queengilda.com

i’m so tired i can’t even explain how tired i am.

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 monday i assisted during the photoshoot for the halloween costumes at patricia field online. it was a full-day shoot with a super skinny model and probably the most amazing make-up artist ever. we finally took a break at about 3pm and i had nothing better to do, so while clearing up and trying to arrange all the accessories, i thought i’d try out the wigs.

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?

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’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!

yay!

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!

first of all, i wanna say thank you to all of you who took part in the hammer pants contest! i had a blast looking at everyone’s entries. have you guys checked them all out? they are pretty amazing! and kudos to those of you who made videos!!! i will be going through the entries again and picking the winners pretty soon. stay tuned!

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!

09aug08

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.”

on sunday night, i had the luxury of attending the destination style show, by patricia field and designer david dalrymple. i just want to say, amazing amazing amazing, and i don’t know who came up with the initial idea of the set, but it was fantabulous and that person is a genius!

(i wonder if it’s my manager at work. he’s fierce!)

it’s been a while since i’ve been to the fashion shows. i attended quite a few when i was in tokyo, (mind you, tokyo fashion week is so damn exciting because the clothing is all art!) but since i moved to new york a year ago, i haven’t had the chance to see how it’s like here. i was supposed to attend a couple more shows this year, but alas, those that i was interested in all clashed with my classes at school.

this is the sad fact of life of a “responsible” (yeah right) full-time student. bah. two absences and we fail the bloody course! damn you, parsons!

so anyway!!! it was a disgusting day in manhattan! it rained all day because of the hurricanes, it was hot and humid, and utterly vile. i wanted to carry a cute little bag from femme sud but settled for a much bigger one so i could put my brolly in it.

i actually recorded the entire show on my camera… although i don’t think i’m allowed to do that. i just really want that soundtrack! i need to get a copy from someone. the staff from the store all got there pretty early. there weren’t a lot of seats and of course only the very important people sat down, so we had standing tickets. we were there way before the show started, and before the bulk of the crowd started trickling in, so we went up to the 2nd floor to hang around and realized we could see everything much better from there, so we stayed put!

there was supposed to be a huge turnout. apparently about 900 people rsvped for a space for 400 people, but i’m sure the rain stopped a lot of people from coming. it still was packed though, and so many personalities were in the house! club kids, queens and hot trannies. oh, and some celebs too. the only ones i recognized immediate were vanessa williams and jack from project runway, but there were a few more that the press went crazy over, and none of us knew who they were! hahahahah!

we were like, “who’s that girl there? the one the cameras are fussing over? wow she’s really posing and giving it to them. who’s she? you don’t know either? well ok let’s just take a photo of her, in case!”

hee hee hee!

so are you ready? pictures galore!

little gift bags

moto + i

one of the earliest celebs to arrive. but who?

this woman who worked for bloomingdales wanted our photo (this is what she took). then she asked, “patricia field. she’s the one who styled for sex and the city right? she’s really amazing, isn’t she?” i had no answer for her. what was she doing there?

lady bunny, patrick mcmullen and andre j

pat with ? and ?. i don’t watch ugly betty so i have no clue. 2 hours later we learn that she plays america’s sister in ugly betty? she was certainly working those photographers though!

lady bunny getting into all the action with vanessa williams. trick question of the day: how many illegal immigrants, and from which country, is she hiding in her hair? your 5 seconds begins now.

naoko + moto + omar + lyndsay + moi

jack from project runway in first row!!! oh i love him. when he had to leave project runway, he made me cry! and whozzat blond chick next to him? the photogs were after her too. but all of us were clueless! haha!

omar + me

here’s what i was wearing:
hat from patricia field (can you just tell that i am officially obsessed with military stuff?)
tailcoat by me
yellow doll made by my friend (see below!)
white tshirt by undercover
pink tulle cupcake dress by nadine zlotogora
swirly checked tights from patricia field
don’t mess with me boots by junya watanabe

the best part of the show for me, were the mannequins!!! they were fuckin’ wicked!!! i helped to prepare them and get them out of their boxes, and if you saw my video, you’ll know that i was part of the clean-up team who had to put them back in their coffins after the show ended. but i’m not being biased - they were wickedddddddd!

the mannequins were placed in different groups on stage. there were the black widows, who faked tears after the rich husband died and you know they want his money, then there were the racer chicks, and then there were the somewhat erm, lesbian girls who were crawling over the floor, and then there were the ladies who lunch! the mannequins were placed in those situations all over the stage, and basically, after the model comes out and walks down the runway, they would go and stand amongst the mannequins, and further act those scenes out! some models cried fake tears over the dead man, one raced a car with wind blowing in her hair, another went to sit with the ladies for tea… it was just awesome with a capitol AAA!

