Isabel Marant pour H&M - where do I stand?

Clément Chabernaud looking mighty fine in this ad. Up-close images of him taken by yours truly here.

The public release for the French designer collaboration with the Swedish clothing giant will only be on the November 14th, but naturally the images have leaked out prematurely (always a good way to build up hype and anticipation). The recent party in Paris is nothing but 'celebrating the collection' with all celebrities and famous models imaginable attending. It felt like a full-on excessiveness of the eighties.

Dior Spring Summer 2013 Review (Part I)

We don’t really do collection reviews in the blog but I have to give this one a special exception. Dior Spring Summer 2013 collection has so much to talk about. The live-streaming experience, the venue, the minimalist setup, the makeup, (and of course) the clothes! – together all these are signals to the dawn of the NEW DIOR!

image source: Dior.com

Menswear Fall 2011 trend - baggier please Yohji Yamamoto!

Fall 2011/2012 menswear shows have long ended but I'd still like to wax lyrical about them, at least about one of the trends that I think is quite prominent on the runway.

If you have been reading my blog for a while you'd probably known about my biased love towards slouchy pants. (have a look at my entry about Umit Benan)

I'm  feeling elated over the obvious fact of ubiquitous baggy/ roomy / billowy silhouettes at the shows.  There were baggy coats and lots of designers showed soft billowy pants.

Junk in my trunk - Leftblock Junk sale!

We had a tons of fun while selling away our pre-loved clothes and accessories at fairly cheap price. during last week's Leftblock Junk Sale. We arrived at Fat Spoon Cafe at around 1100H and quickly unpacked the stuff for sale. An Audrey Hepburn portrait (which Arman acquired at one of his travels to Paris) definitely transformed my otherwise lackluster stall to a much welcoming one...

I must tell you the crowd was pleasingly eclectic - there were the typical teenagers looking for cheap thrills with tag-along boyfriends (which proved somewhat beneficial to me as they were the ones who hoarded my stuff)....

And the shopper's demographic could not be more diverse when I saw customers of the more opposite end of age spectrum flocking the stalls, looking for the extra bargain just like their younger counterparts. The peculiarly funny thing was when this one middle-aged man who seemed so fussy about the stuff I was selling; he was inspecting up and down a shirt and questioning which appropriate gender should be wearing that item. I'm sorry but at the price of RM5-10 per shirt, even that was TOO much to handle. And the 10 million dollar question was his adamant inquiry to purchase my laptop despite me explaining  it is not for sale and it is the only computer that I have!

Several of the footwear that I had on sale - gladly high street stuff and British classics were sold off like hot cakes (the black Fred Perry sneakers, the tan Clarks mocassin and the deep brown Zara lace-ups finally founds their new owners). Alas the pigskin ASOS desert boots and Hugo Boss shoes were still up for grabs... (a lot of people find those 2 shoes beautiful but my tiny feet - UK size 7 was the major factor deterring potential buyers to try them on)

The venue in which the event took place was a spot on - despite its tiny area Fat Spoon Cafe embodies a rather vintage kampong ambiance ( which befits most of the vintage articles on sale that day), complete with polaroid photos of yester years reminding memorable journey the owner had gone through...

Me and Arman was busy life-tweeting the event

 It was a funny moment when he just acquired that vintage YSL scarf for nothing and tried to emulate Maggie Abang Saufi's signature wrapped head look LOL!

The cafe was jam-packed from noon till around 1700H when the yard sale was closing down. The money earned was worthwhile but it did not last long after I spent it soon after the event HAHA!

Forgive my moo face but this is how I look like after 6 straight hours of hawking my stuff. I was wearing Muji shirt (slight nipple exposure won't hurt no?), H&M khaki pants, Johnson suede desert boots and random accessories.

All in all, it was definitely a fun event  as a first-timer and not to mention it was a good place to socialize with like-minded people - I had a huge feeling of belonging sitting beside all these young people selling their respective wares. Maybe I should switch my career to a rather more leisurely one like this???

P/s: Kudos to Joyce and Chelle part of Leftblock trio for organising a great event.. looking forward to another one (another 5 months eh?)
PPS: heaps of thank yous won't be suffice to great friends Arman and Syazwan who helped me setting up the booth and hawking our wares...

A bundle of joy at Buntil

I know this is so last century as you guys have probably been to this place ages before but only last week I went to Buntil in BB Plaza. I have been meaning to go to this vintage clothing store since for ever but I never got around to trail all floors of the over-crowded maze of BB Plaza. However a recent flick through at Pancaindera which coincidentally featured the store reminds me to go find it (and the fact that the weekly newspaper publishes some images of beauuutiful shoes that  Buntil have in store lures me even more).

