when i had a hiatus a while ago because of problems with my blogging platform, i never thought i’d take so much time off it again. but it seems i’ve been quite inexistent in the past week or so eh?

i’m really sorry.

those of you who follow me on twitter would know that i’ve been in really bad shape recently, and although i’m feeling good and am generally laughing and joking around all day (while bitching nonstop with all my friends about school), i fainted in my bathroom yesterday. it was quite a sudden thing and i had no idea it was coming. in fact, when i regained consciousness, i found myself sitting on the floor against my sink, and realised that i had hit my head so hard against the freakin’ toilet bowl (thank god i didn’t drown in it. haha!), my head had a huge bump, and i had somehow managed to dislodge the seat cover!! don’t know how that happened.

after i recovered from the daze and twittered about it, i received quite a number of kind responses, emails, and even texts on my phone. i love you guys, you’re all so nice.

i guess the stress has really piled on or something, i have no idea. i’ve always had really bad health and spent most of my childhood sick, in and out of hospital. now i have headaches all the time and hardly get proper sleep. it’s usually no sleep for a couple of days, then an hour or so in between, and major catching up on the zzz during the weekend.

it’s really my own fault - i have super bad time management although i’m getting way better at it. but i think the main reason is that no matter how early i start something, i want it to be perfect or i’d rather not do it at all. and because i’m not as fast at design illustration and painting as i wish to be, it takes me forever to finish a collection that takes some of my highly skilled friends 3 hours.

i know i want to go down this road to being a fashion designer, but honestly i don’t know whether all this stress is worth it. i don’t even think it is supposed to be as bad as this. parsons is just trying to take all our money and stress us out and then try to fail us.

but i want it so bad, i simply can’t give it up right now.

no. way.

and certainly not after i posted that entry about following your dreams!

speaking of which, after that post i’ve read all your comments, and many of you emailed me privately. it was all very touching and i’m so happy that that entry spoke to some of you. i had written a follow up entry, but after reading all your responses i feel i need to work on it more thoroughly.

so it will be up this weekend, i promise.

in the meantime, i’m typing this in bed because i’m feeling woozy. it’s 9am and i’m supposed to be in class now, and i’m probably gonna get in trouble for missing it. i need to go to the doctor’s later to get some tests done and find out why in god’s name did i faint.

i can’t miss any more classes after this. i hate our stupid attendance policy. fuck you parsons.

on top of that, i had no idea how to draw kids! hahahaha.

the parameters of our project stated that it had to be based on a certain kind of traditional or ethnic crafts. so what i focused and drew inspiration on was from wayang kulit, which originates from indonesia and literally translates to “shadow puppet”. i remember seeing these long ago when i was really young. thinking back, they are actually kinda scary because they all have these mean faces. but it is really an amazing craft and involves leather cut-outs. it’s quite beautiful as an art form.

so i actually created some prints to go onto the fabrics, which is quite hard to see after i scanned in my designs.

since the collection was based an indonesian art, i also made use of a lot of the shapes and forms that i found in traditional indonesian wear, and the way that they would dress the gods in these cut-out leather pieces. there were a lot of sarongs, a lot of cuffs and gathered puffy pants and sleeves. i found some traditional silk used as sarongs, which is almost like the indonesian/malay form of plaid. then i wanted to use more plaid-ish fabrics and since they were kids, i used gingham.

the collection was called chibikko, which means “little kid” in japanese slang.

personally i quite liked this collection myself. i think a lot of the pieces can be translated to adult clothing, which is what my teacher wanted us to think about as well. just like how marc has little marc! heh heh.

most of all, i want that raincoat, yes i do.

“hi gilda!

i have never left a comment on your site before, but i check it every few days! i love that you are so open with your life, and share with you are doing with us. i think it is so awesome that you are making your dreams come true and so strong about it. i think it is inspiring because i am in law school now doing something that i don’t really like. my parents and older siblings are all lawyers, and i felt like i had to become one too. i don’t know how to tell my parents that i really have no interest in it.

the problem is, that i don’t really know what i want to do in life. i have been brought up with the mindset that i am supposed to be a lawyer, so i don’t really know what else i can be. i’m sorry if i sound confusing. i’m just at a loss and don’t know what to do. it’s refreshing to read your blog and know that someone out there is following their dreams and doing something they love. i wish i knew what else i could do!!”

