Men's Fall 2010: Prada

This is Prada's Uniqlo collection.

Clicking through the looks, I'm struck with how immediately accessible everything looks, and how blurred the lines are now between 'designer' lines and high street lines. Is this the new stealth luxe? You want those abbreviated jumpers in every in every colour don't you, just like they display it in Uniqlo? But it's important to note who the author of these looks is. Mrs Prada, one of fashion's forward thinkers, never simply puts on her 'commercial' hat: The very idea of this 'Uniqlo Collection' is thought-provoking, and makes one think harder about the meaning of fashion as we know it.

It's been commented upon that the clothes are very young - I would say that it isn't the extreme youth of the clothes that is startling (even though some of the exits seem to be designed for pre-school boys - but we've gone down that road before) but the idea that they are actually deliciously genderless. They are men's styles which a girl could wear: Chop of the models' heads and replace with the heads of Stella Tennant, Kristen Owen or Cecilia Chancellor and the clothes would make perfect sense. Love it, love it.

Weekend Reading List

It's going to be a weekend of crime for me.

On a stray suggestion of Tuppance's, I decided to pick up P D James's (debut) Cover Her Face, and devoured this quickly, noting its many typos along the way. It's amazing that I've never read this bestselling crime writer before, since I like Agatha Christie so much, and Ms James mines the same territory, if not exactly the same period. On the same romp to the library, where I couldn't decide if I should breathe since all sorts were sneezing and coughing in there (I was reflecting that bookish types who spend their afternoons beavering away in the stacks probably aren't the most healthy of the lot), I also picked up The Skull Beneath the Skin (aging actress playing The Duchess of Malfi sent poison pen letters), and Unnatural Causes (crime writer murdered in remote English village). Since I was already there risking my health, I also picked up Agatha Christie's Five Little Pigs, a Hercule Poirot case, and Death Comes at the End, set in ancient Egypt. This is unique in Dame Christie's canon, the choice influenced by the Mansfield Park mashup (see below).

Guess what I did when I got home? I carefully wiped down all the library books with Dettol, washed my hands in manner of doctor going into surgery, then settled down in a nest of pillows for a good, long read.

Mansfield Park and Mummies

Yet another in the series of Jane Austen “mash-ups,” Mansfield Park and Mummies (an indulgent 555 pages, by Vera Nazarian) uses Mansfield Park—one of the more 'difficult' Austen novels. The premise is less of a stretch: Egyptological excavations were occurring during that period, and it is not impossible that the vain Lady Bertram should collect sarcophagi and urns and... the living undead. The story: 3,000 years ago an Egyptian Pharaoh died and was mummified and eventually transported to Mansfield Park as part of Lady Bertram’s fashionable obsession with all things Egyptian. He comes to life... and seeks his bride! The Bertram family is cursed by the Pharaoh. Aunt Norris howls at the moon and Mr. Rushworth forages for small animals in the shrubbery; The servants stagger around, zombies. The Crawfords are vampires that plague Mansfield Park. That is why the saucy Mary Crawford is uncomfortable in the chapel at Sotherton and doesn’t like the clergy. The necklace she gives Fanny doesn’t fit through the ring of the cross. Meek little Fanny alone is unaffected by these events. It is she who must save Mansfield Park and its inhabitants... Can you believe this???

The Sheltering Sky

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."
- Paul Bowles,

Toni Garn

Karl Lagerfeld shot Toni Garrn and Baptiste Giabiconi for German Vogue's February 2010 cover story that's inspired by Marlene Dietrich.

He Said She Said

"Nothing is worse than resembling a photo on style.com.”
- Giovanna Battaglia

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

I'm your Early Warning System.
I suffered this movie so you don't have to, so pay attention.Because H wanted to see it, and because I have yet seen a movie with Hugh Grant in it that I didn't like, I foolishly spent 103 mins sitting through one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Did You Hear About the Morgans? is truly bad. The premise sounded possible: A married couple on the outs (Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant) who, chased by a hit man, are relocated by the FBI to a Wyoming hamlet. There a parallel salt of the earth couple (Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen) teach them life lessons. Along the way, romance and comedy unfolds.
Well, it didn't.
Writer-director, Marc Lawrence, displayed no gift for character or crisp dialogue; Everything trite and tasteless was trotted out tiresomely, recycling the formulaic fugitive-couple premise from other movies and the forcing of an uncomfortable intimacy on people who are opposites. Shouldn't he know better? He's only been plowing this fallow field for more than a decade: Forces of Nature, (Bullock and Grant) Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality (all superior movies).
It didn't help that Sarah Jessica Parker, horribly miscast, looked startlingly like an old man in a strawberry wig in this movie. Long-jawed, with Men's Health arms, she always looked as if she's just completed a spin session with Madonna. Her sinewy perkiness had zero chemistry with Grant's stammering charm. They are opposites who not only did not attract, they appeared to be in different movies.
Grant seems to think he's in a better movie, and in a few scenes makes the movie bearable: He's simply very funny, even granted the pathetic script. (Okay, he needs more hair and is looking a bit old). Even Grant can't do much with the rest of the cliched material.
Elliott and Steenburgen lend a human dimension to the roles of a small-town sheriff and his wife. The ease with which they inhabit these characters stole the show. At one point I actually wished the grizzly bear would maul Parker, and the killer would shoot her but no, and then one hour and half passed. I had to eat a waffle with two lumps of butter drenched with maple syrup to get over the movie. It was that bad.

