So to open the September Issue of Vogue America to have seen a McQueen advert for the first time brings a smile to my face. It just immediately stands out. There’s fairytale, there’s melancholy, there’s life and death. The image is supernatural and ethereal at the same time. It’s unlike the sterile and religious Ads on every other page.

This continuation of the McQueen drama from the catwalk is a step well-taken. Sometimes the stubborness of a designer can be a truly admirable thing that is crucial in keeping the integrity of the house. But at times stubbornness can turn feudal and lead a brand to the cliff — for example in the case of artist Christian Lacroix.

And McQueen should be grinning and nodding behind the clouds now, having seen Sarah Burton not fayring so badly so far. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

Bride

1. Start with clean, fresh skin. Even out skin tone with Corrector, Concealer and Foundation.
2. Sweep Ivory Eye Shadow all over the lid.
3. Apply Rockstar Metallic Eye Shadow on the lower lid.
4. Blend Slate Eye Shadow into the crease.
5. Line upper and lower lash lines with Black Ink Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner, making sure that the top line is thicker than the bottom.
6. Brush on two coats of Black No Smudge Mascara.
7. Smile and sweep Pale Pink Blush on the apples of the cheeks.
8. Dust Pink Quartz Shimmer Brick high on the cheekbones.
9. Apply Sandwash Pink Lip Color on lips, followed by Crystal Gloss.

Maid of Honor

1. Begin by applying Corrector, Concealer and a little bit of Foundation for beautifully even skin.
2. Warm up the face with a skin-tone-correct Bronzer.
3. Sweep Bone Eye Shadow across the entire lid.
4. Apply Long Wear Cream Shadow in Ash on the lower lid only.
5. Perfectly define the eyes with Long Wear Gel Eye Liner in Black Ink on the top and bottom lash lines.
6. Open and curl the lashes with two coats of Lash Glamour Extreme Lengthening Mascara.
7. Play up the cheeks with Blush in Sand Pink.
8. Softly brush a Highlighter Pen high onto the cheek bones for added definition and shimmer.
9. Apply Blondie Pink Lip Color on the lips, followed by Confetti Lip Gloss.

Mother of the Bride

1. Start by giving the skin a clean, natural glow with Corrector, Concealer and Foundation.
2. Apply Bone Shadow from brow to lash line.
3. Keep the eyes beautifully natural by sweeping Long Wear Cream Shadow in Cement across the lower lid.
4. Define the upper lash line with Long Wear Gel Eye Liner in Caviar.
5. Finish the eyes with two coats of No Smudge Mascara in Black.
6. For the perfect pop of color on the cheeks, try Blush in a fresh shade like Apricot.
7. Lips are kept soft and natural with a swipe of Brownie Lip Color.

Enough. Said.

The porn back then was different to what the internet offers now. It wasn’t entirely based on the male vision.  The woman wore beautiful clothing. A be-bowed silk blouse and a camel a-line skirt. Hair glued sleekly to her skull. Red lips. Demure white heels. She would throw her head back, and looked thoroughly unaware of being filmed. It was sensual, real, and if the film was a perfume, it would have smelt of sex and passion. The porn nowadays would just smell of plastic. Cheap, mass produced plastic. Father’s porn was the sexual education I never received. I’m glad it was good education.

Next door to father’s VCRs were mother’s perfume collection. I toyed with the perfume more openly. Almost a hundred viles, bottles and tubes were housed in a delicate plastic drawer inside the cupboard.

Mother forbade me from spraying the perfume. So I always headed to the cupboard, picked out the bottle which stood out most prominently and quickly uncapped it and spritzed.

It was a tall one. It looked like a pillar in Roman architecture. It was gold capped with amber liquid inside. I loved the tangy smell. It was a deep, deep orange. It smelt as if somebody’s just eaten an orange inside the interiors of a vintage Rolls Royce. I remember I felt incredibly sophisticated.

With Pierre Aulas encouraging me to buy that “bottle” I have been thinking about for weeks now. (“You smell it once, put it away and literally don’t go back and smell it until at least a month later. If you’re still thinking about that, go back and try it again. If it evokes the same emotion as it did a month ago, go for it.”) I ran out the door to buy a Mitsouko parfum today. I showed it to my mother.