dear don’t-worry-i-won’t-reveal-your-name,

your email made me really sad. this entry is for you and any other lost souls who might chance upon this post.

are you satisfied with your job or your path in life? are you happy doing what you’re doing? would you be happy if you had to do it the rest of your life?

i can’t count how many times i’ve heard friends or overheard strangers complain and whine at how much they hate their jobs. you hear it on the subway, while sitting in a cafe, basically, just about everywhere. my own friends complain constantly about their jobs and how much they hate what they are doing. “why the hell did i chose to go into this line?” they say.

are you in the same boat?

here’s my story
(and i’m sorry if i’ve already repeated myself 2000 times. but i’m a firm believer in creating your own path in life!)

i think i’ve been lucky because i’ve always known what i wanted to do. my dreams and goals have changed from when i was a kid, but at least i always had a goal in life. when i was 5 i wanted to be a princess (who didn’t?). then i wanted to be a vet and specialise in horses and dogs. i got my parents to bring me to the national library every week and i can promise you that i read every book there was about horses and dogs and could name every different breed. then i wanted to be a dog trainer and i even read all the books that were available at the library on dog training!

soon after i was devouring magazines instead of dog books, and getting frustrated when i wanted certain clothing that i couldn’t find in stores and didn’t know how to make. i would cut my own clothes up and randomly sew them in techniques i didn’t know how, just to re-make them in a way i liked. i tried to sketch out my ideas but i didn’t know how to draw so they all turned out looking like mashed potatoes. so i kept all my ideas in my head.

that was when i knew i wanted to become a fashion designer or stylist. the problem is, that i have a rather different sense of style and my market might be small. but hey, i am my main customer. and i design for me. if someone out there shares similar aesthetics, then i’ll only be glad to share my clothes with them.

some of you might remember me talking about a very sad time of my life when i was 18-20. it was 2 very dark years for me, and i spend many days crying. i asked god time and again, why i had to go through all this. why i had to be so sad. why everything was falling apart. i remember telling him over and over again, “all i want is to be happy.”

i didn’t want my family to fall apart. i didn’t want my parents to argue anymore. i didn’t want us kids to fight with them. i didn’t want to feel so angry with my parents. on top of that, i had suddenly developed a bad bout of full blown acne, and one of my dogs had died and i was overwhelmed with guilt. i would come home everyday and kneel in front of her little grave and literally just sob. i couldn’t take it. i was very hurt and i was really dying inside. the pain was killing me and i had to escape to another place. i had to leave home. i had to do what i liked and i couldn’t let anything stop me. it might sound like i am exaggerating but i promise you that even typing this now, i remember the pain i felt then, and a part of me still hurts so bad that i’m crying.

it was hard to tell my parents that i’d changed my mind and instead of going to vet school, i wanted to go to fashion school. please be reminded that i come from the typical asian family where you are supposed to go to university and it would be quite a shame to the family name if you didn’t. plus, although singapore is slowly (very very slowly) changing and trying to promote the arts now, the general opinion is still that “smart” kids did sciences and “the kids who couldn’t” did arts. sad, but that’s the way it was. society had already laid a path down for me and i was supposed to take that road.

all hell broke loose when i told my parents that i had made up my mind to be a designer. and horrors of horrors, it was almost blasphemy that i wanted to do fashion. it wasn’t something that someone “from a good school” did.

it took two years for me to convince my parents that this was really what i wanted to do. but when i finally convinced them that this was my dream, they were fully supportive.

i flew off to japan after that. i gave up everything i had to go there. my family whom i loved dearly but had to get away from, my friends, my other dog, a comfortable life, to go to a place i knew nothing of and had no friends, and couldn’t even speak the language. so of course, before i could even enter fashion school, i had the learn japanese. another year and a half later, i finally finally finally got into fashion school. it took me many years to get to where i am now. and although i complain so much (mostly about how badly run parsons is), i love what i am doing and i want to do this forever. i cannot imagine myself doing anything else. all this hard work is worth it because it fulfills me. i might have other interests, but i know that this is it. fashion is the one. fashion is my mister right.

why do you think i gave up all socialising in new york for? it ain’t fun getting stressed out at parsons. the school tries to make you fail and kick people out after taking their money. but there is nothing else i’d rather be doing. i wrote about living your dream, about a year ago, on the night i left singapore for new york.

