Uniqlooks March: One item, three looks – White denim jacket

Look 1: White denim jacket – Uniqlo. Polo-neck sweater – American Apparel. Boyfriend Jeans – ASOS. White pumps – Kurt Geiger ‘ELLA’. White bag – MCM ‘Nuovo L‘.

Look 2: White denim jacket – Uniqlo. Raincoat – Muji. Dress – Issa London via MyWardrobe.com. Shoes – Reiss. Bag – JHYoo.

Look 3: White denim jacket – Uniqlo. Leather skirt – Vintage. Khaki stilettos – Primark. Furry bumbag – ASOS.

I have this thing every few weeks when I brew myself some redbull-coffee-crushed skittles concoction, sit myself at the computer, crack some knuckles, buckle my seatbelt (yes I have a seatbelt, it’s called duvet) and delve into the internet, determined I’d finally catch up on all the unread blogposts and saved bookmarks. Umpteen hours later I’d emerge with two PS11 worthy bags under my eyes and mystery gas emitting out of my ears, decidedly ‘cleverer’, after catching up on every single streetstyle blog in the universe, five or ten Michelle Phan wisdom tutorials, a whole gaggle of recipes where the only ingredient familiar is ‘salt’, and well, basically the entire internet. Sometimes I’d hit something like this and know I’ve come too deep. But lately, thanks to the previously advertised calamity known as eczema (aka f*kingbastard), I’ve been on house-arrest and therefore have been forced to take ORDINARY doses of said internet. And I don’t know what to do with myself, because you bloggers don’t post enough (!!!), my ‘friends & family’ don’t share enough on Facebook, and that Natalie Tran seems to have gotten a life? I refresh Bloglovin’, Youtube, Facebook every five minutes and confess to have screamed WELL IT’S ABOUT TIME at new updates. Sometimes when I feel extra desperate I read comments under some mega-instagrammer’s account and feel bad for all the stupid people in this world. Problem with this is, being under certain physical discomfort, doing anything productive (i.e emails & posts) is difficult, but balancing a bowl of popcorn on my chest while parkouring all over the internet is a piece of banana cake… apologies once again if you’ve sent an email and I’ve been quite an asshole about not replying it. Anyhoo, here’s my three ways to wear a Uniqlo white denim jacket, still sadly inappropriate for this weather.

Perrier-Jouët, The Enchanting Tree by Tord Boontje

Competition Terms and Conditions

There are times when one simply needs to unstrap and hang up bras, guards and sarcasm bones to acknowledge the good things in life, to come as you are – to thank and embrace the people closest to you and share lasting moments together. When Perrier-Jouët approached me with their newest artistic collaboration with Tord Boontje and asked for my own interpretation of an enchanting moment, I knew this was to be that rare time, albeit staged, when I can call on my closest and we’d finally bond. So sundown last Sunday, Kit, who I’ve met through this blog and have grown to know as a sister, my darling other half (whom I may or may not have bribed with a packet of beef jerky) and I met around the Enchanting Tree. Lest I forget, my hubby is my sarcasm bone, so there was to be no confession-laden speeches, teary-eyed thanking, or embracing… but the night was full of banter and good-hearted joshing, laced with healthy sarcasm, and bond we did, over the impossibly-smooth Perrier-Jouët champagne that we theatrically plucked from the tree.

Regarding the Instagram competition: if you’re like me, your friends will probably be mostly imaginary, but please don’t be intimidated – pose with your pug! (Or let the current submissions here inspire you…) I’ll be looking forward to your entries!

Picking berries atop a concrete jungle…Neeeoow Yooork!

Times Square and its neighbouring corridors of awesome

Sweatshirt – Masha Reva x SNDCT. Skirt – ASOS. Booties – Givenchy. Pouch – Kurt Geiger. Burgundy bag – Marc Jacobs Fulton; Thank you to Mathieu for the outfit shots!

If you followed the blog in 2011, you may remember the sad little tune on page-load that went a bit like ‘…but I would walk 500 miles for a visa… and I would walk 500 miles more… da da da undela undela la la la’. The first quarter of 2011 (around NYFW) I was on a crusade to attain a US visa, that eventually nobody would give, and since then I was genuinely convinced I would not set foot on American soil unless by sailing mistake. Veni, vidi… what’s Latin for ‘failed and cried over a tub of Ben & Jerry’? So imagine the excitement as I pass the ‘National threat | Just another Asian tourist’ threshold at the airport without incident – in fact, go ahead and pick one of these faces and stick it on my body as I’d be wearing it for the ensuing three days in the Big Apple.

It’s difficult to summarize, or even generalize, the effect of NYC to a first timer like myself. If one thing’s for sure, movies don’t spoil anything for you. The city is so awesomely grand that one could not easily fit a view within the scope of your eyeballs, let alone a camera lens, and the experience is composed of layers that simply can’t be bottled up and taken home. Little things like: the language of honks between the taxis (two short bursts mean ‘I had too much coffee and must go number one’ but unsure as I had an old taxi dictionary on me), the musty smell that rises from the subway vent, or how the sun sets in the MOST dramatic way possible; while on cloudier days, the sky looks like it wants to snack on Manhattan. Starbucks is ever-present (and surprisingly popular), yellow school buses (!) cruise the city around 3pm, and there are these random steam outlets along Fifth Avenue (can someone explain this?)… all of this fulfills my postcard expectations of New York and it makes me giddy. Three days was hardly enough though, just when I’d figured out the logic behind blocks! What an incredible city, I can’t wait to be back.

