Fashion: This is scary, flood of fans inundated H&M store in France

Just watch this, only one word is necessary, SCARY!

Tennis: Real Drunk Housewives of Palm Springs

So I made it to Palm Springs yesterday for the BNP Paribas Open and boy it was one of the best days in my life. I was there for Hit for Haiti 2, where I got a chance to watch 90+ grand slams combined on a same Stadium, 90+ grand slams!!! Not sure if I'll get another chance to see that.

But first, something slightly interesting also, me and my friend got a full dose of what happens when you mix housewives and alcohol in a tennis tournament watching a hot girl like Sharapova playing. I don't know if they were "inspired" by the attention Maria was getting from teenagers around the stadium, but somehow one of them, after being way too chit-chatty and borderline obnoxious, proclaimed, yes proclaimed during a changeover, "hey girls, let's run down and streak across the court like they do on TV!!"

My ears, oh my lord, someone save my ears from bleeding! I'm not sure if that was a mere suggestion, I'll never know, but that is definitely one of the more amusing tennis experience I've had. I think it's time Bravo start a new sector of their Real Housewives franchise. They need to send someone down to Palm Spring to capture a bit of the crazies and send these women to fame and stardom ASAP, I'll be watching.

By the way, I have pictures from Sharapova's warm up gear for this tournament, and it does not disappoint, I like it, but it is also a WTF moment for Maria that is quickly becoming common for her. Stay tuned, whoever's reading this.

ps: also coming later - a more through review of Hit for Haiti 2.

Fashion: My new shoes

Once in a while I splurge, and even then, I do it at discount retailers, hence why Nordstrom Rack is one of my favorite store on earth. Today was a bit of a personal shopping day, and even in this tough economic time, I managed to snag two pairs of really cool sneakers at a great price.


The first one is a pair of brown Puma mixed-fabric mid-tops. Usually I like Puma's style, and I am particularly drawn to designs that mixes different types of fabric. In this case, it's leather x nylon and it matches perfectly with my brown track suit, which is cotton x nylon! When I saw this I immediately thought of the look in my head, and I love the gray lining on the inside, brown and grey is such an intriguing yet tough color combo, so to have it in a pair of shoe is an easier way to pull it off. Then the $30 price tag just sealed the deal for me!


The second pair is a white high top Creative Recreation with blue and red color block detail. Usually I'm not a big fan of CR just because of all the bells and whistles that come with their designs. But, this particular pair that I come across is very clean and sleek, and they kept the flaps to a minimum, thank God. The sneaker has a Gucci vibe to it, which is appealing to me, I always thought though Gucci was a bit over the top, their footwear is always classy and sleek. And this was only $45 bucks, not bad at all.

Fashion: McQueen's Final Collection

Alexander McQueen's final collection was shown at a small and intimately romantic location with a handful of selected editors and friends. They gathered to pay their final tribute and admired the designer's work in this final presentation. It marks an end to the McQueen era while the industry eagerly anticipates the successor to take over the reign.

McQueen went from amazonian undersea creature to medieval romantics. This collection's medieval influence manifested itself in a romantic and poetic manner. The silhouette has strong reference to last season but it is transformed with a change of fabric and a few twists and turns in the draping. Without the busy print, the silhouette is much more striking and flattering. Though there is still the cinched waist and a flared skirt bottom, this time on a couple pieces it was replaced with an artfully done all-around gathered pleats to create a dramatic hip. Every piece is like a dream, soft, beautiful, worthy to be framed as if it was a painting; it's something that can only come out of the brain of a genius like McQueen himself.

It's hard not to compare this collection with his earlier work, the ones when he closely edges couture like production. The fabric is stunning and it has the power to transport its viewer to a different dimension. You find yourself sucked into his world of whatever that he is trying to convey. Alexander McQueen's work is always about workmanship, drama, fabric, and presentation. Although I think he would've preferred a bigger arena and more intricacy in the presentation, this choice of a quiet "palace-like" room fits the clothes perfectly. After last season's digital storm, it's nice to have this as a final juxtaposition, which is also another virtue of McQueen's legacy.

His friend's and customer will surely buy every single piece from this collection, at least the ones they can get their hands on, and I think the designers has ended his career on quite a high note; he ended it with something that people will remember and admire for ages to come. Can't wait to see these in a museum somewhere, preferably in the Mets.
















images via style.com

Job well done.