Mother brought out a box (she stowed away the entire perfume collection a while ago, I have no idea why), and there it was, the Caleche. Almost twenty years on, I finally know that the tangy perfume I’ve been secretly spraying myself with, is the legendary Hermes Caleche.

I immediately sprayed some of the amber elixir on my wrist. I lament that the top note has evaporated and I can no longer smell that familiar orangy scent. Nevertheless, it feels good to be reunited with something I’ve missed for so long. Caleche still makes me feel sophisticated. Aulas is right.

I knew I’d have to call time on some of them.

This afternoon I finally did the unimaginable. Out came the vintage Bally shoes. Out came to 50s circle skirt. Many of the purchases that reflected craftmanship, history and good taste went straight to the display cabinet. Out came the Primark top. I remembered the day: in the Hammersmith branch of the store, the princessy hue of this T-shirt drew me towards it. It had two ribbons sewn across the T-shirt. Vertical to the ribbons, some fringed threads fell freely from the “eyelids”. And the T-shirt was a very romantic face. Pink face, long, seductive eyes. It reminded me of the face of a cabaret dancer.

Today it doesn’t look so seductive. One button has fallen off from a row on the back. The long lashes are disorientated. At best, the cabaret dancer’s face looks like a failed and forgotten artist, whose battle with drugs has always been futile.

I have to let it go. Our times were good.

What I can’t believe is, after three hours of unpacking, half of the boxes actually ended up in the bin. There are H&M purchases that no longer fit. There are Zara shirts that I don’t even remember existed. There are shoes that I bought because they looked “cool”. There are items that were uncomfortable, wrong, disgraceful.

“Why did I buy them in the first place?” I pondered.  And what Lily Cole said in a Guardian interview suddenly dawned on me. “BUY LESS, PAY MORE”.

Ever since I got back to Hong Kong, it is amazing how little I have purchased for the past year. Of the several items I bought, they were so BLOODY expensive that I had no choice but to really care for them. I know I will love them to no end no matter which corner of the earth my wild soul takes me to. Without knowing what I was doing, Lily Cole has summed it up for me.

I now think I deserve the best. Not the half arse stitches that exploited workers in India toiled away their days and nights to sew. Not the bargain fabrics that Primark, or Giordano’s minuscule budget allowed. My wardrobes only have room for love, and not grotty items that have child labour written all over them.

The pint size boutique sells self-designed bags, shoes and boots plus vintage jewellery sourced from America. I bought a pair of red patent pointy heels with an interwoven toe cap. Brilliantly made. Although no half size available for this authentically designed heel, Toot Toot made to order one for me.

Off to the other side of the shop are shelves with beautiful clipped on earrings. They have alarmed me enormously to a glaring old hole in the fashion stratosphere du jour:

Note that 70s is coming back in full swing: off-palettes, wide legged trousers, psycho colour blocks etc etc. One that is missing from the agenda are CLIPPED ON EARRINGS. The key is maximalism, stud full of blings, so stringy that it’ll distract from your abundant cleavage.

Now go on a rampage for clipped on earrings, now available from your mother’s jewellery box.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

Indeed. What bottle water are you? Mariah Carey famously requests Evian as her bath water. Evian is also available at London Fashion Week. Jennifer Aniston is the face of the Gatorade pure water. Over here in Hong Kong, Watson should be the choice for healthy and bright children, as seen on their city wide national campaign… What you drink as H2O isn’t a frivolous choice made between bottled and tap. Or that’s what the bottle water multinationals try to tell you.

Today during dinner mother and I discussed the ridiculousness of the price of designer handbags. Validity of this discussion is amplify by the fact that we have both acquired authentic designer bags from trusted source (ie the brands themselves) at rock-bottom, or rather “value prices”.

My mother owns a red quilted chanel in calf leather (sans chains), bought at the grand price of $1,900 (about £150) at a Chanel staff sample sales. The bag has seen 90% knocked of its tag. The bag is perfect, just as it should be on the Chanel boutique shelves. Except: the person who served her didn’t offer a glass of champagne or water, didn’t handle her bag in white servant gloves. The bag is no frills: $1,900 worth of leather, zip, clasp, threads and craftmanship. In my view, a price worth paying.

I owe a rather modern artifice. It possesses the kind of “new silhouette” goggledegoop that I’m a sucker for. After all, how many messnger bags and totes in variations of colours, materials and sizes can the wardrobe accommodate? It is the only piece of Phoebe Philo circa AW10 that I want, and you know the bag I’m talking about.

