Cebu, November 26, Friday. Two days after the big debauchery that was the Lanvin collab, I found myself and a couple of press friends in the sunny resort of Shangri-La Mactan — sun, sea and afternoon cocktails — a polar contrast from the dark, cold pavement huddle that was my H&M experience. Of course, I’m in a totally different environment but it’s the same old lure that got me hook, bait and sinker. Fashion!
Cebu-based fast fashion brand What a Girl Wants presented its Spring Summer 2011 offering resort style (pardon the pun) in Cowrie Cove, the hotel’s beachfront bar. Not a typical name for a brand but it’s a one-stop shop for easy everyday pieces that won’t break the bank. In the season of spending and a time where even my bagel from Starbucks was “stolen” from the claim counter, money-conscious consumers are looking for ways to have more bang for their buck. If you’re a lookbook.nu fanatic, the pieces present themselves as a uniform stash for the hip and wanting hypes — at a very affordable range: mini-ruffled dresses, slouchy cardis, shrunken high-waisted tutus, graphic tops. It was very British hight street actually, for a quarter of the price, which just goes to show that with the right styling, a statement piece and some irreverent mash-up, local can actually look global.
New School
And speaking of some irreverence, a new school of style is on the rise. In place of the ubiquitous term “high/low,” the new word for the girl-in-the-know is “slow/fast.” I’m not describing the current insane, super frustrating state of road kill that is Manila traffic, but the mixing of two fashion disciplines. While high/low describes the price disparity as exemplified by British It girl Alexa Chung (who incidentally has a new show called Thrift America), who wears thrifted pieces with her eponymous Mulberry bags. Slow/fast, according to style.com, is the intellectual approach to stocking the wardrobe.
If you’re a brand, it could also mean hitting two different demographics at the same time. Slow means the eternal classics, the ones that come in tailored shapes, seasonless and trendless and meant to quietly ease into new decades. Fast are the diffusions, collaborations like the Lanvin and H&M one (promise this is the last you’ll hear of it), that cross over the designer label into new markets. Another example of pace contradictions: Tom Ford’s “no cameras allowed” return to Fashion Week, and Burberry’s live streaming of its Spring Summer 2011 collections.
Dying is Fine
While we’re at shifting gears, here’s another reworked concept — dying. Who would have thought that this macabre word that’s uttered in whispers, (like Voldemort), has suddenly become the new byword for cool. In an effort to raise awareness for World Aids Day and for the Keep a Child Alive organization, celebrities offered their online existence in a “Digital Life Sacrifice.” Nineteen celebrities from Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga stopped their Tweeting and Facebooking until fans donated one million to the charity. If you were as rabid and obsessed as some fans can be, how much would you pay to bring your idol back to life? As much as one can afford, I think. While that’s blatant proof that people can be so concerned about their celebrity gods but couldn’t care less about much else, the sum of all that effort still comes out to 19 million dollars. And all for a good cause too. Because last I checked, all 19 celebrities are “alive.” Cool concept though, really wished I thought of it.
I’d like to sacrifice my digital existence for charity, but then my life in cyberspace is almost non-existent. Supreme’s assistant editor Raymond Ang told me that I seriously need a Twitter account, but I’m scared that it might take over my life. Facebook in itself is a black hole of time, log in, and two hours later you’re still stalking your ex, that girl you hate and Liz Uy. I have enough work distractions as it is, maybe when I win P700 million pesos and I don’t have to sweat for the money, maybe I can finally update my blog, poke back, and tweet talk everyone into submission.