Short 'n' sporty

It's no secret that I just love Uniqlo and their basics.  (I just saw on the fly button of my bright green Uniqlo cropped trousers, it says "Since 1984" so hello, Uniqlo is as old as me!)

I bought this sporty hooded dress because it looked amazing on Agyness Deyn in the poster (she has NO thighs, whereas I'm half-Indian and have more thighs than a bucket of fried chicken) and even if it doesn't cut quite the same figure on me, it feels fun and flirty with some tights and cute accessories.

Hooded dress - Uniqlo.  Beaded necklace - Made by my mother.

Cuff - River Island Men.  Navy tights - Topshop.  

Plimsolls - Northstar.  Earrings - Accessorize.

Photos by Jamie

Please hire me as your next spokesmodel, Uniqlo!!  I'm not demanding, I won't throw a bitch fit like the girls on ANTM if you give me a makeover and I know all about "broken-down doll posing" (and "Smizing like Tyra" but really, who gives a damn about that?).

Also, unlike the models you currently have, I won't give your customers unrealistic expectations of the clothing.

For example, when you have "cropped pants" on a model and they hit calf length, it's probably best to tell us that the lass in the picture is like, six feet tall.  You don't want your customers buying said cropped pants and finding them swimming around the ankles.

You know.  Just saying.

With friends like these

For the first time in awhile, the weekend has been nice and chilled. 

I spent Friday night pretending to be a prostitute at Orchard Towers with friends, complete with fake prostitute names.  (The Pinay pro was "Fondel Maboob", Thai pro was "Wannawach Porn", Chinese pei du mama pro was "Mei Tun" and Japanese pro was "Sakyumi?"  Don't ask me where the names came from, just gently appreciate their presence.)

I kind of wish we had taken photos but I'm also kind of glad we didn't, the outfits that SOME of us were wearing were in no way fit for polite company!

Apart from that, the weekend was spent helping Dhany make steak and casually and dreamily window shopping.  Just perfect.

Here are some outfits I've really enjoyed over the last week.

Kim wore this around the beginning of the week.  If I'm not wrong, the skirt is from New Look and the shoes are from Shanghai.  How cute are they?  I totally dug it, except...

Pat showed up in almost the exact same thing.  I know right, I don't know whether people in my office are psychic when they get dressed in the morning or something.  They even both had lace on the bodice and everything! 

What I really liked about this though, is that they both took a similar look and made it appropriate for them age and body-type wise.  Just goes to show that people of any age can wear almost anything!

Dhany got his mitts on a new chambray shirt.  Chambray is all the rage right now and I can see why - it's soft and comfy and comes in shades of such dreamy blue. 

Paired with cute boat shoes, grey pants and his Brietling.

Met one of my best friends, Ying Yi, yesterday we had Chinese vegetarian food and talked about everything.

I really liked her demure, almost French, librarian-chic ensemble.  The ruffled white blouse, the soft pleated cotton royal blue skirt and the shoes!  I love librarian-chic shoes so much!

You can just imagine her tripping down a cobble-stoned street with a basket of flowers and a book like Belle.

Hope you enjoyed my friends' outfits!

A very merry unbirthday, to you!

One late Saturday, sequestered in the office, Kim and I discovered that we are both fans of vintage Disney. 

We kept sending each other youtube videos of the songs in Disney movies while typing things on the office chat system that went like:

Kim:  SAVAGES SAVAGES
Me:  BARELY EVEN HUMAN!

(Points for knowing the line after!)

So on the spur of the moment, we decided to have an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party to celebrate our unbirthdays, which were, believe it or not, on the same day!  (Every time I tell people we had an unbirthday party, they get a little confused.  It's not rocket science, people, you have one birthday a year, so by default the other 364 days must be your unbirthday, capisce?)

Dawn agreed to dress up as the door mouse.  Kim was the Mad Hatter, and I was Alice.  Dhany came, supposedly as the March Hare, but didn't actually wear any costume at all. 

We ate at Food For Thought, a cute non-profit cafe on Queen street with glass jars for lights and tiled tabletops.  I'd never been there before, so I enjoyed the quaint atmosphere. 

