comfort clothing; once you go black, you'll never go back

To me, having a little black blouse in your wardrobe is as much important as having a little black dress. Especially if you're not so much as a dress gal, then blouses or tops can be a nice alternative.

Black is a universal color, no one can doubt that. I don't know a person who doesn't love/own blacks in their wardrobe. Well, you don't exactly call it 'love'. I know that if I were to choose between a variety of colors, I would always look at the blacks first to see if the suit is nicer in black in color. You just...choose. Black is a safe option. And anywhere else, black means chic and sophisticated, and people tend to be more creative around this color.

Which is one of the reasons why, eventhough black isn't my favorite color, my wardrobe do seem to pile up on them.


I went into TESCO again, ventured into their clothing section again, got my eyes on one thing or two...same old, same old. This one was a new arrival back then. I was a bit in the mood to find some basics but with a slightly new tinge in it. I mean, I love my blacks and my whites and my browns, but I do think that I need to pay more attention on the details and the fabrics to avoid my choice of basics being too plain. That's the thing I learn (out of observation) that if you're going to buy blacks, make sure it has elements!


I never owned a blouse like this, eventhough I know that for quite some time I wish I had. I was a bit of a dress disciple back then to appreciate the fact that a nice, black blouse could be a savior in the closet as well. Just as chic and cute looking on. And as usual, the details and the fabric sold me. It is made out of chiffon material so eventhough it's black, I know I won't be melting in a blazing hot day. And I particularly like the V cut on the neck, the little cuffs on the sleeves and the elastic at the waist. It's the later part that caught my attention.

It's original price is RM69.00, marked down until it's RM34.50. I admit that it is still a cringing lot of money for TESCO but I think that the making of it does compensate for the price that I have to pay.

... insert sheepish-guilty look.

And with the classic black, came the compulsive need to pile on the accessories.

Black blouse: TESCO
Jeans: F.O.S
Necklace: Sunway Pyramid Asian Avenue
Ring: Chamelon KLCC
Watch: Vincci
Sling bag: Miss Selfridge

Love, Faith..and Other Drugs.

Okay, I know. Cheesy title pick, with an even more cheesier entry that I'm about to make.

I consider myself a girl that loves everything that other girls love and do. And what girls don't like themselves a little bit of accessories? I've not yet reached the level to own Tiffany & Co, but with my future set out, God-willing I will get there soon. But for the time being, I am most satisfied with gems in Diva, Accessorize, Chamelon and even little shops in Asian Avenue, Sunway Pyramid, little kiosks anywhere. If you look out properly, you will definitely not be disappointed. In my case, it's always whether some accessory is cheaper than the other.

I love simplicity in things, but I like following the trends too. Currently I've been meaning to get myself a feather necklace. Feather earrings are to die-for in my opinion, but since I wear scarves over my head, that would be completely pointless. I've eyed one or two in Forever 21 in stores but always get the goosebumps to wear it. I mean, wouldn't it look too much on me? I know my conservative mother would agree, and my friends have frowned on my choices before. So, as for now, I am saving myself to find the perfect simple feather necklace, if there is one out there (hopefully!)

Eventhough I don't pick-and-choose stores to go to when finding accessories, half of my dressing table do seem to pack on things from Forever 21. One of the reason is because they have massive collections, and often changed according to seasons. The other is because, despite them being an oversea brand, they are fairly cheap. Well, compared to Vincci Accessories, where their stuffs tend to start with RM 39.90 being the cheapest. I would only go to VA when they're having their 50% and above, which they did recently and I've finally secured myself some stuffs from them. But with Forever 21, I could count on finding things for RM10 in their jewellery section. And when they go on sale, the jewellery section to me swelled like Charlie's Chocolate Factory. At least in my Penang store, they did. I spent 4 hours there recently.

Does that make me sound like I prefer an International brand over a local brand?

Yes. No.

Well, arguments aside, one of my fave accessory from them has been this babe;



I call this my 'Love & Faith' necklace, I got this not too long ago. I prefer my accessories to be 'gold' or rusty gold. I could seldom find good accessory in silver color, my style. This necklace right here has been my go-to necklace for quite some time, and I'm very fond of wearing it against a white/black beater.

One thing I'm not liking about this necklace is the straps (is that what you call it?) I hate the little ball things where you have to clasp everything together, it reminds me of keychains on my schoolbag from years ago. Still trying to find the right chain (chain! that's it, not straps!) to go with it.



