The Dior launch last week was like a speed-networking event. I got Rachel to accompany me to get pictures (thanks Rachel!) and i didn’t get to spend much time with her cos i was saying hi to people every few steps. It felt great to go out again after a long hiatus from events, so i relished in being able to see so many friends in one shot #SaveEnergy
I’m wearing:
– Leandra jacket from JN by Jiuan Ng
– The Relaxed Trousers from Tsyahmi’s BETTA 2015/16 collection, available on FashionValet.com
My hair is by Centro Hair Salon.
The necklace i’m wearing is a vintage piece i found and have been keeping in my private collection for a decade without wearing :/ (hoarder much?)
You can shop for vintage pieces i’ve sourced *here*
Keith Foo, Kim Raymond, me and Adrian Seet
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UNIQLO is a staple in my wardrobe.
They’re always the first pieces i grab when i’m traveling cos they match effortlessly with my more outrageous pieces,
and i love that most can be folded into itty-bitty bunches without wrinkling.
But that’s just the surface of it.
There is so much more depth to the brand than most people realise… which undoubtedly attributes to its global success.
They’re one of the few brands i hold alongside integrity and evolution, which is why i was more than happy to say YES to their invitation to fly to Tokyo for the Press Preview of their Spring Summer 2016 collection.
There are going to be a couple of blogposts to cover my trip in Tokyo, mostly because there is always so much to EAT there!
Besides shopping, i was mighty excited at the prospect of all the delicious meals i was about to devour.
On the morning of the press trip, i had a traditional Japanese breakfast at Cerulean Tower, where we were put up.
I had fresh fruit, vegetable juice, hot Japanese tofu with soy milk and soy sauce, grated ginger,
grilled sardine with Japanese omelette with grated radish,
stew of mushroom, burdock and Mizuna-leaf with pepper,
ginkgo nut dressed tofu sauce,
pickled Chinese cabbage, radish and cucumber,
stew of Sangen-pork and eggplant with starchy sauce,
rice and miso soup and Mistuba-leaf.
Misconstruing the concept of having a leisurely breakfast in true Japanese style, i hurried wolfed down my beautifully-prepared meal to rush downstairs to meet everyone on time. The press trip didn’t just include media from Malaysia, but groups from other countries around the world. I didn’t want to be *that* person who made everyone wait or embarrass my countrymen by being the last group on the bus i.e. “Oh, the Italians are always late…”
Joan from Female mag, Cai Mei from Buro 24/7, Julia from EH! mag, and Syida from NST.
My Malaysian media gang in Tokyo! (not including random Jap man photobombing the wefie)
I’ve been to Singapore Fashion Week with Joan before, Paris for a previous UNIQLO press trip with Syida,
and regularly see Cai Mei and Julia on the events circuit around KL, so it was a familiar comfortable group to be traveling with. ☺️
I’m wearing a wool jacket i got from Uniqlo years ago ?
Outside the UNIQLO HQ
During the visit to their office, we were given a presentation on Fast Retailing Co. Ltd., the leading global Japanese retail holding company that designs + manufactures + sells clothing for Uniqlo, amongst other familiar brands like Helmut Lang and Theory making it seven in total. I love their corporate statement:
Changing Clothes. Changing Conventional Wisdom. Change the World.
Aldo Liguori, Global PR for Fast Retailing, took us through Uniqlo’s history of its first store in Hiroshima in 1984 and how its name originally derived from the words ‘Uniqe Clothing Warehouse.’ The brand took off in 1998 when it opened its first store in Tokyo with fleece being the hit product that increased its popularity. An unconventional advertisement in its time further grabbed customers’ attention with the line: “Not satisfied? UNIQLO will exchange it. No reason needed.”
Uniqlo eventually grew to the extent every person in Japan owned a Heattech or innerwear from them.
Unsurprisingly, Uniqlo’s success boils down to core factors like:
its focus on quality, SPA business model (how they’re involved in the process from beginning to end),
superior materials they use (working with partners like Toray to develop technologically-advanced materials),
maintaining strong relationships with Takumi experts (Uniqlo employs a few hundred takumi experts to work in factories following strict procedures),
and low cost operation (efficiency in manufacturing, transportation).
I liked hearing about their efforts in being ethical while keeping costs low-
absolutely no use of fur,
goose down supply only from certain types of geese,
working with few manufacturing companies/factories long-term,
buying material/fabric in bulk and in advance,
produce closer to key markets…
It was more educative than anything, picking up key learnings on how a single store in Hiroshima multiplied to more than 1,600 stores worldwide and counting! (Expanding to London, New York, Paris and Shanghai since the beginning of this century.)
Take Toray for instance, one of the partners they work with for developing materials. Hand-in-hand, they invented the first thread used in Heattech products, before moving on to Airism. However, they never stop! Both parties are constantly striving to discover a newer material that will benefit human beings i.e. they’re continuously researching ways to make Airism thinner and warmer.
