// Fade to #C5C5C5

Such a Wang Banger – Tilda Knot Sandals

‘You don’t have much luck with the Wang, do you!’ my housemate D moaning it out for me.

He’s right.

Every season when I’m trying to make an important big purchase from Alexander Wang i.e. over £200, there would be something about to go wrong and became a whole scenario. First was last year when I purchased Mirte lace up bootie from Liberty London and they bruised my feet within 20 minutes. Then it was the black long maxi rib dress – it was such an long journey of effort to locating one in my size from Canadian website ssense.com and returned the double ordered one from Harvey Nichols.

this summer I love mixing colours on my toe nails

This year with my greatest passion on Wang’s mainly-all-white-SS11-collection, I couldn’t resist but to purchase the middle-heeled Tilda Knot Sandals from shopbop.com. (they offer DHL 3 day worldwide delivery service and with final tax and delivery fee the price tag is still smaller than any European retailers) I ordered a UK size 5 and disappointedly discovered that they’re so much bigger than I imagined. As shopbop.com doesn’t do exchange and without knowing whether the UK4 would fit my feet or not, I decided to keep the UK5 and ordered another size 4. UK4 just fitted me so perfect, however, it was also too late to return the UK5, therefore, like last year I had to put the size 5 on eBay for auction.

But I’m so over the moon despite all the effort. The first outfit I thought to channeling about was the head-to-toe white look from Alexander Wang’s SS11 collection. Sheered stripe tank vest by T by Alexander Wang / Light grey baggy linen trousers-cut-to-shorts by River Island / Tilda knot sandals by Alexander Wang

Then I surprisingly discovered that this pair of sweetheart goes with absolutely nearly any outfits. A simple T-shirt and denim shorts are instantly glamoured up with that NYC downtown casual-smart look. Sheered stripe T-shirt by American Vintage / Old pair of studded medium wash denim cut-to-shorts / Tilda knot sandals by Alexander Wang

Carrying on with the chic casual city look: Navy fine cotton pirate blouse by Gap / Silk mix stripe apron shorts by Alexander Wang / Tilda knot sandals by Alexander Wang

Apart from the cool city casual look, these sandals go perfectly with this vintage dress I found by accident in my local charity shop. The dress kind of reminds me of Christopher Kane’s SS11 neon royal collection, instead of neon lace, it has paisley print over a lime-ish background. Team up with a vintage belt to add on a little more colour. The Tilda knot sandals by Alexander Wang make the dress looking less mumsy and definitely added some edge to it.

Oh well, all those effort are definitely worth it and I want to say a big Thank You to my dear friend Jerry in NYC to help me getting the second pair.

Tags: Alexander Wang

Decisions, decisions…

I went to Liberty the other day to try on Alexander Wang’s new SS11 collection. There’s a tent pitched in the middle of 2nd floor with a leather bench inside and a video about Wang’s AW10 show preparation. It was really amazing to see Wang is so into details – detail such as ‘getting rid of the black carpet because it was cheap looking, and instead have the whole floor wet-mopped to add on special atmosphere for the show to match the dark tailoring Wall-Street theme.’

Back to his SS11 collection, this is probably my faourite collection of his up to date. Love all the fresh mint colour and the special pointy texture on knitwear. The baggy shorts are in very draped crepe material, got a decent weight feel for the fabric and super soft and comfortable. Should I get the white longer over-the-knee shorts or fresh mint just-above-the-knee shorts???

Tags: Alexander Wang, Liberty London

I am A Robot

JJ. Weekend Market in Bangkok is a great place to visit. It’s in the north of Bangkok and close to ‘Mo Chit Station’ on Skytrain line system. Here you could not only spot all cheap fake branded goods, but also a great deal of Thai traditional decorations…apart from all those, there’re also a big handful of local designers displaying their original creativity. ‘Robot’ is just one of those creative kids.

All robots are hand-made wood, hand painted with those amusing expressions…

They’re often attached with mini airplanes or googlee eyes or flowers…

…ranges are from table lamps to key rings to hanging necklace… prices are varied from 50 baht for a key ring, or 80 baht for a necklace…

‘Robot’ is located at JJ Weekend Market, SECTION 23 SOI 32/3, ADDRESS NO.128

Here’re the 2 brain children behind all…contact them via email: pusaned@hotmail.com

rotsaniyom – Siam Square

Siam Square in Bangkok is not really a big empty square. In fact it is filled with tiny shops, boutiques, restaurants and massage places. Walking around all the Soi (which means road in Thai) you may discover some rather original design boutiques. I’ve been lucky to find this one called ‘rosaniyom’.