On another note, I did make my 4 hours trip to Forever 21 well worth it when one of the things that I scored is this necklace;

When I first bought it, I thought it was a just a nice brown stone necklace. It's not until I got home that I realized the green lining in the middle of the cut-stone and around it. This necklace comes with three colors- a black, brown and turquoise. The black was classic but I figured it would be pointless against LBDs, black tops or whatever. the turquoise was pretty but something made it a little meh on me. Besides, I'm quite picky when it comes to branching out in colors. imagine if this one comes in hot pink?

On second thought, hot pink is not bad either :-)

If you can't tell from the above picture, the cut in the middle of the stone bears a different texture from the rest of the stone. It is, to put in my own fabulous description, rusty, somewhat sandpaper-like.

...which is clearly seen in flash mode.

Hopefully I'll get enough wear out of this one. I have to be careful though, it does looks like it's delicate.

Handsome lonely bear sitting in the corner.

White beater: F.O.S
Black sweater: MNG
Jeans: F.O.S
Necklace: Forever 21

comfort clothing; the fast and the furious

I always envied people who wear bold looking pants, ones other than the normal black/grey/khaki color. People who walked around in neon pink pants/jeans/shorts, or even lime green, electric blue...you name it, I have my eyes on it. But to actually pull one myself is something that I haven't started doing yet. Ignorance to know my waist size aside, I have always put my trust on jeans...jeans...and more jeans.

Well, I think sometime I have to walk the walk too.



I bought this pants from a dear friend of mine, Ayie, for RM20. She originally bought it from Fourskin, a brand that I have heard about but never really paid attention to. It is not of jeans material, but the quality is good. It's sturdy and the cut is very flattering on my legs. It is a bit long though, so does every other pants in my wardrobe that needs trimming.


Now, the question is, red? seriously?

Red is not my favorite color, nor do I hate it. To me, it is alright to wear red. My favorite color is purple. But do I want to wear purple pants? Not yet, to be honest. I've bumped into a purple skinnies while out shopping for a grey one (the story of everyone's life) and although the color looks very inviting, I was really hesitant to buy it. I went through the usual shoppers' guide in my head; what do I wear this with? how do I pull it of? do I have something in my wardrobe to go with it? will I look good in it?

I know that people won't go out shopping everyday for yellow, blue, or red pants. I would always try to find myself a good pair of jeans instead that I know I can wear everday. But I would always glance...and envied dutifully at the rack of colorful pants in store, and wondering when I would have the guts to slip one myself.

All I could say is that my friend has done me a sweet favour :)



An obligated mirror pose. This has always been the way I would wear the pants with. I didn't change much with the red pants going on as I still rely big time on the safe color black. But overall satisfaction? I'm glad I have this in my wardrobe now, I don't have to fully envy others from now on!

Red pants: Bought from friend/Fourskin
Black lace top: www.getgorgeous.com.my
Black cardigan: ROMP
Necklace: Forever 21
Sling bag: Ayie's gift/ Miss Selfridge

comfort clothing; old 'n' authentic

I have a confession to make; that just as much as I hoard places looking for makeup (even if it means ol' Chinese beauty saloons here in Penang), I can assure you that I hoard for clothing items in those places either. I have this tendency to scrouge places that I go to find gems (as a manner of speaking) and it always surprises me how they will turn out to be in my liking, even more than my ZARA or GAP purchases.

That's the beauty of fashion. You can always widen your horizon, in fact, minimizing your chances might not be a very good idea.

I wouldn't call what I have as 'fashion'. I humbly respect everyone's and anyone's taste of style and I agree totally that not two of us are the same in what we like to have on our back. But now, onto my point of 'scrouging places for gems'.

One of the places where I secretly like to find gems is, surprisingly, TESCO.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I downgrade that place for anything low quality. But I've always been to that departmental store just for the groceries, never would I thought of it as a place to, put it in my own words, scrouge for gems. But scrouge it, I did.


Yes, I know. This is the epitome of a granny blouse. I would totally rock it in the 80s if I have this on. I love this blouse because of the old vibe that it gives. The dark color and the big faded white roses makes it even more interesting looking. It is a bit pleated down the colar area and has a nice, gold zipper down the back that goes half way. The material of it is soft, and I'm not going to kid anyone by guessing what it made out of. I'm just going with the description that it is soft. Not the kind of soft that Downy adverts made them to be though.


Now, the first time that I saw it in TESCO, I knew that I love it. This was definitely one of my style, what I would wear. The price then was RM49.00. I did the normal "this is too expensive for TESCO," and despite that I like it so much, I didn't get it then. I waited, and the next time I was in TESCO, who would have thought? This gem was on the rack for 70%, making it only RM14.75.


The way I would wear it. This was a size M, so does every story tells when you're on sale and you couldn't find your size S or XS anymore. But that's okay. I just tucked it into my skinnies.