in it, i shared two quotes with you that i love, and want to share with you again:

“how do you put a price on your dream? is it worth one month’s salary? is it worth dying for? i don’t have an answer. but i believe it is different for every person. for me, i was ready, and still am, to give my life for my dream.“

- iranian-american anousheh ansari, 40, the world’s first female space tourist

“the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

- eleanor roosevelt

are you following your dreams? doing what you love?

what did you want to be when you were growing up? what did you dream of becoming when you were an adult? how near or far are you from your dreams? did you let society and your surroundings (friends/family/etc) convince you to walk a different path? are you doing what you are doing, because you love it? or because it is something that someone else wants you to be?

we are all different and not one of us are the same. and i strongly believe that we each have god-given talents. there is some things that each of us are good at. and some things we might not be great at, but we love doing anyway. it takes some time to discover our gifts, our talents and what gives us joy.

but it is an exciting discovery and one worth spending time slowly finding, soul-searching.

but how do you know? what if i really don’t have a talent? how do i find one?

deep down inside, we all know what we love doing. yet, some of us ignore the signs. stop doing that to yourself! you might just be your biggest enemy if you ignore your own passion.

imagine that you are a designer. a life designer.

the most important customer that you have to satisfy, is yourself.

don’t rush the process. take your time to feel and find yourself.

start paying attention to you!
what are your hobbies? what do you like to do in your free time? what kind of activities make you happy? what puts a smile on your face? what can’t you stop once you start doing? what makes you concentrate so hard, you forget to eat and realise 5 hours later that you’re really hungry and time has passed so fast?

make a list! list everything! hold a little notebook as you go about your day, and write little flashes of inspiration whenever it hits. write down whatever makes you smile.

create an inspiration board
spend time making it nice and beautiful. go through magazines and cut out pictures and inspiring words that jump out of the pages and appeal to you. if you want to do this collage digitally, make sure you print it out. it has to be something you can see, feel and hold! display your inspiration board some place prominent in your house or bedroom, in a spot that you can see everyday!

play the word game
get a pen and paper, and sit yourself down. then answer this question: “what do i want to be?”

don’t think! just write! write until your paper is filled up with words! you don’t have to write full-sentences. short phrases work just fine. write anything and everything that comes naturally to you. you might write words that aren’t true to yourself too. it’s that voice inside of your head, the voice that speaks on behalf of society, that tells you should be annoyed instead of smiling, stressed instead of at peace, a lawyer instead of a painter. just write it down, and write down whatever those voices tell you too. but once those voices have exhausted themselves, you will surely write a few words that are truely coming from you and you alone. you will write something down that speaks to your soul. you will realise it and it will be the one that makes you say, “this is it. i know it is!”

circle/highlight/bold that special word(s) on your paper, and pin that to your inspiration board too!

ask the people who want the best for you
no one knows you better than your friends and family. but sometimes, they are also the ones who prevent you from being who you really want to be. ask people whom you know cares for you, people who genuinely want the best for you, people who have never pushed their own dreams onto you, people who want you to succeed. ask them what your best qualities are, what they think you’re good at, what they notice makes you smile.

get rid of the “no”s and the “can’t”s
rid yourself of barriers and pests. often, these obstacles are the ones closest to you! they might not even be aware that they are stopping you from achieving what you want. worse, sometimes, some people live in misery and they want to drag you down with them. because even if your dream was just to be happy, they aren’t, so they are never ever happy for you. these people tell you that you can’t possibly reach your goal, because you are too stupid, too poor, too young, too old, too smart (to want to do something that is simple and carefree), etc.

they are the ones who constantly make you feel bad for yourself. they are the ones who make you sigh with despair and failure, every time they make a negative comment about even the tiniest of your accomplishments.

have a heart-to-heart talk with those people, and explain to them how you feel, how their negativity is getting you down and making you feel like you can’t do anything. tell them how much it would mean to you, if they encouraged you more.

but waitaminute. is this negative person you? are you another culprit who tells yourself, “but i can’t!”? life is too short to spend it being negative. life is too short not to love yourself. learn to love yourself first, and your purpose in life will surely follow!