Together, Forever

I've been held captive by the Ch 8 series Together for the past month or so; My excuse was that I was writing a comment piece on it (incidentally, it's out this week in 8 Days) but I've grown enthralled:
It’s not difficult to say what qualities make this series so riveting for me, although the plot is conventional and characters stock. There’s life in Together, and a quirky, original charm even though it’s yet another nostalgic blast from the past drama.
A coming of age story set purportedly in North Bridge Road in the '60s, it’s a period that my mother can identify with. There’s never a dull moment with the relentless plot twists and turns, but a major draw is the star studded cast, in particular, the hansome young leads. No less important is the great support of the veteran character actors that prevent this series from sinking into ‘idol drama’ territory (even though j'adore idol drama).
Dai Yangtian carries the role off on his sloping shoulders and has all the qualities of a leading man; He has the looks (the eyes!) and the gravitas, that makes him stand out from the line up of gorgeous young actors Together showcases (the male parade includes Desmond Tan as a bad cop, and Yuan Shuai as the good cop, and Zhang Zhenhuan who plays a wimp who was forced work on Bugis Street in drag to entice American sailors). Whether selling panties from a push cart or swaddled in the widest bell bottoms (amongst other indignities), Dai remains a star throughout. And that voice!
Jeanette Aw’s Little Nyonya Yueniang and Jianhong characters are one and the same: But that’s because they share the actress that plays them. Jeanette Aw plays both with grim virtue and as a model of icy Confucian stoicism; In fact she plays herself, and all her roles thus far are humourless and pained. To say that the Jianhong character is long suffering would be an understatement. Aw toughs through her role, hair pulled into the tightest ponytail, mouth dour, her body a rigid armour even when she’s dancing a rumba with a greasy towkay or a cha-cha with Constance Song. Song plays bad girl Lucy, a very senior lady of the night that recruits the virgin Jianhong into the life of vice. Song plays Lucy like a lazy adder, her reptilian eyes heavy with hinted debauchery; One wishes Lucy wasn’t killed off, she imbues the series with true evil, as the other villains merely cardboard tokens of the plot.
In a career-defining role, Elvin Ng plays Tarzan (the series is a wonderland of characters catchily named: A fat wrestler is called Mountain Wolf; A wanton mee seller is called $5.60; and Jianhong is betrothed to a roast suckling boss named Pork Bones). Elvin is my new crush, and he plays this simpleton with unbridled joy and gusto – and the most-ever gratuitous topless shots seen on Ch 8. He's simply dazzling (the blinding face-splitting smile is worth sitting up for really), so tan, smooth and fat-free. Although Aw and Dai are touted as the romantic leads, it is the ‘bromance’ between Dai and Elvin that forms the emotional core of the series. They would make a lovely couple. The kids would be so pretty.
Eelyn Kok is Jinhao, the vain fame-seeking bitch, the role originally meant for Fiona Xie. Kok is effervescent, and vulnerable at once, endowing this role with pathos, and making it a star turn all her own, so much so that I can’t imagine Ms Xie in it, for better or for worse. Jinhao is a serial pageant contestant, whose titles keep eluding her (Mattress Queen, then Miss Swimsuit, then Mooncake Princess...and many more pageants in between) is lovely to watch this erstwhile D-lister become a star right before your eyes.
The wonderful Aileen Tan plays an illegal bookie called Maomao. Tan’s performance (always hilarious and very good) is authentic shrew: Full of vim and earthiness and immediately recognisable. The set piece catfight between Maomao and Lucy, an orgy of hair pulling and flying heels will make you laugh out loud.
Without the pedagogical aspects of Little Nonya, Together is a campy romp in period duds (and repetitive scenes of Elvin sweatily making toast and roasting of coffee beans don't hurt) but it sparkles with some of the best performances from its ensemble. And that’s all one wants from a TV series: Performances to make us laugh and new stars to make us dream together.
(You can read the complete PG article in 8 Days)

