Give more colours

If you read my post on my on all things colourful (or too colourful, sometimes), you could understand my apprehension on overly kaleidoscopic hues. Sometimes I do feel confident to wear gaudy colours, but sometimes I feel tired of coordinating and I want only all black wrapping my body. I envy those very disciplined fashion personae with monochromatic/all-white affinity - Ivana Carpio from Love Aesthetics, for example, is so restrained in her selection, that she owns nothing but blanc blanc blanc.  

Introducing: East Dane

Shopping online has been one of my best routes to a me me me weekend, but it has also been my Achilles tendon for over-spending especially come pay-check day. Last time in Russia I used to spend hours scouring the British e-Bay. The adrenaline-filled sensation of victory after winning a particular bid after hours and hours of countdown was rewarding, and kept me happy as a student who just knew about fashion online. But buying from dubious sources also meant two possibilities - I had either reasonable purchases or downright rubbish imitations arriving at my doorstep.

Weekend update

The National Mosque nearing dusk

It's the final week of Ramadan and we have seen a lot thus far. A lot - in a sense that sadness is in the air. Everything's happening around the world, from Gaza bombing to MH17 alleged missile strike. It's quite scary to think that some of the fallen aircraft victims updated their status on social media moments before the tragedy, which had me reflecting on my posts on DF. Will my blog entries become significant after my passing?

Melancholy aside, I'm still going to use this blog as my route for escapism. As for last week, I've been hanging out with a group of friends, including the ones who came to visit from Kelantan. We had iftar together at Serai in Paradigm Mall. My beef noodle was bland - this reminds me to pick a better menu next time. Not forgetting there's the odd self portrait photos of me, that seem to become lesser as time goes by...

Carven Redux

Sometimes a recurrent obsession towards a particular item can be a bit pervasive and such is the case with my fixation with Carven's school-boy charm. This time around I acquired a short-sleeved cotton shirt with a contrasting detail from Club 21 Pavilion's summer sale in Kuala Lumpur. However despite the discount I believe it is still more affordable to purchase something from this label online (recent perusing post Club 21 buy revealed that similar shirt on topic but with a different colour way actually cost much less. Oh, the trials and tribulations of a bargain hunter).

Either way I'm loving the cute little detail of the collar and the micro-gingham pattern of the shirt. At one glance the texture does look a bit leather-y which managed to fool a clinic staff or two. And even though the shirt is size 3 (my last Carven acquisition was a size 2) I think it's still wearable but perhaps some customisation is in order. Here's to a perennial summer of Malaysia and never-ending child clothing obsession in me!

A Carven Virgin

Recently I've been reading the blogs about the French label Carven, that is recently revived to its former glory. Reading its history timeline is quite fascinating and, being reminded of the Russian History lectures during my former student days, these are the points that I'm highlighting:

images via Carven website

image via vintagefashionguild.org

 In May 1945 Carven (the name derived from the creator Carmen and her aunt Boyriven) opened their first shop selling Haute Couture at Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées. Having reached the international audience in the 1960's, the brand expanded into creating uniforms for airline crews, most notably for Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, dabbled in a successful ready-to-wear line and they even created signature perfumes.

Jil Sander is coming to KL!

The long weekend is a blessing that I can rest at home watching tear-inducing, albeit cliched Islamic themed dramas on Astro (they are my mother's firm favorite, no one was allowed to change channels once Astro has those showing. Good job Astro on playing on the banal emotional card. You just know, despite the triteness of it all, how to feed on Malay/Asian culture. Brilliant marketing ploy, I must say).

Being the mall rat that I am, I took the opportunity of an extra day off to have a look at the shops in Pavilion, a rarity nowadays, now that I work and live outside Kuala Lumpur. Lo and behold, what I found when I was browsing the two levels of Pavilion's luxury area:

Apparently TENC (The Emperor's New Clothes) is being replaced by Club 21's another project! Looks like it's time for TENC to wrap up. I guess politicians and menswear don't go hand in hand?

Whimsical trend - print trousers

You know how I am into prints and will try to experiment a few designs once in a while - leopard, cosmic, ethnic prints - I've tried them all. Can you imagine my excitement looking at these multi-geometric silk print trousers from Lanvin SS12? Practically a visual orgasm...

The bottom second pair of printed goodness very much reminds me of the images of me wearing the Gap boxer over shorts - my feeble take on print on print. But these Lanvins are done with immaculate tailoring and tasteful hues, naturally...

On another note, we all know that accessories makes the outfit complete. And some things look much better in the form of shiny, oil spill-like effect of this luminescent Comme des Garcons wallet - a very successful accessory line from CdG I think. Style it with a toned down dark outfit and you're ready to go! And of course one cannot live without a pair of these beautiful sandals in tan leather from Carven. I will forbid my feet to sweat if I wore them.

images via ssense.com

Have  a great weekend!

Chanel x Colette pop-up store

One would never have thought of this as sheer genius but I personally think the Chanel x Colette pop-up store is. Being able to witness the offspring of the collaboration basically changes my  perception on Chanel ( oh yaa, the quintessentially elegant French label with collections of predominantly black and white tweed jackets / the luxurious 2.55 quilted leather chain bags / the 'please don't enter our boutique if you've got no dough' and such...)