still confused?
your purpose in life isn’t just a job. it isn’t just a hobby. it is a way of life. i want to somehow be involved in fashion, and because i just love it so much, it doesn’t really matter to me how i get involved with it. it would be mind boggling if i eventually become a designer and have my own little shop. but even if i created my own clothes on the side and work elsewhere full-time, i think it still fulfills my purpose in life.

have you ever met with actors and painters who have about 2 waitering jobs just to help pay the rent? they do anything they can just to support their passion. and yet they are some of the happiest, most self-fulfilled people i know.

your goal in life might be to be happy. your dream might be to live life to the fullest.

what would you do if you could turn back time? what would you do with your life if you won the lottery? what is that one thing you keep putting off, that thing you say you will accomplish “one day”? what makes you excited, that you can’t stop doing, that you forget to sleep, that you go to bed thinking, “oooh i can’t wait to wake up again!”? what are you willing to give up to achieve that dream?

it’s not going to come overnight. it might take you a day, a week, a month, or perhaps, years. you can’t force yourself to discover your goals. it has to happen naturally. we all have times when we just feel crappy about ourselves. but whenever that happens to me, i play my favourite music and watch my favourite tv shows that make me laugh. i go out for a walk alone, or lie in bed staring out of the window. (that last one sounds pathetic but it’s really quite fun. heh heh.) doing this helps quieten me down and makes me focus on the important things.

that excitement will come to you. you’ll know it when it hits. you are a strong person! there is never a wrong moment. it is never too late.

the moment is now. live in it!

your dreams are worth achieving, and the rest of your life is worth fulfilling. once you find that special something, i promise you there will never be another dull and grey day. although there might be many sleepless nights! (in a good way).

hug yourself! enjoy the journey.

.

please do share your story! i’m sure plenty of you have amazing stories to tell about your accomplishments now, or what you are aiming for. what did you always want to become? an astronaut? or the most amazing mom in the world?

ps: stay tuned for my follow-up post on how to build on your talents!

it was then that i realised i really must be too tired or stressed from school, because obviously, i am quite a lunatic. the model looked so good with the wigs. (duh, that’s why she’s a model and i’m not.)

but look what i did to them!!

pippi longstockings made red hair and freckles look so darn cute!

but….

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH!!

after i snapped my own pictures with my iphone and looked at them, erm, i kinda made myself laugh. from that moment, it went downhill.

then there was the marilyn wig. you know marilyn, don’t you? that sex icon with the curly blond hair…

here’s marilyn monroe looking hot.

are you ready?

.

.

.

.

’nuff said,

there is nothing left to say.

oh! except that all wigs are actually really gorgeous and beautifully styled by the fabulous miss tobell, and i am a complete misrepresentation of how cute they can really be!

that’s all!

it’s the weekend! after a whole week of hard, hard work and 2 nights of not sleeping, i really need this break. except, of course, i’ll probably spend it mostly doing work!

have you joined the royal mail? it’s a little private mailing list that i send out once in a while to special readers. a few of you have emailed me after i sent out the first mail, which was great and i got to learn so much about each of you!! i’m slowly replying you guys! but i will get around to all of youuuuu! ♥ add your name to the list!

on sunday evening, i’ll be assisting the head buyer at the patricia field store in re-merchandising the store! and on monday, i’ll be helping out at the halloween photo shoot. of course, i’m just the little intern who’ll be running around doing errands, but everything is always a learning experience and a little step in the right direction!

i’m sewing a pair of great high-waisted parachute pants for a school project. but it’s turning into something i love! if it becomes amazing (ahaha) i will put it up for sale. i also find that finally, i am becoming more confident in drawing and sketching. design ideas come to me way more easily than they did before, and i think it’s because i can draw a lot better than i used to!

i’ve been working hard at making things happen recently. i’m currently on commission doing a bow hat for pat field’s store (which is f-ing exciting, hello!?). i also just agreed to help this really adorable girl style her wardrobe! gilda the stylist?? omg i’m not going to lie - i’m so excited! she’s one of my precious readers who wants to remain nameless. i don’t really have experience in styling, unless you count the way i style myself. hee hee! i will be checking out her wardrobe, then going shopping with her! i’m so excited! contact me for more details if you are interested too!

my classmates are all amazing people! the more i get to know them, the more i think they are incredible. one is a model, one works at miu miu, one was a life style shoe designer with reebok, another is an incredible menswear designer, and the rest are simply fabulous!