He Said She Said

"There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self." - Edith Wharton

Exit, Angelina

There will be no more shots of Angelina Jolie or - more importantly no more of those hilarious images of Kelly Gray (Ms Gray was the face of St John for 22 years, and a former top exec of the company, her mother's knitwear line) in St John going forward. The chief executive officer Glenn McMahon said that Ms Jolie overshadowed the brand (not hard to do). “We wanted to make a clean break from actresses and steer away from blondes and cleanse the palette,” added Mr McMahon. Angelina is not blonde.

This led to hiring model Karen Elson, who was shot by photographer Greg Kadel for the spring campaign. “We needed to show a modern point of view of St. John,” McMahon said. “We have evolved.” The ads, directed by executive vice president of design George Sharp, will launch in the February issues of Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. McMahon said the print media buy is up slightly. No more cheesy ads of Ms Gray on holiday with a bevy of male models? What is the world coming to?
(Source: WWD)

He Said She Said

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Teresa

Spring 2010: Guiseppe Zanotti

Aren't these ads featuring Spanish model Andres Velencoso fresh? They kind of remind me of those Bill King (October 6 1927 - October 18 2005) photos of old, for Enrico Coveri. Remember Bill King? Remember Enrico Coveri? Oh and yeah, the shoes are so cute too...

Left to right: Yasmin L, Cindy C and Tatjana P... in the good old days!

Excuses, Excuses

Guess what Michael Roberts is shooting next? Guess, guess, guess! No prizes for guessing right: Ms Roberts rang in the new year shooting a clutch of Brazilian newcomers Alex Portela, Vinicius Piccoli, and Samuel Vieira, at an apartment in Ipanema (wearing biginis, what else?). As you can see from the polaroids (what a waste of polaroids!), they were as bored as she. Can anything be more banal?

Kate On Ice

Kate blew (not that!) a reported £20,000 after missing her first-class flight to Phuket on Boxing Day. She was said to have been so hung over after Christmas that she couldn't make the flight, eventually travelling to Phuket (with boyfriend/ freeloader Jamie Hince) two days later than planned. She flies to Thailand for her annual break, just like all the sisters here. She over-indulged this Christmas, stuffing herself with turkey, booze and pudding. After drinking champagne from 10am onwards, she felt ill, and Hince forbade Kate from flying anywhere. The 35-year-old (only!) Kate was even more devastated when the airline told her she could not have a refund for the £14,000 first class tickets. She also had to pay for two night’s accommodation at Amanpuri, bringing the total bill for the cancelled holiday to $40,000. She rebooked the tickets and was in Phuket for the new year - with her head in a bucket of ice (not that kind).
Kate recently revealed her method for keeping her skin looking healthy after a night out (see left, if you don't believe). She told the Daily Express: 'Fill the sink, get some ice, put some cucumber in and stick your head in it. Apparently it’s an old-school thing that Joan Crawford (below, in a George Hurrell photo) used to do. The cucumber takes out all the puffiness and redness. It feels amazing, it rocks. If you’re tired it really wakes you up.'

Shoe Obsession

Just how many pairs of shoes one need?
I spent the broiling afternoon (haven't the hot days returned with a vengeance after only a very brief cool spell?) cleaning out the shoe closet; I took all my shoes out and and returned them to all the right shoe bags (and boxes), wiped the shelves down, put in new charcoal sachets - but didn't throw any shoes away.
Instead, I grouped them to make for easier hunting: I collected all the lace-ups and Oxfords on one shelf, all the loafers on another, sandals on the third, etc. What I realised from this sweaty exercise was that I had far too many shoes - and far too many repeats. But do you throw away shoes just because they were repeats? I couldn't, and didn't.
I have at least 10 black leather lace-ups (granted they had different toe shapes, but still). I have brown calf and grey patent lace-ups. I have two pairs of white lace-ups (one I bought last year at the CK bazaar), and a Derby pair in black and white.
I have about 10 pairs of loafers, quite a few in black, the rest in red, crimson, brown, tan, cream, two-tone.
I have one pair of white, navy and red deck shoes (Tod's) which I had clean forgotten about. Then I have boots (I relegated these to the top shelf with the yoga mat and skipping rope - stuff I hardly ever use).
On the most assessible shelves range the sandals (I wear these most often), and sneakers. The
sandals are depressingly similar, barring the one dove grey patent gladiator Pierre Hardy sandals, and the one barely there Tom Ford-era Gucci black sandals in patent, they are one and all tan, brown, cream. The five pairs I had made in Capri by Mr Antonio (he made those same sandals for Jackie O), are depressingly similar in style to the first pair of Hermes sandals I ever bought in 2001. I have one pair of pool sandals in yellow from Tod's.
One shelve down, I have the the Birkenstocks (seven) and the Haviannas (six). These are all annoyingly similar: The Birkenstocks are all in dull neutrals - my one red pair I left behind in some hotel somewhere and the Havianas are all in neutrals as well - my favourite ones are in black.
Below these range the sneakers, with many suede pairs of Adidas and Pumas - they could all be the same shoe (I even have a couple of completely new ones, which I shall wear this Chinese New Year).
In 2010, I resolve not to buy shoes... unless they are dramatically different in style; It would be even better if I didn't buy any shoes at all. One only needs ONE lace-up, ONE loafer, ONE sneaker, ONE sandal, doesn't one? Well how many pairs do you need? And how many pairs do you have?

