moment. Many menswear labels are making them for next year so why don't you buy a pair now? The term espadrille is French and derives from the Catalan name for the shoes, espardenya, which derives from the Catalan name for esparto, a tough, wiry Mediterranean grass used in making rope. Espadrilles have been made in Catalonia since the 14th century at least, and there are shops in Spain still in existence that have been making espadrilles for over a century.The Museo Arqueológico Nacional has in its collection a grass-soled sandal said to be 4,000 years old, which looks very like the classic espadrilles made in Catalonia for at least five centuries. Traditional espadrilles have a canvas upper with the toe and vamp cut in one piece, and seamed to the rope sole at the sides. Often they would have laces at the throat that would be wrapped around the ankle to hold the shoes securely in place. Early espadrilles were worn by both men and women.
Once peasant footwear, espadrilles have grown in popularity, especially now. Espadrilles can now be found designed by top designers (...and Zara). Most are manufactured in Bangladesh and Spain.Bangladesh is the producer of high quality jute, and has become a manufacturing centre for premium jute soles and complete espadrilles. Ninety percent of the world's total production of espadrilles, as well as jute soles, is now manufactured in Bangladesh, although some manufacturers in Europe import jute soles from Bangladesh to finish espadrilles in their home countries.If you’re in Barcelona, buy them at La Manual Alpargatera, a workshop established in the early 1940s, which supplied Salvador Dalí with his favourite pairs in black or white canvas (if not, Pierre Hardy makes some mouth-watering ones for Hermes). Dalí’s friends and contemporaries – Picasso, Chanel, Colette – also made espadrilles stylish, wearing them with white cotton trousers, sailor tops and an a deep tan.

Six Easy Pieces

I read about this interesting, thoroughly modern anti-consumerism movement and had to share this, as it chimes so much with what I'm feeling: People are blindly consuming more and more stuff with no intrinsic value and more and more people are making, marketing and selling rubbish. It has all got to stop right now. The main points:"...This self-imposed exercise in frugality was prompted by a Web challenge called Six Items or Less (sixitemsorless.com). The premise was to go an entire month wearing only six items already found in your closet (not counting shoes, underwear or accessories).
"...This “six items” experiment was conceived by two friends, Heidi Hackemer, 31, a strategic business director at the New York advertising agency BBH, and Tamsin Davies, 34, the head of innovation at Fallon London.
"...Motives include a way to trim back on spending, an outright rejection of fashion, and a concern that the mass production and global transportation of increasingly cheap clothing was damaging the environment.
"...An even stricter program, the Great American Apparel Diet, has attracted pledges by more than 150 women and two men to abstain from buying for an entire year.
"...These self-deniers of fashion are representative, in perhaps a notable way, of a broader reckoning of consumers’ spending habits. As the economy begins to improve, shoppers of every income appear to be wrestling with the same questions: Is it safe to go back to our old, pre-recession ways? Or should we?"
Sally Bjornsen, the founder of the Great American Apparel Diet(thegreatamericanappareldiet.com), said: “I was sick and tired of consumerism."
(Source: Eric Wilson, The New York Times)

Carine Says

Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.
Make style an expression of your soul.
Fashion is something you buy, STYLE is something you OWN!
Fashion is not about utility. It is merely a piece of iconography, to express an individual's identity.
Fashion isn't to make you look attractive, it's to make you look different.
Never wear anything that panics the animal.
I dress for women and I undress for men.

Most Stylish: Pharrell

For me, Pharrell Williams is right up there with Kate, Carine and Tina Chow in terms of style!

Music For Monday

Say it Eason So:As I'm not musical, my taste in music is shockingly narrow; But when I encountered this clip on an old friend's blog, I felt compelled to share this with all of you! I found it quite moving even though I don't understand a single word of it. I wonder what it's all about? Possibly something heartbreakingly sad.
Eason Chan is performing, live, Sandy Lam's 1991 hit Break of Dawn at his recent 2010 Duo concert. The music is written by Dick Lee.
Mr Chan is one of the most stylish men in music and always dressed to the nines! It never fails to amaze that Hong Kong has produced quite a number of stylish people: There's Edison Chen, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung and Joyce Ma. I was going to count Faye Wong but she's from Beijing isn't she? Can you think of anyone else?

He Said She Said

"It's possible to walk into a rich person's house in any city in the world and find the same make of candles or the same shoes. I find it a waste of cultural specificity and history. I would so much rather walk into someone's house, however much money they have, and feel I'm actually connecting with the culture of that place and the people who live in that place." - Tilda Swinton