it’s starting to get cold in new york! yahoooo!! i love it when it’s cold. i just have nothing to wear in summer!! in fall and winter, i get to drape all sorts of crazy scarves etc around myself. it’s great! in summer it’s too hot to do much!

twitter! it’s somewhat silly sometimes, but who cares? i love catching up on twitter updates and twittering mindless things as i go about the day. do you twitter? add me!

i love my new hair colour. it’s blond but ash but green but pink… ok i’m making it sound muddy. ok… so it’s muddy but heck i love it!

susie bubble just rocks my boat. i’ve been following her website for a long time, and she never fails to amaze me with the way she wears her clothes. i love her personal style! she’s one of the few people out there who’s always willing to take fashion risks, and she pulls it off so well!

photo courtesy of style bubble

super-cute annie spandex is holding a competition on her blog and giving away a vivienne westwood bag. sounds good? yes. but what’s better, is that this is all for a good cause. handbag from celebrities are going to be auctioned off on ebay to raise money for the fight against cancer, via handbag amnesty. we all have family members and friends close to our hearts that have been affected by this terrible illness, i’m sure. please join in to raise awareness and fight this disease!

the gorgeous nubby twiglet wrote an amazing article called the power of personal branding. it’s definitely worth a read! i write often about developing personal style, but nubby puts it in a different way, and to the point!

nay!

my darling friend, alex, is going back home to singapore. he’s in boston right now, and i’m really sad that he’s going back home! before i moved to new york, we wrote each other several emails about how great it would be if i were to move to new york and we could see each other all the time and keep each other company. but, of course, in reality, we were both busy. in the year that i’ve been here, he’s come to new york 3 times, and i went up to boston once. we suck at keeping in contact. i love you alex!! i’ll miss you.

i have a problem waking up. am i the only one? i mean, i’m getting my work done and i feel like i’m really doing well, but i simply cannot wake up! i have a million alarms, but i’ve already missed a couple of classes because i woke up like… after the class was over. i hate it. i hate that i’m doing this to myself, but i really don’t know what to do. i really am trying to wake up, but i can’t even hear my alarms going off. it’s making me really upset with myself.

my skin is as bad as ever. i’ve talked about my acne problems more than a few times on this website. but seriously, i want a skin transplant. hahaha! is there even such a thing?

because i’m so busy with school, recently, i feel like it’s really a waste that i’m in new york. i’m in one of the “supposedly” most exciting cities in the world. but i don’t see it. i’m going to school, and going home. that’s my basic schedule. i do want to go out sometimes, but it’s usually really expensive, and i don’t have that many good friends here either. when i first got here, i made a lot of friends. but, although they were students or working people, they simply don’t have a schedule like parsons fashion students. we don’t have a life. or at least, i don’t have a life. they used to call me to go out quite often, but after i said i couldn’t a few times, those calls stopped coming. i don’t blame them, but it’s just such a sad thing. i don’t think i have felt this way before. my friends in school are all about 5 years younger than me, and i really adore them. but i suppose a lot of them are into partying, and i’m not. plus, contrary to common assumptions, i am actually quite shy and take a while to warm up to people. although i really want to.

i miss tokyo like you have no idea. i watch a lot of my favourite tv programs over the internet, and still listen to a lot of japanese music on my iphone. i miss all my friends back there. also, my favourite group, smap (5 very delicious men), are currently having concerts around japan. since i got to know about them and started going to their concerts about 7 years ago, this is the first time that i am not there. my sister and i are trying to make our way to japan this november to watch one of their concerts, but just being so far away is killing me. i’ve talked about them many times before, and they really are like a little medicine box to me. when i was awfully depressed back then, they really did save my life. it might sound stupid, but everytime i get emails from my friends in tokyo, i remember all these things that i used to do there and it makes me cry.

they’re so cute i could eat them

so there you have it, my yays and nays this week. it kinda feels good to recall what happened! and i guess just talking about the lousy parts of the week sort of took a load off my mind as well.

what’s been happening to you guys? spill!

after popping some pills and resting, i felt like my usual self again. so i decided to go cut my hair, since i had the afternoon free.