He Said She Said: Quentin Crisp

"Who would you be if the only opinion that mattered was yours? Because if you want to be truly happy you must be that person. You must search inside yourself for what is uniquely you. When you find it, polish it until it becomes your style. It's no good being a pig farmer for 30 years looking back and saying 'I was meant to be a ballet dancer', by that time pigs are your style." - Quentin Crisp

He Said She Said: Daisy Fellowes

"A good fashion is a daring fashion, not a polite one."

The famous beauty Daisy Fellowes (April 29 1890-December 13 1962), heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, reclining in the drawing room of her 18th-century country house, Donnington Grove, in Newbury, Berkshire, England, in the late 1950s. She is wearing Dior Couture. This is an ideal way (on a chaise, by the fire) to while away the first weekend of the new year, instead of running yourself to the ground, going out to every single party.

Here, Ms Fellowes is relaxing (again!) in a green-silk Paquin negligée at 34 Chapel Street, London, just off Belgrave Square, which she rented from politician Duff Cooper. The photo is by Cecil Beaton, June 1941. Note that the gigantic sofa, which is probably the size of my bathroom, is deep and bedecked with cushions, and dressed in flowered chintz; I want this sofa.

Comic Treatment

Pride and Prejudice as a comic book has been a such a success that Marvel is planning to give Sense and Sensibility the same treatment in April 2010. Graphic Classics also features a graphic-novel treatment of Northanger Abbey, containing a distilled adaptation of The Mysteries of Udolpho. What would Auntie Austen say?

Weekend Reading List

I'm way behind in my reading, what with the festive season and friends coming back from abroad, I've hardly had a moment to myself. I've been so exhausted that the moment I start reading, I nod off. In yet another shelf purge, BG gave me two books he knew I would love (and which he bought, but hardly read): Zadie Smith's latest, a collection of essays Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, and Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I love Smith's novel On Beauty, but find it hard concentrating on some of these academic essays; Perhaps, not the right moment for reading this. The cover art is beautiful though. The latter book is set in a Paris apartment so I'm bound to find it fascinating, but I've yet start reading it, as I've just finished the slim Charles Ryder's Schooldays, Evelyn Waugh's posthumously published 'prequel' to Brideshead Revisited. This is a must for those, like me, who can't get enough of Brideshead. On that day that I met K for fish and chips (perhaps not the best choice for me since I've chosen the word 'Health' for my watchword in 2010) at Bras Basah Complex, I also picked up Bad Manners by Lisa Armstrong (Vogue UK writer) and The Collected Stories of Colette, from the National Library right next door. I love the library, and it's always a treat to hunt there. The last is a rich and inspiring feast, and I turn to Colette often, finding these audacious and seductive little gems are so right for the season.
(Picture: Matthew Goode as Charles Ryder)

29,000

29,000
29,000 hits since I started the site counter this April. It's been such a delight blogging, thanks everyone, for reading and commenting and being so encouraging since I started this blog on the 3rd of January this year (because I was inspired by P, and also to accompany Jac's blogging. Jac has since stopped, but I'm still going strong!).

"Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Happy New Year!