There are two branches of the cafe, and our beloved Mad Hatter, a little touched by the mercury in the brim of her sombrero, showed up at the wrong branch and actually sat at the table, waiting till she realised her folly. 

By all accounts though, this branch on Queen Street is supposed to be nicer, and the food was lovely.

Two annoying women seated next to me took half an hour to order dessert and then proceeded to lambast journalists in general for publishing sleazy things that were not of interest to them.  By the time they started whining on about their maids, I was boiling.

When Kim and Dawn arrived and la biddies glanced sideways as us, Kim leaned over and cheerfully announced: "We're having an unbirthday party," much to their bewilderment.

"Um, as long as you're having fun," the more supercilious of the two said.

The door mouse was fantastic in furry grey ears, bowtie and big black nose.

As was the Mad Hatter in a squashy top hat (Disney-themed to boot!) and really cute rose necklace.  This photo of Dawn cracks me up all the time, there is a touch of the evil rat in her eyes, no?

As Alice, I came with my own Dinah, chained to my neck.  This was actually a prize from a capsule machine, one with beautiful and incredibly detailed toys, unlike the crappy and strange stuff you normally get.  Just look at the detail on it, and only for two bucks.

Bubble dress - Fcuk ($30 only at the Robinson's sale!).  Espadrilles - Spain.

Hairband - Six.  Earrings - Topshop.

Kim had a towering Red Velvet cake which came with chocolate, cherries and cream cheese.

I had the dark chocolate and stewed cherry pancakes with Gula Melaka syrup and fresh cream.  HELLO!  None of that stupid fake maraschino shit here.

Dawn had a grilled vegetable sandwich that smelt divine.

We discussed all kinds of funny and inane things over tea and ate the whole meal in costume (admittedly not as difficult for me because my costume looked fairly regular).  It was even better than the actual Mad Hatter's party because people actually finished their sentences and everyone got to drink their tea. 

There were even magazines on the walls for people to look through.

Shirt - Nudies.  Shoes - Clae.

Navy pants - Comune (but not the kind of commune with evil Jim Jones type characters).

Kim even brought a copy of Alice so we could discuss (although we talked more about the cartoon) and cute forest green shoes that her mother bought from Shanghai.

It was a wonderful, warm, lazy afternoon of good food and really good company.  And I felt nicely content when Dawn took her nose of at 5pm and made the transformation "back into a human", as she put it, before we all went our separate ways.

Already, my evil partner and I are planning our next outing, probably a Marx Brothers themed one with chocolate cigars, fake moustaches, tuxedos and silly one-liners.  All photos in black and white please!

Man, if it's as much fun as this one was, I'm psyched!

Also, a very merry unbirthday to all reading this, my guess is it's likely to be MOST of your unbirthdays, unless it isn't, in which case, come back tomorrow! 

My love is braver than you know

Sunday found us at the Pixar exhibition that's been in Singapore for ages.  I love Disney - Pixar movies, I must have seen almost every single one of them.

From the moving, deeply comforting relationships in Monsters Inc. to the finely nuanced portrait of kitchen life in Ratatouille, I've enjoyed each one immensely.

Also, the Science Centre fascinates me (although it has a tendency to smell like something that crawled out of a formaldehyde cupboard after three weeks) and there's always something interesting to look at.

Rudi, for instance, is fairly engaging to look at, would you say?

The centre has a water park just in front of the entrance which is great for those restless kids who would rather run in and out of fountains than look at experiments through tiny peepholes.

Clearly someone was happy to be there.  (Apologies for the pits to the camera, but understand that it is a brave move, as Nigel Barker will say on ANTM.)

The tots in the wading pool were particularly cute.

The Macdonald's there also has loads of vintage sets of toys that have been released with Happy Meals from plushie Hamburglars and Grimaces to teddy bears in costumes for every conceivable activity.

There is a full set of Snoopies in costumes from all countries, the same one that sits on my shelf  at home when my parents ate something like 60 Happy Meals in a month to collect them all for my brother's birthday.