So there I went with my little sister (the truth is I'm a bit uncomfortable window-shopping alone, especially in the dimly-lit alleys of BB plaza ;) I managed to shove my shyness away by saying hi to the store-keeper (forgot his name, Lan / Zan probably). He told a remarkable story about his hardship in Japan as an illegal worker just to get by,and about how fast the turnover rate of his inventory is. It's interesting that there are hard-moneyed vintage lovers out there who are willing to fork out big hard cash to get items that they love.

We also exchanged views about fashion in Malaysia - there was a mutual agreement that Malaysians generally are drawn more to big labels and not to great design. Case in point- the abundance of knock-off Hackett London rugby shirts (despite being sold at roughly RM100 a pop, which is quite exorbitant for an imitation). And the funniest thing is Lan/Zan told me that he had to remove the 'Buntil' label  in order to sell the in-store label canvas weekender bags. People suddenly give impression that the bags were Hermes. How amusing!

Now back to why I came there in the first place. I was amazed at the amount of inventory they stock- the place is literally crammed with vintage goodies in every corner. To prove my point they even have racks of shoes at near the entrance, imagine this: I had to close the front door in order to browse shelves full with leather footwear!

At another corner is where they place stacks of 80's shirts, mainly from Ralph Lauren, and a handful from other big kahunas of fashion industry (then AND now) e.g Burberrys (with an 's' - care to enlighten me is it how they spelt it in the old days?), YSL etc. Frankly none of the shirts are of my interest, they are too big for me anyway. Oh wait. Scratch that. Now looking again at the below image I actually like the pastel/sherbet striped shirt! How could I miss that?

One shelf in the middle of the space stores rows and rows of vintage bags - the infamous small Prada rucksacks and dainty little handbags of various designers. Another shelf displays sunglasses and scarves. Pants and jeans are also for sale. I find these Madras plaid Banana Republic coton trousers remind me a lot of the Ralph Lauren's last season version.

And the creme de la creme is of course the shoes/kasut/les chausseurs/ tufli in stock!! Okay seriously, they have some pretty decent loafers with tassels, deck/ boat shoes in bright colours (I'm itching to get my mitts on a pair of yellow Pro-Keds) and vintage Dr Martens, and one or two pairs of Chukkas....

A deposit or RM20 is already laid on the counter.. the canary yellow beauty is just waiting for its owner ie me HAHA!

And the most important thing is a visit to this shop simply evokes the memory of my past Parisian vintage shopping (or at least random Volgograd stock outlet shopping)... And now I know at least I don't have to trawl all over Europe to get a piece of quality vintage.

Fun at Avillion Part Un

The celebration of Hari Raya  pleasantly but exhaustively ended with a family trip to Port Dickson last weekend. Yes, it does not boast to have the most beautiful snowy white sandy beach in Malaysia, but my elder sister was generous enough to book us one night at this cool resort Avillion (uh huh, somebody's got to work on Monday)... which is the same place where we stayed last year, with its beautiful above-the-ocean water chalets and convenient facilities and tranquil ambiance (eeek...sounds like I'm writing for a travels brochure or something...)

Naturally the idea of taking some  experimental  outfit shots (both to me stylistically and to my little sister who's learning to tinker with her new, shiny SLR bought using money, loaned from my mother of course) came to mind. Before leaving for PD I fumbled and panicked thinking what kind of clothes to bring there, and me being over-analytical and a bit OCD about outfits did not help much either!!! Did I mention I'm the ever slowpoke and last-minute kind of person who started packing for vacays after running  unnecessary errands that can be postponed the next week (for example going to the recycling centre to unload a heap of trash and a trip to Giant to browse for some cheap girl tights the very one hour before departure?)

 But may I smugly declare that all the rush and frenzy was worthwhile...upon arriving I suddenly had this inexplicable energy to dress up (and layer, mind you) despite the humid heat from the coastal air. A little strategy to beat Mother Nature has to be conjured, of course by wearing basic tank tops beneath while layering a spring /summer cardigan from the flimsiest fabric ever... I guess the excitement for outfit posts for DUNIA FASHYON came from thinking that there would be no next time for me to be in such a beautiful place as soon the government will summon me to serve them eternally in a distastefully designed hospital building somewhere in rural Malaysia...And so much so that I even managed to whip out a triple outfit shot in three separate entries especially for you dear reader(s)... hope you enjoy as much I did posting them!

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As you could probably already smell I'm caught in the act trying to reproduce a pathetic rendition of the extraordinary Lanvin SS09's straw hat (still one of my favorite collections so far) and YSL SS10 billowy cardie+trousers combo. Lucas and Stefano must be itching to gang up on me if they had any chance...

Cardigan and tank top are both from People's..., trousers from my bottom half of my Baju Melayu costume, vintage Camel Adventure shoes, DIY frayed straw hat bought from street vendor in PD, thrifted belt

runway images from men.style.com