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. 

LOOKING FORWARD TO 2016, STAYING POSITIVE

It’s hard to be positive when the world economy is in the doldrums and promises to be bearish for next year. Gold is down, and property prices are falling in Singapore, as they haven’t been in a while, always a bellwether for how things are going. Just look around you – people aren’t shopping even though it’s strenuously promoted at this time of year, and the beautiful malls, decked up for a budget Christmas, are empty.

The year woke up to the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, the defining Big Daddy of Singapore, and thence ensued a long period of mourning and a collective pall. It reflected a global gloom, a sense of the world slowing down, growing old and infirm. The China Boomtown seems to have faltered (if not actually stopped), inspiring a sense of foreboding and uncertainty. Political refugees East and West are being made homeless and stateless, towed out inhumanely, to sea. Not satisfied with systematically destroying a trail of 3,000 year old monuments of human creation in one shocking weekend of barbarity, ISIS followed that up with killing sprees in Paris. In the region, the barbarity of massive forest-clearing goes unchecked, a shocking crime against nature and humankind: global warming ignored, endangered flora and fauna wiped out forever. Then there is the specter of the rise of religious hysteria – in Aceh, gay sex is punished by severe and public whipping; Bangkok is bombed by terrorists. Closer to home, the scandals of City Harvest Church and 1MDB are riveting precisely because of their all-too-human, all-too-close nature.

The wisdom of Buddhist dharma would have us take all this in our stride and accept the realities with optimism. How? Each of us must stay positive and move ahead, work on your causes, fight the good fight, for if you give in to negativity, then all truly will be lost. There is still hope in every situation, but only if you work actively as a living example, a lesson, and a guide. Surround yourself with positive people, people with love in their hearts and clarity in their heads. Don’t give in to the stupid, the morally lazy, and the materialistic. Most importantly, focus on the present and release the past into the past. Learn to live in the present moment.

The haze is gone. 

WEEKEND READING LIST: One Thing Leads to Another

Bla and I were both inspired by PH's improving habit of systematically eating at one new cafe a week, reading one new book a week, going to one exhibition, one performance, watching one movie, every week. He'd been doing this since the new year and he has the notebook as proof of his resolve, on each rather dog-eared page are lists and dates, in his poor scribble, of all the new things he's seen and read and watched and (hopefully) absorbed. 

And so last week, one very hot afternoon, Bla and I, to kickstart our very own effort, visited the Asian Civilisations Museum, Empress Place, to view the rather special Secrets of the Fallen Pagoda: Treasures from Famen Temple and the Tang Court (till 4 May).  It's a rather lively and interesting show (see the tortoise container above? It's so cute and a real luxury item don't you think?) and I urge you all to go look at it if you haven't already.

Anyway, that led me to want to learn more about Chinese history and this led me to randomly pick up a book, without much thought from a shelf about Chinese history. It was a lucky chance find. I'm now swiftly devouring A Brief History of the Dynasties of China by Bamber Gascoigne (2003). I can't put it down. I'm sure it's not as pedantically academic as it can be, but it's exactly what I need at the moment. You see, the focus is oddly personal and Mr Gascoigne just seems to zoom in on all the sometimes odd details and character that does bring out the flavour of each of the periods he's writing about; It's a quick guided tour of over 2,000 years, and Mr Gascoigne's concerns, are thankfully like mine, heavy on the arts and culture (and the odd fact or two), and less about warcraft and politics. I like that it's quite a subjective focus, and it's beautifully, humourously written. This isn't to say that Mr Gascoigne is without erudition, it's just that he uses his learning to convey his own passions for his subject. Of course this is just an entertaining launch pad for more specific reading. 

I learnt a lot from just one swift reading. For instance, did you know that Marco Polo was only 20 years old when he was made a high official in the court of Kublai Khan? He later waxed lyrical of Kublai Khan's appearance:

"He is of good and fair size, neither too small nor too large, but is of middle size. He is covered with flesh in a beautiful manner, not too fat, nor too lean; he is more than well formed in all parts. He has his face white and partly shining red like the colour of a beautiful rose, which makes him look very pleasing; and he has the eyes black and beautiful; and the nose very beautiful, well made and well set on the face."  

Isn't this a marvellous detail to highlight? I was simply entranced that this 20 year old Venetian boy is studying this great Mongolian emperor as if he were some model come for a casting! I would never have thought that the thing that struck one about Kublai Khan (above left) would be his beautiful black eyes. Highly recommended.