There was a fulcrum-lever system exhibit that allowed the tiniest child to lift 200 kg just by pulling on a rope.  The not-tiniest children got in on the act with gusto, too.

Thrilled as a groom in a bridal catalogue, I say.

When we actually got to the Pixar exhibition, I found out photos weren't allowed.  And how I wish that wasn't so because it was, quite frankly, a stunner.

There were the most beautiful, finely drawn conceptual sketches, colour scripts, storyboards, each showing stages of some well-loved character in development and the thought that went into it.  Sully, the monster from Monsters Inc, was drawn first with tentacles and floppy horns, later discarded in favour of lovable, stumpy feet and smaller protrusions.

There was a series of sketches depicting movement, a huge mural of the Incredibles under a forest waterfall, and even x-rays of the Toy Story characters to show the gears and workings inside.  If not for the photo-nazi who went around wagging her finger madly, I would have been clicking away.

As it was, all I got was this plan of all the fish in Finding Nemo:

 
Also a massive hit, the breathtaking Toy Story zoetrope (which is like a thing where these huge discs with figures on them spin round and round and then when a strobe light is trained on them, they appear to come to life).

I ganked a video from youtube, but it really doesn't do justice to just how lovely the Zoetrope was. 



We finished the exhibit then hung around the Science Centre for awhile, playing with the experiments and watching newly hatched chicks totter around like bloody drunkards.

Another pretty exhibit:  a strobe light on a stream of falling water at different frequencies will make it look like it's going forward, backward, or stopping in midair all together.  ("What is it with these magical strobe lights?!" Rudi exclaimed.)

 Grey top - Cotton on.  Vintage wash jeans - Uniqlo.  Cut-out sandal - Dr Martens.

Necklace - Diva.  Bracelet - Pandora.  Chain handle bag - Asos.  

It was sunset when we finally left for a scrummy seafood dinner, all glorious and yellow-gold and oblique, just as it should be in the dying hours of a lazy weekend afternoon.

Randomosity

So um, it's not like I'm trying to inflict a photodump on you, but um.... yeah, I guess I am.  I had a bunch of random things which I thought were cute, but didn't actually fit into any category.

Kim learnt about my capsule machine obsession and bought me this.  Look what it opens into!  I couldn't understand the Japanese on the sheet that came in the capsule, but since it has little pineapples on it, I'm guessing it's Hawaiian.  Cute!

Also on the topic of capsule machines, I came across one that totally cracked me up.

These Lucky themed ones are just killing me.

I love how the special style is basically one of those segmented candy dishes that everyone and their dog brings out at Chinese New Year.

But the real killer is this bit:  How is the symbol for "benefit" a Koi Fish?!  Do we even eat Koi at New Year?  (Okay, sorry about going all Benjamin Franklin on the capital letters there.)  Also, as Dhany pointed out, what does "Benefit" even mean?  Aren't good health, peace and careers all "Benefits"?  And why, of all things green and good, is the symbol for Peace an Old Chang Kee curry puff?


All the secrets of the universe we will never know...

Wan Gek, an ex-intern turned full-fleged reporter, alias rapper name Dubya G, also stopped by with snacks!

And a super cute outfit.  I like how this is cute and chic, but major reporter-practical.  We run around all day every day to highly unexpected places and it's hard to dress up for work every day when you don't know where you're going to end up.

At one point, I actually started just throwing on cargo pants and sloppy shirts to work (I still do some days) because it was so much easier.  But this combination is comfortable and flattering.  I believe the top is from Cotton On and the skirt is from Bysi.  (Unless it's the other way around, in which case, sorry!)

Also, is anyone else digging the Snooki hair?

Finally, my mother found out about my love of all things Domo and brought the following DVD home for me to watch:

Look how she posed it with the Domo on my bed and the bat, also hanging on my bedrails?  My mother is hilarious.

The liner notes on the back have a picture of Domo popping out of an egg and the names of episodes like "Domo and TV"  "Rock 'n' Domo" and "A Date on a Boat."

I can't wait!