two of the biker chics. and omar posing with amazing bone structure! haha!

i think these mannequins were lesbian. and the girl on the right was sprawled all over the floor. hot!

one of the ladies who lunch! complete with real mini cakes that were so cute and yummy!

the black widows and the dead husband. going to destination heaven. a bit corny! haha! you can see part of a huge dollar sign (made of roses) in the corner there.

moto + ayumi climbing on stage to steal cake

how cute are they! haha! love them.

after the show, the photogs were surrounding pat. then she escapes… and we find her having some peace and quiet, and a piece of cake, with the ladies at lunch. i thought it was hilarious!

i got photographed by quite a few people, two of whom were bloggers (but of course i was stupid enough not to ask for their namecards and i can’t remember their blog urls!). one was from bloomingdales, and she wanted our photo, god knows why! maybe i’ll appear in a window as a mannequin soon. HAHAHAHA wouldn’t that be hilarious? the funny thing was, as i mentioned above, she hardly knew who pat was! i was flabbergasted. lady, if you work for bloomingdales and you live in new york and watched sex and the city and don’t know who pat field is and you come and watch her show and you don’t know who pat field is and you work for bloomingdales and you don’t know who pat field is (deep breath), then what are you doing at her show!!!!!

anyway, i also got hit by some papparazzi woman who came and shoved her camera in all our faces, very rude of her. then i also got photographed by two girls from the guardian from the uk. i went to visit their website at theguardian.co.uk though? and who cares about me, but i can’t find anything on pat at all. haha!

it was cool that i wore what i wore. because a lot of people asked me where i got my coat from, and what the heck it was that was pinned onto it! hahaha! it’s a good feeling telling people that i made the jacket myself. and then they asked about that yellow doll, and i said it’s a doll my good friend made, and it looks exactly like my old teacher at school!!! seriously! i even blogged about it way back when i first started blogging.

well, i say it like i’ve been blogging for super long. nope, i wrote about the doll just last year in may actually! here’s an excerpt of what i wrote back then:

my friend, pero, made me a doll thingy… of our ex-teacher!!!

pero with kano with said doll!

all of us kept screaming and laughing when he pulled it out of his bag, because i can’t explain to you HOW much the doll’s face looked like my teacher!

it was sooooo weird!

seriously! this is creepy stuff!

i’d feel bad if i put up a whole picture of her in high-res and without blocking her eyes, so i had to block it out. but come on, you know it still looks exactly like her. i love it and brought it here in new york with me. i have never had any use for it, i mean, it’s not like i loved her and she wasn’t even my favorite teacher or anything, but we had the best of laughs imitating her back in school. so when i saw that doll just before the party, (it usually sits on top of my dresser, along with photos of my friends in japan), it make me laugh and i thought i just HAD to add it to my outfit!!

so now i’m gonna send those pictures from the show, back to my friends in tokyo. i’m sure they will have a fit! haha!!!

i have a lot of favorite designers from tokyo fashion week and their pictures just rocked my world. i’ll have to post some of my favorites for you guys to see. also can’t wait to see what my idols like rei kawakubo, tao, junya watanabe (all of comme des garcons), jun takahashi of undercover, john galliano, alexander mcqueen, bernhard willhelm, maison martin margiela and rick owens come up with!

what about you guys? have you been keeping up with the shows? is new york week exciting? or is it blah? i’m usually more excited about paris, london, and tokyo fashion week. and couture week obviously. what are your favorite shows so far and what are you looking forward to?

lemme know! hopefully one of you will like some amazing designer i haven’t heard of before and i can learn more about him/her through you! haha! (yes, i AM just making use of you.)

with my croaky voice. hahaha!

warning: un-trained, non-professional ahead! it was ad-lib, improv, and not very well thought of beforehand…. or not thought through at all! don’t hate me.

i just have to say, that i made this video late last night, and youtube messed up on me. it’s now 6:30 in the evening, and i’m running around getting ready for the patricia field show, and the video FINALLY uploads!!!

all 8:45mins of it. what the HELL, i don’t even know how i found things to say! haha!

tell me how your weekend goes!! in new york, it’s TERRIBLE. the weather is so bad and we’ve been having heavy showers all day. i don’t know how i’m going to go out. i don’t want flat hair!

ohhhh and p.s.!!!
don’t forget to submit your entries to the hammer pants contest!! i’m loving the current ones! and also, join in on more of my retardedness in my royal mail! (it’s there in the right menu!) hee hee!