He Said She Said

"I'm Jewish. I don't work out. If God had wanted us to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor." - Joan Rivers

Finally

And then last night, I finally finished the tube of Bliss Body Butter. Between mother and me we squeezed out an extra big dollop and after slathering generously over shins and feet, I happily chucked the empty tube out. Why is it so satisfying to throw things into the rubbish chute (with some violence) and hear its thumping fall down 12 floors echoed back up? It's equally nice to unwrap new things to use. This are my new toiletries:
Soap - Molton Brown Moisture Rich Aloe and Palm Body Bar. Hefty (250g) and caramel brown, it smells wonderfully zesty(sandalwood and patchouli essential oils) and feels truly, luxuriantly moisturising (enriched with shea butter).
Body - Kenzo Amour Creme Corps Tres Parfum. The square tub is so pretty and the cream itself is a lovely puce pink; The fragrance is not overpowering and combines myrrh, rice and hibiscus. I don't actually think hibiscus has a fragrance but the word is pretty.
Hand - Jurlique Ciitrus Hand Cream. I like the idea of 'citrus' for hand creams it just feels (or smells) cleaner.

Are You A Hedonist?

he·don·ism (hdn-zm) n.
1. Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure, especially to the pleasures of the senses.
2. Philosophy: The ethical doctrine holding that only what is pleasant or has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good.
3. Psychology: The doctrine holding that behavior is motivated by the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

Margiela In Your Maison

Before stepping down from Maison Martin Margiela, the reclusive designer launched a collection of furniture and “white objects” for the home, like this embroidered calendar. You can't see the dates but, but who uses calenders anymore, anyway? - think of it as braille art.

Mr Margiela also designed the Suite Ile aux Oiseaux at Les Sources de Caudalie near Bordeaux.
The hotel and spa, opened 10 years ago by the winemaking family, tapped Maison Martin Margiela to design its signature suite. The freestanding cabana is perched on a pond in the château. For 650 euros a night and up (a special package includes “a gift signed by Maison Martin Margiela” — perhaps one of the Maison’s new wine-bottle lamps?), guests can retreat to the chambre Margiela between spa treatments. The décor is classic Margiela, with its white-on-white-on-gray playfullness: 12 white pillows are stitched to a white wall to form a headboard. The wallpaper is printed to look like the ghostly walls of a Haussman apartment.

Taking Out The Trash

First there was Victoria Beckham, now this... And that's how luxury lost its lustre.

5 Points To Get Happy

Just read this and it's something to we all know but we need to remind ourselves again, especially now that the new year is lurking right round the corner. Here are five things you can do immediately to get happy:

1. Do Something For Someone
It's better to give than to receive if you want to be happy. It does not have to be grand-gesture volunteering, but lending a hand to a neighbor, or setting your friends up can make you feel needed and connected.

2. Meditate
This is a simple technique to de-stress. While it is difficult to control the shifting thoughts in the busy "monkey's mind," simply sitting down for 10 mins each day, focusing on inhalations and exhalations can do wonders for your mental health. If your attention drifts from the in- and ex hales, gently bring the focus back to the breath.

3. Get Friendly
Spend quality time to connect with others, reach out and be friendly. Share your burdens, feel connected and call friends whom you have lost touch with.

4. Get Active
Working out benefits mood. You do not have to go an extreme regiment. Thirty minutes of moderately-paced walking three times a week will do just fine.

5. Change Your Way Of Thinking
Shifting how you think and behave is important. The context around you must also change. Friends may have a fixed idea of who you are and any deviations from this will be seen as odd and different. Many will cast doubt and may not be as supportive. Don't fret! Be committed and let them gradually realize the merits of the change. This is challenging because friends have investments in how you behave - you may be the resident prankster, the cynic or the bitch - and evolving into someone else may not serve their best interests.
(Source: Munster)

Eat Drink Man Woman

If you feel (even a bit) guilty about the volume of food and drinks you've inadvertantly inhaled over Christmas, here's your excuse:
According to the Archives of Dermatology Journal, older people who weigh more have less wrinkles (Duh. This is science?). It says that although excess fat may increase the skin's susceptibility to damage, it may help mask the appearance of wrinkles in old age.The study is based on the aging patterns of 65 pairs of twins. While being overweight made the volunteers initially look older, the pattern reversed after about the age of 54 (very relevant: most of you should be around this age right now); the heavier twins then began to look younger in the face than their slimmer counterparts.
How could this happen? (Asked Madonna and Nicole Kidman in unison.)
As we age, we naturally lose spongy collagen – which keeps our facial skin firm. Once the collagen begins to break down, thinner women often look gaunt in the face, while heavier ones camouflage the loss with fat – which gives their face a plumper, more youthful look.
But before you proceed on another round at life's buffet, keep in mind that experts say that a high sugar intake can speed up the collagen break-down process, making you look older, faster – no matter how much you weigh.

Done

Have you made your resolutions?

With Christmas over, it's time to think of the new year. Personally, I can't wait...