Which brings me back to Fast Retailing’s dedication in creating great clothing with new and unique value to enrich the lives of people everywhere.
It’s not just words written down on a piece of paper to them.
I can see the people who work there believe it, feel it, and live it.
There is no denying the passion and love they feel for Uniqlo and its direction, which I couldn’t help but let rub off on me.
After lunch (of delectable sashimi which i’ll show in my next blogpost), we headed to Belle Salle in Shibuya where the SS16 press preview was held.
It was a beautiful set up showing off different collections in compartmentalized sections;
where I gasped over new pieces from the special collection with former Vogue Paris EIC Carine Roitfeld,
took mental notes of Ines de la Fressange x UNIQLO pieces to covet,
tried on crisp UNIQLO AND LEMAIRE capes,
absorbed the maximalist collision of prints at the LIBERTY LONDON for UNIQLO space…
It. Was. Collaboration. Heaven.
What made it all the more mysterious and enigmatic was how everything was revealed in sequential corridors and spaces, like a maze.
The first room I entered was bare save for a video projected on the wall,
and whose face should i recognise, but Margaret Zhang whom i’d met in Sydney the year prior!
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- Written by Didi Ramlan who is currently having adventures in Hollywood with the likes of Usher and Cate (Blanchett, if you will) unlike us mere mortals. Follow her on @misdeeds_ and check out her website www.misdeeds.me/wp.
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You know what’s a great way to get me excited about playing with a new phone? When you mention “Pure Zeiss”, 10 megapixels and 6 lenses camera in your sales pitch!
Upon unboxing this phone, my first impressions were:
Yes! It fits pretty comfortably in this petite Asian girl’s hands and it’s considerably lighter too, weighing in at just 150g. That being said, the build quality is pretty solid with a stainless steel metal band going around the circumference of the phone.
To compliment the phone’s sleek design (it’s only 8.5mm thin), there are only 3 buttons on the phone which is entirely on the right side – camera, power and volume keys.
And to round things off, the 5 inch screen is made of Gorilla Glass. A welcomed feature because the likelihood of me scratching or cracking my screen while ruffling through my Mary Poppins-esque bag full of KinkyBlueFairy paraphernalia is considerably lower!
Another design element that I like is the placement of the USB port on the top side of the phone instead of the conventional bottom. After using it, it definitely makes more sense to place it there as it makes the wires less of a nuisance and easier to use while the phone is charging.
The removable back cover is a sassy lime green which personally I like considering I accent my mostly monotone outfits with loud accessories, so why not have it spill over to my phone right? I’m told they also come in other colours including bright orange, white and black. Besides being able to change the back covers according to your mood – it also inadvertently means you’re able to extend the phone’s 16GB built-in memory with an external MicroSD card and have access to the battery, a feature that’s being phased out in the newer phones on the market.
Now let’s get down to business. The Lumia 830 runs on Microsoft Windows 8, which makes the Start screen feel inherently familiar and easy to navigate. It didn’t take long to figure out how to start customizing it according to my personal preferences. Here you can see that I’ve gone with an overall magenta theme that shows up throughout the phone’s navigation.
I was able to customize the size and placement of the signature Windows tiles with programs that I like to access at a glance AND on a single Start page because I’m quite anal like that.
The processing power of the phone is considerably fast (for you techies out there it uses a Quadcore 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor with 1 GB RAM) resulting in a buttery smooth experience on this 720p screen. You truly appreciate it when you’ve fallen into a YouTube hole watching funny Adele interviews for several hours.
For me all that power is a little moot when my some of my favorite and most used apps aren’t available on the Windows Store… yet. Third-party apps like Adobe Lightroom, Nike Training Club, Apple Music and Snapchat are pretty much staples in my technological life – so the fact these apps haven’t been developed specifically for the Windows platform is a little disappointing. Even the apps that ARE available like Facebook and Instagram (still a BETA version) are what I would describe as “mobile versions” in terms of layout and functionality.
In the mean time though, I still had fun playing around with the pre-programmed Lumia apps like the Lumia Cinemagraph, Lumia Selfie and Lumia Creative Studio. It also doesn’t hurt to having Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel and Powerpoint pre-installed for work productivity.
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Today i went for a radio interview with Traxx FM. Under RTM and being a government-linked media station, it was clearly stated in the email not to wear sleeveless, shorts, etc. I think wearing a long-sleeved tunic is deemed decent enough.
Long-sleeve tunic dress from Love, Bonito.
Metropolis Furla bag. Necklace from Nyumbani Design, a brand i discovered in Tanzania.
Shoes from Melissa. Lipstick from the Urban Decay x Gwen Stefani collection (Wonderland).
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