give a shout out if you’re a boy blogger! and throw me an airkiss if you’re a tranny blogger.

agent lover, doe deere, me, star st. germain, gala darling, nubby twiglet

are you part of a secret society? are you part of a movement? do you even know if you are?

this is one of those epic “will the real slim shady please stand up? i repeat, will the real slim shady please stand up?” kind of moments.

call me ignorant, but i was just blogging! or so i thought. when i started freebird on april 19th 2007, it was my first blog in english, and my japanese blog was a couple of months old. after a while, i realised that i was a little different from the other fashion bloggers out there. by that, i mean that i have a completely different sense of style and aesthetic.

ok ok, that’s a nice way to put it. sometimes i do get stared at and i’ve received insane glares at some of my outfits before. i don’t dress like that every single day. but i usually do have something quirky on me everyday. i don’t know why i dress the way i do. maybe the fact that i don’t have a mirror in my room plays a part. but that’s how i dress, and that’s how i act. and the nice comments far outweigh the meanies.

when i write how-to articles, i never ever write something that i don’t know about. when i put up my outfit photos and talk about finding your own style, my intention is to share with my readers, that you can find your personal style that works with who you are, and still be comfortable in your own skin!!

just a few days ago, it was brought to my attention that there was a comment/question/article or whatever it’s called, on ask metafilter. personality-based design/arts/fashion blogging - new trend? is there a name for this?

i’m not sure how i should even respond to something like that. while i’m quite honored to be part of this new “movement”, i’m actually more amused than anything else. a lot of blogs i know and read regularly, that were not mentioned in that article, are full of amazing personality. personalities belonging to the fabulous people who write those blogs, whom i’ve gotten to know through my own.

i love getting to know my readers, and while they keep up with my blog, i try to keep up with theirs too. i honestly think it’s amazing how our blogs have brought us all together - people from all over the world who otherwise might not have become friends at all.

my blog is that stamp, that reflection of my everyday life. i don’t put on airs, i don’t pretend to be someone i’m not, i write happy things when i’m happy, and during the odd moments that i get upset with something, i blog that too. i’m keeping it real. i’m happy with who i am. and i’m putting it out there. maybe i should have come up with a “glamorous pen name”, like the rest of these 5 gorgeous girls, instead of just adding the word “queen” to my real name.

and while we’re on that topic, let me clear the air. it started long ago because i’ve always loved crowns. i use to draw them everywhere. then one day a friend of mine who always called herself “princess”, called me her queen, and being the 13 year old that i was, i started writing HRH along with the crowns that i drew. and it stuck ever since.

other than that, i don’t think i’ve tried to market or brand myself in a certain way. have i? and if so, did i ever overdo it? maybe i’m blind to my own actions and i can’t see. but, i don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. as humans in the real world, i think it is important to put a stamp on yourself that says, “hey this is me!”

that metafilter thingy also questioned if we were friends. i’m thinking, yeah we are - not all of us, but many of us know and have met each other in real life. which is great! but, is that the point? i can’t put my finger on it. does it really matter whether we’re friends or not?

what i love about all these blogs is, that we’re all such different people. we’re all doing different things in life, aiming for different goals. the most important thing to me, is that we’re all comfortable with who we are, who we’ve become, and who we want to be. we’re all living our dreams, and obviously having fun doing it.

i’ve never put myself above other blogs, and i don’t pretend to be an amazing blogger. especially since i don’t devote all my time to this blog, and i do have plenty of other things going on in my life to want to do this full-time. plus, i’ve never been much of a writer anyway.

but! what i do think sets us apart from, not above of, other blogs, is the simple reason that we’re all girls with strong opinions, our own sense of style, and an evident love of life.

i need to give this topic a little more thought and will probably add to this in the comments later. but what about you? do you blog? why do you blog? do you brand yourself? do you love life? and what colour undies are you wearing right now? ;D

“ha ha! guess there’s a slim shady in all of us.
fuck it, let’s all stand up!”

more for nosey parkers:
we’ve been outed! by star
‘personality girls’: a new blogging movement? by doe deere
the secret society of lady bloggers by nubby twiglet
fight club, lady blogger style? by agent lover

those of you who stalk me on twitter (and you know i stalk you too! haha.) would know that i was recently in boston. after almost a year of living in new york, i’ve only ever been to long island, fairfield in connecticut and erm, i think that’s about it. alex, one of my best friends, live in boston. i’ve known him since i was 8, maybe 9, perhaps 10. whatever. but somehow we’ve remained friends through all these years and we know a lot of silly, embarrassing, and completely retarded things about each other.