When tennis meets fashion: My favorite tennis outfit of the moment

This is what I wear recently whenever I go play tennis. I tried wearing those branded ones and trying to copy Federer or Nadal, but I realized that doesn't quite work for me. And then I came across this Purple ombre hooded zipper-up at urbanoutfitter and thought how cool it would look on the court.

It's thin and comfortable, plus I pretty much think anything ombre is cool, not to mention rare to be seen on a tennis court. I pair it with the most comfortable pair of shorts I've ever wore, from Addidas. I bought it back when I was in college, and after a week, I went back to buy 4 more (good thing I had an employee discount).



Wish me luck tonight, I've been losing to the same friend the past couple times I play, I hope my serve can finally click and work.

Fashion: Updated Paris FW10 Victor and Rolf w/video

Clothes that transform - coming straight from the "Glamour Factory"

For this season, the design team of Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren put on a spectacular show. The theme was clothes that possesses duality, and it was displayed on stage where a model wearing multiple layers of clothes walks down the runway, and then the designers start stripping layers and layers off of her and put it onto other girls who'd then work it down the catwalk also. The point was to show that clothes can be theatrical and then practical at the same time.

The crazy version is transformed into barely recognizable revision of its old self, all with just a few pulls and twists; they were glamorous and wearable garment that are ready for production. The result left me flipping through the shots on style.com back and forth multiple times dying to figure out how it was done. This is an occasion where livefeed or video would have been greatly appreciated and justified. And here it is, a video!



All in all, I believe the show was truly amazing (even though apparently they've done this going on stage trick before). But the clothes were good, not great. The theatrics were there although the transformed products weren't exceptional (maybe it's because of the constraints of needing to be transformable).

Here are some shots, maybe you can also go on style.com and let me know when you figured out how it was done:

Fashion: Good news ladies, heels are getting lower!

I think I can say, probably not the first, but definitely among the earliest, that for the next two seasons, heels are going to get lower, cue for the cheer of millions of women who no longer can feel their feet.

No more sky high skyscraper heel, instead, what we will come to think as chic will be elegant, and COMFORTABLE, smaller heels from kitten to about 3 inches (which is really low give the high fashion standard of the past years).

Even though I'm a man, but just as human beings, we share feelings and attitude toward pain in general and I believe it when I hear women moan and complain about how much their foot hurts and how quickly they want to take off their pair of platform stilettos. So I am glad, as a man with many female friends and family members, that you guys can wear lower heels and not have to feel matronly or boring. Just find a pair that still carries details and buy them in good quality.

I can hear women's long sigh followed by their wild cheer after hearing this news. Time to nice to your feet again.

Fashion: Catherine Kallon from redcarpet-fashionawards.com

I'm starting to love Catherine Kallon! When I read her blog, it sounds like I'm reading to myself, she writes comments that are the same as mine. She loves color, drama, details, texture, her favorites were all of my favorites.

I also admire the focus of her blog as my own blog is starting to be all over the place. A good blog really needs focus so its reader can know what to expect when they re-visit. The worst feeling is to really like a blog and then only to not find what you expect when you return.

Must work harder to define what I want to blog about. Fashion and tennis is a great combo, but there must be more structure to what within these two arenas that I want to write and comment about.

But www.redcarpet-fashionawards.com is for sure one of the site that I'll follow from now on.

Fashion: Donate your old jeans to Gap and get a 30% discount on a new pair

This is a great cause, a great fashion cause. Gap is partnering up with Cotton Inc. as they gear up a denim donation drive. Your old denim can be turned into house insulators for needy family to keep them warm in the blistering winter.


All you have to do is drop off a pair of your old, haven't worn for over a year denim at any Gap participating stores, and receive a coupon (or rain-check) for a 30% discount for any denim product in Gap (in-store only), even the ultra-cool and fast-selling 1969 premium denim line.

I already got mine, now go get yours and truly feel better about yourself after shopping!

Promotion ends March 14th.

Tennis: I'm going to Palm Springs!!

Finally, after living in SoCal for close to 5 years, I'm going to attend the Indian Wells tournament. Federer, Nadal, Roddick, Del Potro, Agassi, Sampras, Graf, Davenport, Clijster, Henin, Sharapova....and the list goes on. It's used to be called Pacific Life Open, now it's called the BNP Paribas Open. But still, it's one of the biggest tournament worldwide, right after the 4 grandslams. The best of the best players gather and the ginormous sum of prize money makes this one of the most coveted tournament. Though, it's known to produce unexpected winners, and the Williams sisters won't be there b/c of a certain "incident" ( you can google it if you want to, it's been discussed way too much with no clear conclusion, so no point for me to revisit the subject).