Thank you once again to Coty and Marc Jacobs teams for having me over! #MJDaisyChain

Warning: above photo paints a ridiculously ‘clean’ picture of situation… infuriating actually.

Welcome to chapter eleven of Help! My cat ate my keyboard: 1,001 Fashion Blogger Excuses. In previous chapters we covered: ‘My husband is taking blurry outfit pictures because he wasn’t fed’, ‘I’m in a different country and forgot to pack my blogging PJs’, ‘I have a life, I bought it at the pharmacy’, and most recently, ‘I lost confidence in blogging and un-grew balls that help with charging on’. This one is called ‘Eczema: wrestling with Wolverine‘. It was a few weeks back when I noticed a small dry patch on my arm – usual stuff, but what at first started as niggling irritation gradually developed into a violent itch, and next thing I knew it had flared up to my face, neck and torso. I know my body’s a bit of an attention wh*re, but this was truly something else – had I gone and shaved my head and attacked the tripod with an umbrella, it still would’ve brought the WTF factor down a smidge.  I won’t go into much gory detail – in a nutshell, for the most part of the past three weeks I was on a Jekyll & Hyde cycle, tearing myself apart during the night and then weeping over it come dawn (Hyde would like a tranquilizer gun for Christmas). I’ve tried every spell in the book – Eastern and Western medicine, organic and steroids, voodoo and prayer… So far it’s subsided a little but I’m still on a bit of a yo-yo, and while I’m in the ‘up’, I thought I’d drop by and let you in on why I’ve been gone for so long.

It’s truly surprising how the concept of ‘beauty’ can be so literally skin-deep, and self-confidence as equally fickle. I shrank like a sweater in a wrong wash-cycle and thought a whole lot about books with damaged book-covers. Makes you reconsider your own story, really, especially when you’re the author of a diary that explores skin-deep treasures… Anyhoo, bottom line is, don’t take your health for granted, dear readers. And remember, you are what you eat (i.e this eczema is the sobstory of my body trying to turn into a Snickers ice cream bar).

On a plus note, I am now an expert in cover-up makeup and should any zombies from the Walking Dead need assistance in appearing fairly human I am available in the evenings and weekends, so call me maybe.

Pleased to meet you, NYC

Distributing fingerprints on every surface at the Marc Jacobs SoHo boutique

Marc Jacobs Daisy

Marc by Marc Jacobs FW13

Wearing: Shearling leather jacket – Muubaa Aurora. Contrast-sleeve jumper – Topshop. Quilted orange skirt – Topshop Boutique . Geometric print skirt – YesStyle. Bag –Kurt Geiger Shoes –Givenchy.

This post was drafted the day after I’d returned from a trip I still suspect was only a dream, one of those sickly-sweet ones you get when your bed linen are freshly washed and you’ve just jumped in from a hot bath. The photos were edited ten thousand feet above the pond, then strung together in a sequence once home, I was drunk with fatigue, but my head was still in the clouds with fresh giddines. I decided I’d leave it at that to pick up fresh the next day, which was the day I read the infamous piece by Suzy Menkes on the circus around fashion weeks and the general integrity of bloggers. Now, to be clear, this is not a rebuttal, or even a commentary. I’m not in the bleachers when it comes to  the street circus game – I’m neither a ‘peacock’ (not that I choose not to, but learnt early on that I do not have the tailfeather(x) -factor), or a ‘black crow’ fashion industry member shuffling through to do their job at fashion week. But it did make me halt because that blogger in paragraph twelve who accepts ‘trophy gifts and paid-for trips’, does refer to me too – in fact, isn’t this sort of post exactly one of the latter? A few days later Leandra wrote her two cents, and then Susie, both gracefully agreeing and disagreeing with Menkes’ points, but also undeniably displaying an attitude of self-reflection which I also found myself to adopt on reading the article. The only difference was, I couldn’t find a suitable response (preferably backed by stellar writing talent) or even the balls to ignore it completely, especially having this post lined up. So every evening since returning I’ve been arguing with myself whether to man-up and post, or seek refuge in the Winchester with a pint and wait for it all to blow over… and this went for two weeks. Who was I kidding, this was not going to ‘blow over’. Echoing what Leandra wrote earlier, we are indeed entering an era where bloggers will not be able to show preference without having our motives questioned. So here I am, withdrawing myself from behind the oh no, will they judge me too wall, with a small promise to you that I will be as honest as I possibly can when it comes to the content of this blog, and that quality control will come before any amount of kebab-money.

With that said, I’d like to thank the Coty and Marc Jacobs teams for the opportunity for an amazing first-time experience in New York, and a privilege to learn more about Marc Jacobs fragrances through #MJDaisyChain. Stay tuned for more!