i think it’s almost like a brother and sister thing, and we are comfortable enough with each other to be really ugly in front of each other. hahahaha. you know what i mean? we don’t have to talk if we don’t feel like talking, we’re like walking around in our pajamas, sleeping with our mouths open, snoring, etc etc. horror. hopefully we’ll stop short of farting. heh heh.

alex has been in boston for close to 5 years now. he moved away from singapore just after i did, so we’ve always been far apart - me in tokyo, him in boston. moving to new york, i thought we’d get to see each other a lot more, but it’s still a 5 hour bus ride, which equates to 5 hours of ass-aches, so it’s not that easy to meet up. he’s come to new york twice, and i had promised him that before summer was over, that i’ll go over to visit him.

it was all a little whirlwind, but i’m so glad i just packed my bag up and went. it was a good break - some time away from this busy, crazy city!! it was relaxing, quiet, and… relaxing. really what i needed!

but! a couple of days before i was supposed to go, my roommate told me about a poor 18-year old boy who got slit in his throat, then stabbed repeatedly before getting decapitated on a greyhound bus in canada. i was shocked. this world is full of sick people. i was like, “you’re kidding. that must be a story from so long ago.” then my roommate told me that it happened just last week. and he giggled and said to be careful. oh my god i was so mad. my heart goes out to that boy and his family. i wish i knew his name and it wouldn’t take a second to google and find out his name, but i can’t because i know i’ll get sick in my stomach reading about what happened. but the more disturbed i got, the more my roommate giggled. isn’t that so mean? he always researches and finds out every single detail of people dying or getting killed. and he’d see whatever photos or videos that were available too. i just don’t get it. on the 5 hour trip to boston on a stupid greyhound bus, i seriously stayed awake the whole time.

anyway. boston has so many beautiful buildings. i love them and took so many pictures. in fact, i think of all the pictures i took in boston, 90% were of the buildings. they were gorgeous. looking at them made me realise that my dream was to really own a gorgeous redbrick townhouse. i’d have my shop on the ground floor, a cafe/bar/restaurant on the second floor, my atelier on the 3rd, live on the 4th, and have the perfect roof garden on the 5th. perfect, perfect, perfect!!!

i had arrived in boston late on sunday, aug 10th. unfortunately, the weather was pretty crappy on monday and it rained on and off the entire day. by mid afternoon, we were feeling really cold, and by dinner, our eyes were teary and we were sneezing our heads off. it was terrible. alex and i both decided that if we were still feeling very shitty the next day that we’d spend the day in front of the tv drinking hot tea. but we decided to get out of the house and walk around. it was a bright and sunny day, but we were both still kinda sick so there wasn’t much conversation! the last day had such amazing weather, and i was a little sad to go and leave alex. it’s funny because i don’t think either of us have changed that much since we were kids.

but enough of me getting all sentimental, here are some of the pictures of my time in boston!!!

these kobe beef burgers were amazing even through we were sick!

i want their costumes!

texting away at our only cheap lunch. barbequed kalbi!

i was not in the mood to talk when my dad called. hahahahha!!

the best thing i bought in months, from…beacon street i think? comme des garcons sneakers for $115!!!

alex walked ahead in 2 of my pictures. that’s fine, but why is he touching his hair in both instances? aha!

lobster love <3

alex totally cracked me up when he put on his neighbour’s hat.

the only picture we took together. that’s me in my grandma-ish, brrr i-have-a-cold clothes.

and two of the best things that i found in boston?

it’s actually possible to find your way to wonderland.

and…

if you’re ever feeling bored, it’s really your own fault. HA!

it’s a bird!!

it’s a monkey!!

nope, it’s gilda with some psycho hair!!

alright, alright. those of you who twitter know that i’ve colored my hair again! i whined about my lack of funds last month, which was the reason behind my very lackluster hair. i’m still really broke, but after over 2 months of not cutting it, i really just couldn’t take it anymore.

i called ayumi, my stylist, up last thursday morning (on the 7th), and she told me she would cut and color my hair after she finished coloring pat’s. so i made my way down to the salon that afternoon and sat in that chair for 3 hours getting cut, bleached and colored.

i had torn out a page from a magazine of a hairstyle that i really liked. it was kind of mushroom-shaped, asymmetric, and erm, you know, pretty cool. i really liked it.

i showed the page to ayumi and we decided to bleach my roots out. however, because i had colored my hair a wine-purple color twice before this, i would probably wreck my hair trying to bleach out all that color in the attempt to get it ash-blond. so ayumi convinced me that it would be pretty cool to just bleach my roots out, blend it into my current hair color, and then to just color the roots. i had never heard of nor seen such a hair style before. roots are usually darker and the rest of the hair is usually lighter, and what she was suggesting was the opposite of that! light roots and darker hair.