i felt really shitty about missing class. and i think because i felt shitty, i dressed all in black today. it’s been a while since i’ve been in all black. yes girl, i look like i’m in mourning. you guys do know the mourning dress in fashion history right?

it goes from this…

to this…

to this!

hahahhahaa!

oh, did i mention? i got my hair colored when i went to cut my hair. woohoo! i was intending to colour my hair a turquoise blue… or at least that was the colour that my eyes kept focusing on, when i was looking at the color charts. but after i got my hair bleached out, i kinda liked how it looked. i don’t think i have been this light-coloured for a long time!! the pink streaks on my hair are basically remnants of the purplish-red that i had in my hair for a while, and no bleach was going to remove that. but it bleached and faded to a nice light pink, so ayumi and i decided to just keep it that way, and all we did was to add a toner to bring down the yellow colour! so now i have a sort of green-blue ashy colour with pink ends! wheeee!!

scarf from h&m
cheapo black tshirt
harness jumper skirt from comme des garcons
cheapo black tights
red hearts shoes from comme des garcons
neon pink watch by toywatch usa
queen alice ring by tarina tarintino

i’m so addicted to these suspender things + the heart shoes

and there you have it! the close up of my hair. remember when i last coloured my hair? it ended up having quite a cool tie-dyed effect, once some of the pink faded. in fact, i liked it so much i refrained from updating my colour for 6 weeks. that sounds like an average length of time to re-colour hair, right? but for someone who is using crazy colours, i think it’s actually equivalent to the lifespan of a parrot.

wait, that was quite a bad metaphor.

so i waited and waited and forced myself to wait some more, until my roots grew longer than an inch and i really couldn’t take it any longer.

many people asked me how my tie-dye hair was achieved, and a few of you emailed to ask me too! so here’s the little secret:

it wasn’t planned, it just happened! ahaha! as i mentioned when i first coloured my monkey hair, we simply bleached out my roots and blended the bleach into my existing purple colour, which gave me yellow roots with reddish ends. on top of the yellow, we added pink, blending that into the red too. so when the colour faded a little, i was left with pink, orange, then red hair.

cool eh? i know! but i give ayumi all the credit. she’s the colour mix master.

thank you so much to everyone who participated!!! your entries were all so great, i really had such a hard time. to be perfectly honest, i kinda knew who i wanted to give prizes to, the moment i saw their entries! so although i did appreciate your votes, you can be assured that they did not really have an effect on my final decision.

my top prizes go to.……….. *drumroll please!!!*

*gasp*!!!

oh my god.

i can’t believe… i can’t believe i’m about to say this!

you’ve won!!

sunshine!

and

arabelle

i absolutely loved both your entries! sunshine’s polyvore set was just so enticing and made me want to have tea out in the park, and arabelle’s made me laugh. so congratulations to the two of you!

but wait! that’s not all! because i loved so many of your entries, and felt like a mean bitch for not being able to give all of you prices, i’ve decided to dish out a few more sarouel pants!!! am i not the nicest person? these were the extra few entries that made me smile!

the catch is, that i cannot afford to customise the pants to each and every one of you. i will, however, get all your waist measurements, and also pick some cute cotton fabric on your behalf! your pants will not arrive till a later date, because 1) i need to also do school work which takes up 99% of my time, and 2) i am currently broke and need money to buy materials + pay for postage, since i didn’t expect to dish out so many prizes!!

honourable mentions go out to…

kaz

cheray natalie

clara cupcakes

julie (can’t embed this video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb8-fUg13mM

i wish i could hand out a few more pants, but i really can’t. the other sets that i really liked belonged to

harriet

sheena

gem wilder

i’m so sorry but i can’t afford to give the 3 of you prizes too. that broke my heart. i will be willing to sell them to you at 50% if you want to buy them (basically i can’t fork out that much for more fabric). if not, i’m very sorry, but good luck and i hope you enter my next contest!!

so there you have it! i only intended to give out 2 pairs of pants at first, but i’m too much of a bloody softie! i will be in touch with my two winners + my honourably mentioned stars soon!!

also, remember how i talked about meeting danielle from final fashion, who sketched me while i stuffed my face with a burger? (ok i think i left out the burger part.) but yeah she drew a sketch of me, and it was crazy good! she also made me look a lot cute and skinnier. phew! haha! i just kept peeking over as her hands flew over her sketchbook. ok that woman is super fast. i can’t draw half as fast, plus, i need an eraser when i draw. that’s what separates me from the pros. haha! thanks danielle!