I'm excited though, oftentimes players debut new outfits. Sharapova will be there, so hopefully she decides to debut one of her new clothes, if not I'll have to wait till Miami. Watching her choices sometimes is half the fun.

I'm also looking forward to seeing good tennis, and feel the impact of balls being struck live. The impact and the force provides an incomparable experience than TV. It really puts you in perspective of how hard and how agile these professional players are. It's one of those moment that makes you rethink things, things we might have said in front of a TV, perhaps along the lines of "Man, I can do that" or "How can they miss THAT?!!"

I'll try to take pictures and put them here, it'll be a good photo journal for myself also. 4 more days...

I called it!!!

Back in January, when I saw a drop dead stunning dress on the Armani Prive runway, I wrote, in quotes, "Some please wear this to the Oscars". And voila, two months later, the same dress (picture here below) appears on the Oscar's red carpet being worn by none other than Jennifer Lopez!!! She was a pure vision in this dress, last night I asked for drama on the red carpet and this dress and Ms. Lopez herself embodied a blend of drama and elegance. The shape is dramatic while the pale color anchors it, and not to mention, the fabric is out of the world.

The post I wrote about this dress is from January titled "the ridiculousness of couture". I'm gonna pick her as my favorite red carpet look of this year's Oscars, hands down, although there are quite a few close seconds.

I'm too tired to write a review of the red carpet now, and a million other bloggers have already done so, I'm just going to wait, and instead of writing a review about the red carpet looks, I'm going to write a review about how right-on or how dead-wrong are some of the "critics", that sounds a million times more interesting to me.

Fashion: Oscar, the night before

I wish I can do a pictorial preview/prediction of tomorrow's epic red carpet, but it's too late and it's my 4th post today, so I must keep it short and jump in bed quickly.

All in all, hopefully I'll see some real drama on the carpet tomorrow. Last year's Oscar red carpet was far too tame and conservation, it's the mother of all red carpet and it deserves some over the top (but sensible) glamour and a true celebration of unapologetic and idealized hollywood extravagance.

Hopefully it won't be dominated by Galliano, Valentino, Versace, De la Renta, some new faces could be nice, but the power of red carpet to catapult new designers to superstardom nowadays is questionable, but still, seeing someone taking a chance would be nice. My vote goes to Carey Mullegan to wear something/someone surprising.

So bring on the ruffles, the cleavage, the see-through, and the ridiculously long train, and the bold colors, and the glitz and glam, also the "worth enough to buy a house in beverly hills" jewelry. Wear all those, smile to your fans, and fake clap to the person who had just beaten you, and don't forget to mention the earthquake victims of Haiti, Chile, and Taiwan.

Fashion: Paris FW10 Victor & Rolf

Clothes that transform - coming straight from the "Glamour Factory"

For this season, the design team of Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren put on a spectacular show. The theme was clothes that possesses duality, and it was displayed on stage where a model wearing multiple layers of clothes walks down the runway, and then the designers start stripping layers and layers off of her and put it onto other girls who'd then work it down the catwalk also. The point was to show that clothes can be theatrical and then practical at the same time.

The crazy version is transformed into barely recognizable revision of its old self, all with just a few pulls and twists; they were glamorous and wearable garment that are ready for production. The result left me flipping through the shots on style.com back and forth multiple times dying to figure out how it was done. This is an occasion where livefeed or video would have been greatly appreciated and justified.

All in all, I believe the show was truly amazing (even though apparently they've done this going on stage trick before). But the clothes were good, not great. The theatrics were there although the transformed products weren't exceptional (maybe it's because of the constraints of needing to be transformable).

Here are some shots, maybe you can also go on style.com and let me know when you figured out how it was done:

Tom Ford begins work on his own Womenswear line

This is exciting news. His talent and his style helped revive Gucci back in the early 2000s and now he is going to create his own woman's line. This must be great news for retailers and fans everywhere.

I think he will offer the same classic sexiness and sophistication we've seen in his Gucci collections. It will be feminine, luxurious, but I also think it will be younger without the constraints of Gucci's clientele. His name is almost a substitute for cool, sexy, and luxury; but I'm hoping now that he is on his own and deciding to come back from other interests, his clothes will be fresh, and desirable, which is almost a guarantee. Plus, his venture into photography and film since Gucci definitely adds artist creds to his name. This sort of association is much needed in today's fashion circle (in order to attract the newest bunch of fashionistas who are also artist wannabes). It's no longer just beautiful clothes, it also need a point of view or artistic reference, it's all about a story (collection) that has substance behind the clothes and the person making the clothes (ideally the clothes SHOULD be synonymous to its designer anyway...)