but hey, i’m up for anything new. and unlike some girls who panic and go berserk when hair mishaps happen, to me, hair is hair, is hair is hair! it’ll grow back and a color job gone wrong can be corrected in two weeks. so i went for it!

i sat through a bleach job that burned a hole in my scalp, and we also added some very bold bleached streaks underneath the top layer of hair. ayumi called me a colored monkey because with the bleached hair and my reddish ends, i really looked like those monkeys from the 2nd picture.

then mid-way through my hair-bleaching process, with my roots turning orange and yellow, and major foil pieces in between, a minor problem happened with some chinese construction workers at pat’s house nearby and i was called to go over and talk to them! (they couldn’t speak a work of english and i was the only one who could communicate in mandarin.) so i walked over wearing nothing but grey polka-dot tights, a black plastic salon robe, and foil in my hair. yep, out of the patricia field shop (the salon is in the basement of the shop) and onto the streets of bowery, trying to look cool.

hahahah it was a little funny!! at least i felt quite ridiculous, but i tried to hurry over looking like i do this ever other day. hee hee hee!

ayumi cut my hair later, and she did it a little differently from the picture. which i really liked when i sat there in the salon chair, but when i went back home later that night i decided i really liked the cut in the picture more. after all, i had actually kept that torn magazine page on my inspiration wall for about a month now!

so i took my hair scissors and snipped the right side of my hair, making my fringe and right side sloped. granted, i’m no hairdresser and i was nervous about cutting off my eyeballs and earlobes, so everything was pretty evenly cut except right at those two areas! (please do not attempt this at home, kids. especially not if you’re the type who bawls with something goes wrong with your hair. and if you do attempt to cut your own hair, make sure you do not sneeze. haha!)

my hair isn’t long enough to look like the picture, but i’m still really pleased with the results. in fact, it’s really the craziest haircut and color job i’ve ever had!!! i really need to take some better photos out under the sun, so that you can see how many colors i have in my hair. it’s quite crazy. i’ve got pink at the roots, then it blends to orange before turning red from my previous dye job, and at some parts it’s purple at the tips.

when i went to work the next day and showed ayumi my self-cut hair, she laughed and said i did a pretty good job considering i didn’t know what i was doing. haha! i’ll probably get her to trim it neat once i get the chance.

black washed-silk vest by me
white shirt with scallop hem by me
studded plaid belt
gingham bow by louloulovesyou
cargo pants by rna
black tote by h&m
neon pink watch by toywatch
ballet flats
sailor’s cap

remember that sailor’s cap? it was a really cheapo $13 cap that i bought from a halloween store last month for sushi’s birthday party, that was nautical themed. i fell in love with it but it was really badly made. i mean, what can you expect for something that costs less than a meal in new york city? it even had one of those super ugly plastic things at the back, that you find at the back of caps. i don’t know what they’re called, but they’re like the cap version of velcro, meant to adjust the size of caps. it made the whole thing look so darn cheap.

so i took some milliner’s tape and covered that ugly thing up, then sewed some sequin fabric (left over from my sequined hammer pants) onto the brim of the hat, that was originally just black plastic.

in an instant, that cap just looked a ton better! magic! i love it so much i’ve been bringing the cap everywhere with me.

note to self: stop making stupid faces!

it’s not a great picture, and i wish there was more light so you can see how the sequins reflect, but it’s pretty amazing. the next time i feel a little crafty, i’ll go over the crest patch and sew black and gold beads over it.

anyway, sorry for the lack of updates. i’m actually in boston right now, visiting my darling friend alex whom i’ve known since i was like, 8 or something. actually we’re so comfortable with each other sometimes it’s like we’re just brother and sister. nah, more like some really jaded couple that’s been married for 50 years. haha! this is my last chance to really relax. once i get back to new york, it’s more work at patricia field’s, then a few days of trade shows with femme sud, then a frantic rush to finish my summer homework which i haven’t touched at all, and on september 2nd, school starts!

i can’t believe it! my whole summer, gone! over! i’m so dreading going back to the robotic life of a fashion student at parsons. i love designing and get inspired all the time, but parsons seriously sucks and i hate that the school often makes me hate fashion!!

.

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update @ 02:58am:

AHA!! i found a picture taken earlier today (paparazzi shot by alex) that shows my hair from the top! you’ll get the idea that it’s actually pretty bright in the sunlight. i’ve gotten slightly too many stares here in boston. eeps!

more for nosey parkers:
8 good reasons to get yourself a new ‘do