Granny blouse: Tesco
Long black cardigan: ZARA
Skinny jeans: Cats Whiskers
Gold watch: Vincci Accessories
Ring: The Curve Flea Market

the notebook

Now, I just want to say that I have absolutely no idea of what I am going to write here. Honestly, I know what I want to write but they all seem like bits and pieces mashed up together. It's like it is easier being played on and on inside my head instead of writing them down. Because I'm afraid no one really gets it, you know what I mean? I don't want to write too long till it's pointless but I want to send my message out too. This is something I've been putting off for a really, really, really long time but I wasn't sure if I want to. But recently, I've been having a lot of Avril's What The Hell moments to even count which is right or which is not supposed to be exposed. I guess this entry will fall onto neither; it'll become the epitome of this song.

Be warned, I might enter some serious issues-ramblings-issues-ramblings phase in the next few lines. Just hope the ramblings wouldn't surpass the issues.

I celebrated my birthday recently, on the 17th of July 2011. And with it comes the new perspective and new momentum in life that I wish to embrace and achieve, as should all of us once we're entering a new age/year in life. There are goals to reach for, and in my case I have an ocean of them.

So what have I learned from 22 years of living?

1. Be yourself. If you like something, say/buy/do it. There are many others but there is only one YOU.
2. Stand up for yourself. Depending on others, is the last thing that I want to do if I can help it. I'm the kind of girl that when I want something, I will have it even if I have to do it alone. However, I do see this as both strength and weakness. If I do things too much on myself, I will be seen as ignoring and shunning others from my life. But the thing is I hate asking for favors and be burdensome to someone else. I guess I'll have to work on this area even more. It clashes like hell, and making me seem like I have this weird split personality.
3. Love yourself. It's okay to love others or love others more than yourself, but you got to have some love inside of you saved for yourself as well. Love yourself enough to know that something is wrong, something shouldn't be done or some decisions shouldn't be made that will eventually hurt you. Remember that if you don't love yourself, no one will.
   
4. Think with the head, not with the heart. I have always been a firm believer of practicality and I have longed let myself be the slave of my emotions. This is a result of a hard fall out five years ago, and pieces by pieces I have to patch my heart back again. I would not want my heart to be overly consumed with emotions, especially anger and sadness and regrets.
   
5. Apologies to me do not mean that someone is always wrong, often time it means you're matured enough to not fight over things, to solve things smartly and to defend the friendship.
6. Do not fight fire with fire unless you're absolutely 100% sure that your friendship is going to sustain it.
7. Quality always overrides quantity. You can have one or two friends that make you happy rather than having a bajillion of them and none will come to you when you need them the most. I have experienced this. Be thankful to have a friend that is willing to do just about anything for you, forgive your biggest mistake that you've ever done to her, even if it is just ONE friend. Believe me, that will be one too many.
   
8. Count your blessings, instead of what you don't have. There's got to be something in your life that you hold dearly to, that will keep your feet on the ground. I think by this time, everyone who reads my blog knows that my little sister, Ariessa is a God-Sent to me. I could not express how much I love her. Every song is about her, every laughter is for her. And I have not yet begin exaggerating, believe me.
   
9. You could have everything, but still feel suffocated. What's important is you feel content with what you have.
10. In terms of love and relationship, what's important is not to stick to how long you've been together, rather how you spend the time that you've been together.
    
11. Do not change if you don't want to.
12. Do not, in any circumstances, hold grudges. It's terrible and it gets to you back. You have to forgive others in order for you to move on.
13. Know that you're beautiful, and very special in your own way. It doesn't matter if you're fat or skinny, you're still very beautiful. Tell yourself that first before others tell you.
    
14. Put God first. Come to think of it, this one should be the first on the list :)
15. Never be afraid of what others think. It is not your job to please everyone.
    

Now that we're done with the serious part, I'm going to the more fun, non-serious part. And I am lacking vocabularies here.

I have been going through phases in my life where I have not always like the way I am. I hate myself for being too skinny because everyone else seems to think that it is unnatural for someone to be too skinny. And yes, I get all the usuals. The teasings and the name callings never get better, I begin to see compliments as hidden criticism. One thing that people don't understand is that, people find it rude to point out a person's fatness but don't find it rude to point out a person of the total opposite. So for skinny people, people like me, are deprived of the safety blanket of common sense. Until recently, I haven't really embraced the fact that the scales that I step on wouldn't change. I would always be 40kg and less in weight. I am very thankful that now, I have learned to appreciate and accept the obvious fact that this is my body, if I hate it I wouldn't gain anything but if I love it I would be very happy.

Of which, everything being told, this blog might probably enter a new angle :)

That's all for now, Bai Semua =)