sketch by danielle meder

in other exciting news, it was gala’s birthday on saturday and nubby’s on sunday. so the two of them held a joint birthday party at central park to celebrate. yahoo! i love birthday parties! i hadn’t slept that much in the 3 days before that because i had been so darn tired from school, and i had stayed up all night before the party, doing some work! i went to bed at 10 am (yes, you read that right, 10 am on saturday morning), and woke up at about 1:30pm just before the party. it was the best sleep i have had in a few days… and when i woke up i could hardly move. hahaha! really! i was like, “i don’t wanna get out of my beautiful beddddd!!!!” *whine whine whine*

but i did crawl out! i mean, i reached the party super late, at 3 pm-ish. i think because i had been feeling so sluggish, my body was just a piece of waste and i couldn’t move around as fast as i wanted to. but i’m glad i got there! it was colour haven. i didn’t really get dressed up much for it, unfortunately. in the end, i decided to wear the dress that i had sewn the night before! it was actually meant to be a design for one of my classes, and i didn’t intend to wear it, but i liked how it turned out (well i’d BETTER like it, i stayed up making it!) so i just threw it on and went to the party.

here are the photos! thank god for my nikon camera. it was a muddy and grey day but with some nice camera settings (good work, me!) my pictures turned out pretty bright!

i feel like a stupid ass for forgetting this girl’s name!! (but i liked her dress)
me + xenia, who’s looking major colourful! love! she’s starting her own make-up line. ain’t she fab?

this guy was so cute. he made the funniest faces while taking pictures! and i love it when people wear bowties.

two tie-dyed heads. renee is quite the artist!

why am i so short?
me + star + gala

marie is so se-xay.
i also realise that silly me forgot to take an outfit photo of the day! so this back view is the closest full-body shot i have of myself. that’s mister evil heart starin’ at ya. yes, i wore my tshirt back to front! aren’t i a genius? ha!

a photo with another amazing artist, cynthia!

nubby looking perfect as always!

how can anyone not love marie? she’s so cheeky!

love. marie takes the most amazing photos. you have to check out her pictures!

we couldn’t get a cab and took the fucking subway, yo!

nubby is tired.

marie’s polaroids of the day!

we’d all seen marie’s crazy corn costume on her flickr page before, and that crazy woman had packed it into her suitcase and brought it across america to new york! hahahahaha! check out this video. the person you hear laughing like a hyena is me. hohohoho! she is so damn funny!!! you can’t get more fabulous than that!

the corn and nubby the rockstar, jumping on the bed

nubby decided to be corn. so cuuuute!

gala and nubby were too tired to go out and party, so when star and marie decided they wanted to go out for some drinks, i thought i’d go along. we ended up in this little bar, and took some crazy photos! i’m glad i decided to go. star and marie are two pretty darn awesome ladies, with interesting stories and amazing jobs! i love listening and talking to people who have such passion for life.

3 monkeys. we really are.

back at the hotel, nubby had fallen asleep. she must have been so tired, poor thing. xenia didn’t come at night, and we were stupid enough not to take photos at the park during the day when she was there and we were all fresh! so that night at 1:30-ish am, we took this photo in the hotel. here are the lady bloggers, minus one! well, minus one and a half. because nubby is there in person and not there in spirit. hahahaha!!!!

lady bloggerzzzzz minus 1 & 1/2!

this was such an amazing day! i got to meet all these people whose blogs i have been reading for a while now. star, marie and poochie had all flown into new york just for this day! (by the way if you’re a shoe maniac, you have to check out her blog. i am intending to rob her house and steal her shoe closet. or at least one louboutin.) in the short time that i was at the park, i also got to talk to some cute girls who go to school like me, one who teaches (gasp!) and one who works at in tv production and has her own youtube show going on! everyone was really so spread out and it was hard to talk to people and make friends. i half-wish we had a round table! hee hee!

but it was good, all good! plus, after wearing my dress all day, i really like how it turned out. so i’m glad i spent those 5 hours draping and sewing it! yayyy! hopefully it will score me some extra brownie points for my next project, which was what i actually made it for.