The front gate is a rusty iron gate…

First look at the cashier desk, you would think it’s a vintage store….but this little boutique is not only about the vintage style.

Its designer clearly loves ‘vintage girlie style’….lace is quite a dominant material not only in making in those clothes, but as well in decorating the boutique….

…different weights and patterns of lace and printed chiffon are main materials….

the abstract feather print is used in various garments, like in this scollop edge sheered vest… Styles are rather neutral instead of girlie girlie….there’re baggy dusty pink T-shirt printed with vintage ink sketched wolf, lace short sleeve boxy crop shirt, crochet long line boyfriend cardi, sheered chiffon black maxi….

….forest animals are also a main theme within its current season…owls, wolfs and deers…they all have a quite vintage ink print feeling….

following scarf print is a perfect example to reflex designer’s thoughts….shame it was printed on a smaller scale of scarf which is 60 x 60cm. If it were bigger, I would have purchased it. It was printed with very clear quality on sheered polyester chiffon.

Broderie Angleise tote is so cute with raw tan leather handles….

….near the front gate where the scarves are draped, there was this little stuffed deer standing, draped with pearl chain necklace…

For your information, ‘rotsaniyom’ at Siam Square Soi 5, nearest station is Siam Square on SkyTrain line. They also have a stall at Jatujak Weekkend Market Section 2, every Saturday and Sunday.

Nice Meeting You Kori

To be honest, though Alexander Wang is my favourite designer that I’m crazy about, I hadn’t had much luck on his shoe creations. The first pair I wanted to purchase was the Freja Boots.

As Wang doesn’t do half size and my feet happen to be UK4.5, I found EU38 of Freja Boots are too big for me and EU37 was simply too tight. Being not too good with those ridiculous height of heels, I chose to buy the flat version of Freja — Mirte flat lace-up boots.

The result was still disappointing. I bought EU38 and absolutely loved the look of them. However, I soon realized it will take me hell of long time to break them as they are in such a good quality of leather and they’re also in a high-top design detail. Therefore, when you walk in them, they don’t bend properly. Your walking position is in a funny stomping way. One summer morning I decided to stomp in them to work. Confident was how I felt at the time with every single eyes fixed on my feet, pain has quickly arrived after 10 minutes. With its open front design rubbing my toes crazily I arrived in the office covered in blisters and ripped raw skins. The adorable Mirte graced the Mother Earth for 20 mins and returned to the box. Painful was to describe my emotion and my feet, I had to put them on auction on eBay later on.

Then I hugely fancied Wang’s AW10 Wall Street collection with all those chunky clunky heel boots. I decided to go to Liberty to try them on first. Amber Boots were the first pair I tried on. They were indeed beautiful, but around ankle was just too narrow. Though designed with hidden elasticated section around ankle, I still found myself comedically stucked in one these bad boys. I had to call 2 Liberty assistants to pull me out.

3 seasons passed and I still can’t find myself a perfect pair of Alexander Wang footwear. It may sound ridiculous, but I found myself disappointing on all those gorgeous but non-practical Wang booties. Until…I met Kori.

Kori is part of AW10 collection. First glance at it, I thought it was too manly…and it wasn’t really in my favour. But soon after, I found myself drawn into it more and more. It’s designed slim and long, pointy but not too pointy. Perfect to wear them with skinny jeans or even denim shorts, it simply toughens up a pretty dress to add on that bit of Roch n Roll feeling. So nice meeting you…Kori.

Tags: Alexander Wang

Merry Christmas and Bon Voyage

Christmas is finally here and it brings a step closer to my little travel plan to Thailand. It’s always tricky to pack for traveling and one thing in your bag you definitely need is a good bottle of perfume, which gives you fresh energy. I’ve been looking for a while, and this one is just perfect from the bottle design to its scent and even its name. I introduce you Voyage D’Hermes.

Unlike any other perfume it has nearly no colour and some critics say it’s like water—barely there. But it smells really fresh with a hint of citrus. As we all know perfume always depends on each person’s body temperature to bring out the second note. Based on my previous sample test, I believe that I have the right body temperature. You could sense the cumin is there, and up against the cardamom and ginger, it is kept in check and makes for a light middle aspect that has unexpected complexity. Then the base returns to the mineral woody path which leads your mind traveling through a sun-baked earth.