He had mentioned back in October that it should take about 18 months for the final product to be presented. So it's time for the Tom Ford fans to start marking their calendars. I'm definitely intrigued.

Review of FW2010 NYFW coming soon

I have to write this entry to remind myself to do the review soon. I can't believe I missed the whole NYFW without writing anything about it, I owe it to myself to pick out the next trend and give my own two cents.

Gotta do it soon...some designers that I thought did well: Marc Jacob, Vera Wang, Thakoon, Prabal Gurung, Altuzarra, Proenza...etc

When Tennis meets Fashion: Sharapova French Open Dress: What I think

Right here are two rumored dresses that Sharapova will be wearing for the 2010 Roland Garros. Although I'm not a big fan of her tennis (though sometimes I feel like her when I'm playing, can't put a serve in while my groundstrokes are rocking), I AM a fan of her fashion choices (most of them at least, just don't remind me of that mess of a swan dress at Wimbledon...eek). I think she gets ridiculed for trying to be daring, but IMO, her daring is far better than some other's crazy and some other's boring.

Since most of y'all have probably seen this picture somewhere, I won't write down what it's made of and all the PR blah blah blah; I'm just going to say how much I like the first one and why I'm ambivalent about the second one.

The first wrap dress is simpler, black and silver has a certain chic factor to it, and I like the fact that silver is the base color instead of black, which makes the dress look lighter. The proportion is dead on with a certain Origami feel to the pleating and roughing. The waist is cinched while the length looks perfectly balanced. It's important for wrap dresses to have good proportion in order to not look like two pieces of fabric wrapped around you. This dress is the quintessential party dress, so hopefully Sharapova will be mostly celebrating while wearing this at the French. The neckline seems pretty and it gives off a certain maturity and class. BUT, this dress has the potential to be a disaster in real life; the volumn might look nice on paper, but it come off as overly fashion-y and pretencious on court. The downfall for a fashion forward tennis dress is that the moment it crosses the line and stop being believable as sportswear, that's when it loses respect (despite how great it is) and waves of criticisms will crash the shore like a giant tsunami. So good luck with this one, b/c I really like it.

And the second dress, well..I'm "meh" about it. I see how they're continuing the print motif, which is important because it's now a Sharapova "collection". But, since the first version at AO got some serious mixed reviews, I'm not sure if I like this one also. The color choice is indeed far better, and I like how it creates the illusion of a wrap dress, but the print still reminds me of wallpaper, this time it's just looks like a 5 years old's room. The curvature on the front panel will either gives off a slim figure, or it'll just make Maria's body looks twisted. The purple looks a little too 80's (at least three seasons too late, and for Maria, who's "fashion-ed", this can count as a crime to her fashionistas supporters). Besides being 80's ish, the color isn't dark enough, and it makes the fabric look cheap. I also don't think Maria should wear speghetti straps anymore. She has gained muscle mass around her shoulder since her superstar arrival to the tennis scene in Wimbledon 2004, and a big shoulder will only be more obvious to the eyes in a pair of speghetti straps.

So yea, all in all, these are two solid dresses that is definitely Maria-esque, and it should do well along with her Tiffany & Co. earrings. I'll have to wait to see the 2nd one worn by her until I can make a more concrete judgement.

I'll probably write a review on Serena's FO outfit soon.

Billie Jean King Showdown @ Madison Square Garden

The 2nd annual BJK showdown will take place tonight, March 1st, @ Madison Square Garden!

The venue which host a long history of tremendous sporting events will once again feature the finest women tennis players in the world and great tennis can be expected from Clijster, Ivanovic, Kuznetsova, and Venus Williams! It will be an one night only event featuring one-set matches to reach the final and then a best of three set match to decide the champion.

If you have HBO, then make sure to tune in tomorrow night, specific air time and schedule can be found on www.hbo.com



Personally I think the finall will be Clijster over Venus in three sets, or at least that's what I hope will happen.

Venus Williams repeat Dubai-Acapulco double

For the second year in a row, Venus Williams wins Dubai and Acapulco back to back. Although Acapulco is a smalller tournament with lesser known opponents, it was still a tough assignment for Venus given the 11 hours time difference and the abrupt surface change from hardcourt to clay.

So congratulation to Venus again!