ps: today (tuesday, sep 16th), nubby, gala and i took a trip to the colette x gap store hoping to be wowed and wanting to buy a ton of things. in 3 minutes, we left. disappointed and underwhelmed. boo, colette! i expected much more from you!

remember, go crazy and innovative with it! creativity counts!!

the contest will close on sunday, september 14th 2008! entries will be accepted until midnight (meaning, 12am monday morning), new york eastern standard time.

i’m very excited to be making one of my pants for the winners. good luck!!

on tuesday, i met danielle from final fashion at the parsons’ school “yard”. i say “yard” because it’s really just a small concrete patch that students go to to smoke. i’d found danielle’s blog a while ago, and she’s an amazing fashion illustrator! we’ve been following each other on twitter, and when she told me she was coming to new york for the fashion shows, we agreed to meet! i gave her and her designer friend, philip sparks, a very quick tour of the parsons building. it was almost a little embarrassing that there was NOTHING to show them!

the tour ended in 4 minutes, and we walked down to FIT to see the current goth exhibition. i’m confused about the goth theme, because there wasn’t anything goth-y about anything! the pieces on show were mostly from like, 3 years ago. so it was weird how they put it together, but nevertheless, they were all some amazing pieces of art and i certainly enjoyed looking at them from up close. who cares about the “goth” theme when you have comme des garcons, undercover, and alexander mcqueen staring in your face!

that night, i scrambled to finish my homework and went to the hudson to met up with gala after erm, quite a while of not seeing her! she looked as pink as ever! she asked me along to betsey johnson’s after party. i highly doubted that betsey herself would be there, but wanted to meet gala so i slapped on some lipstick and hopped onto a cab!

the party was weeeeeiiiiiirddddddd. the girls were all pretty and dolled up, which is nothing new. (i was the only one in a long skirt and flat shoes, as usual!) but there were some older people there, and the boys were all either gay or in baseball caps. what’s up with that! as gala said, it’s just plain rude that all those girls spent hours getting ready, and they appear in a cap and jeans.

why on earth would a guy go to a betsey johnson party except to pick up chicks anyway?

gala and i, catching up on a comfy rooftop couch!

courtesy of gala’s mega nikon

as we were talking, i noticed this girl standing in front of us and i was like, “wait! her dress has the exact same print as my shoes!!!!” what a major coincidence! i had no idea who she was but i had to go over and ask her to take a photo with me! turns out that she came all the way from tokyo for betsey’s show! she and her friends work for betsey’s event planning company in japan. wow!

matching dress and shoes! i regret not asking her where she got her dress from. i want!

breakfast at tiffany’s snooze mask from patricia field
limited tinkerbell rhinestone tshirt from shinjuku, tokyo isetan
harness pleated skirt from comme des garcons
pom-pom socks from amerian apparel (my first ever purchase from them!)
red hearts shoes from comme des garcons

this is the first time i wore a snooze mask out. i have quite a few at home, and i’m not sure why i thought it might be cool, but i thought it would be, so i wore it. ahah! what do you think? yay or nay?

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11aug08

today, i wore my comme des garcons shoes to school. i’m so in love with them. i realize i’ve never really worn red, although i often wear my evil hearts garcons teeshirt, which is the only red-ish item i wear often. so in a complete tribute to the fabulous nubby twiglet, who always rocks black, white and red, i decided to wear only black and red today. i felt so different from my usual self!! have any of you tried something like this recently? dressing in a way you usually don’t? you should do it sometime. i think i like it! it’s a new look that i’ll do again.

jersey knit jacket by undercover
red vest with velvet boobies by comme des garcons ($19 on ebay! wowwie!)
cheapo black tshirt
cuckoo clock lucite pendant from miss minnie!
black skirt by undercover
cheapo red tights
red hearts shoes from comme des garcons

how could you not love a pair of shoes like this!

the picture isn’t very clear, but the cuckoo clock is such a darling! thank you miss minnie!

i don’t know why i haven’t put up a picture of myself with this necklace much earlier. i’ve worn it multiple times, but somehow never took outfit photos with it! oops!! it went perfectly with my outfit today. and one of my classmates, who takes style photos for a german fashion magazine, took my photo too!

“what inspires you when you get dressed each day?” she asked me.

“i don’t know, nothing in particular. oh, but i have no mirror in my room.”