What I love most is the bottle design. It’s absolutely ideal for traveling. Though a little 35ml bottle costs you £53 from Selfridges, the bottle is covered with a hard metal holder. And when you twist the glass bottle linked inside, it swirls out the head of bottle ready to spray. And did I say the best part of it? The perfume bottle is designed to be refillable which is very environmental friendly. The refillable bottle is 120ml and will cost you a very reasonable £65 from Selfridges.

Wrapped in Hermes trade mark orange bag, I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and ready to step into a brand new decade!

Tags: Hermès, Selfridges

A Story Behind Lanvin X H&M

It has been over a week over the buzz of Lanvin for H&M event and I’ve only just got time to tell what has happened during the event. As I walked into the H&M on Oxford Street in the morning, I collected my time-queue wrist band which allows me to enter the security guarded area at 11:25am. I had another hour and half to kill and plus by realizing the mens Lanvin X H&M collection was actually downstairs in a separate section, I walked down escalator in a search of the mens tuxedo jacket in cream white.

Shop assistant told me they have only ordered the Navy version of the tux. After trying on both 36 and 38, I decided to choose the bigger version to achieve the boxy look which was demonstrated by Anna Dello Russo during previous Fashion Week time.

After the easy success of grab of the navy tux I realized that I still had another 1 hour to kill. So I turned to my Twitter account to get some news on the updates by other fellow fanshionistas. Suddenly one of my favourite bloggers 00o00 tweeted his frustration of getting onto mens site of H&M website. 00o00 has always got this magic ability by explaining some financial complex side of fashion in a super easy way. By readying his blog in the past time has lend me a natural trust on this person who I’ve never met. He had an operation on knee/leg recently and had to stay at home under doctor’s advice. I totally could understand the situation. So I  thought it would be easy for me to grab something for him since I’ve been admiring his blog for this long.

A few tweets and communication with radio waves (I mean mobile phone) later…I’ve got everything off his shopping list. I am quite proud of myself for helping out on this case. As I said before, shopping is like a fate, when it means to be yours, it will become yours. The end of this story was I met 00o00 later and handed over the goods. It’s really great to see how much joy you could bring to people. It turns out that 00o00 also speaks Chinese and we chatted away about our fashion views and even some iconic Chinese singers. To my surprise, he brought a little gift to say thank you. It is an expensive fragrant candle by Cire Trvdon which is now happily burning and that festivale scent is now floating around my house. Happy Christmas everyone!

…and PS, 1 hour later that day, I got what I wanted off my shopping list without any hassle

Tags: Cire Trvdon, lanvin

Winter Boots

All right, I have purchased 2 winter boots at beginning of October but I didn’t confess here. With friends’ recent questions about what kind of boots to shop, I thought I should bring them out to share the love.

Ankle Zip Black Boots by Pied A Terre. Chunky heel, a bit of rock n roll feeling. It’s perfect with skinny jeans, easy to walk with, and handy to toughen up some slightly ‘too-pretty’ outfits.

Paul by Paul Smith smart ankle boots caught my eyes, because I was looking for some all-time-investment smarties, that would be perfect with some sequin dress as shown in below image with super chinese model Liu Wen. The boots are in super butter-soft calf skin and got a platform, so it’s super easy to walk in them.

Tags: Liu Wen, Paul Smith, Pied A Terre

Journey to ‘That Dress’

If I can only have one black maxi dress, it needs to be easily multi-styled, not too flared, it needs to have some texture, be a little bit asymmetric and it needs to have an interesting cut (not be just a long straight tube obviously). Thinking about all these criteria made me chuckle at myself a little - “pfffff, this is just mission impossible!”

On the other side, I often believe shopping is like a fate, for if you are supposed to meet ‘something’, then voila !… you meant to belong to each other! In this post I will present to you that one special dress, the one I thought would be impossible to find. To get it, however, I had to go on quite a journey.

asymmetric shoulder with one side like a vest, the other side with a cup sleeve

» Read the full post

Tags: Alexander Wang, Browns, Harvey Nichols, Liberty

“Move over Imelda” – The quest continues…

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.

Imelda Marcos

So, the quest continues. Here’s a couple of recent additions to the ever-expanding collection.

Grey suede lace-ups from Hugo Boss

» Read the full post

Tags: Hugo Boss, Paul Smith