The shop which sold it was near Gough Street in Central. And rather unglamorously it situates towards the end of a wet market; where butchers sell beef in the glory of their open carcasses, fishmongers gut fish in the full view of padestrians. Nonetheless, the shop is unmistakably interesting.

In walk I, through shelves of pencil cases, purses, totes, messenger bags made out of recycled milk cartons (we don’t use plastic milk bottles here, rather a material like the UHT milk containers), newspaper and such. They are strengthened to weave like a Bottega Veneta bag, and they are in the range between $300 and $600. Owner of the shop Max Wong, also a designer, conceived the idea and decided to make these in his factories to sell too.

Max Wong’s factory also makes manufacture samples for Balenciaga, Alexander Wang and Céline. I don’t know how exactly does the fashion mights choose their factories, but I presume like any businessman would, they test out who’s the best fish on the market?

And from Max’s shop I spotted a squarish shopping bag in its lonesome, sitting on the shelf unloved. Mainly it is its princely $3,500 price tag comepared to the Pug bag (literally a bag shaped in the outlook of a pug) going for $380 that deters customers. But it is trying to grab peoples attention with its novel shape and beautiful design. A love affair is not to happen until now.

I inhaled its aromatic leather in its full glory. I caressed its sheepskin handlebar, its suede exterior, calf skin side finishing, and full sheepskin interior. The bag’s phermone intoxicated me. Houston, we have found heaven.

Back to a Céline boutique, the very same darling in canvas begins at $19,000. Would you say a shopping bag is worth 19,000 packets of pocket tissue? Or about 6000 apples? Or 2 cleaners for a month? Or 4 and a little bit domestic helpers for a month? You’ve got to be shitting me. No matter how much I love Philo’s designs or how successfully Céline has reinvented itself, god no.

Max Wong went on to tell me that it is a sample made for Céline. I didn’t follow up on whether what he said is true. He neednt tell me that. By the look of the bag: immaculate seams, excellent sewing techniques, perfect shape that holds up… It doesn’t need to be a Céline. Its the kind of craftsmanship I’m willing to pay $3,500 for. No more, no less.

Well, my newly acquired love can certainly accommodate a 2-ltr Evian. But at a restaurant I will still order tap water. And at 7-11 I will still buy home brand water on offer. Ask any chemists how different is H2O and H2O, and how easy it is to reincarnate the composition and taste of Evian locally without rocking up tragic “water miles” half way across the globe? Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

I had the pleasure of meeting with the styling queen of HBO a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I wasn’t articulate enough, or maybe she has already said it all with the gazillion interviews she has done with other media outlets. Nothing was worthy of reporting other than this:

1. What do you think of Santa’s outfit?

It’s a good colour.

2. Do you ever see Santa being an inspiration for the catwalk?

Jeremy Scott. His designs have been comedic.

Patricia Field, if you just youtube her, talks as if she has a swollen tongue and drags her words as if the keeeyyboooarrd isss stiicckkkyy anddd theee syylllabbllleess aarree long.

Which leads me to leave you on this note:

I am desperately in need of a large nose to suck in more juicy ideas into my already shrinking head because of the lack of stimulation (in the city).

“Oh my god I can’t believe people actually read my blog, that’s why I have half abandoned it.”

“Well, I’m guessing they do. Don’t abandon it. You can say whatever the fuck you want to say there.”

I remember why I got into fashion in the first place. It was its creativity and its constant evolution. Nothing is more fun being in London during fashion week: there are these junkies who’d put a negligee and a pair of military boots together and you’d think it is an outfit pulled out of a hat. Somehow, weirdly, it does look aesthetically pleasing.

Fashion in London is a two-way affair. While the catwalks massively influence what will be seen on the high streets, the fashion show goers in their own way affect what will be seen on the catwalk for the next season too. So it’s a good cycle: fashion lovers become fashion perpetrators. And those who feast on what’s available on the street without a question, well, they are perceived as followers. They are scavengers of the London style scene.

It’s completely different here. People get excited about something because they are made by Hermes (uck), Louis Vuitton (double uck) and Ed Hardy (uck to the power n).

A printed silk scarf from Hermes (note: for those who don’t know, the art of printing was invented in China THOUSANDS of years ago. Silk existed as a writing instrument WAY before paper surfaced), a Louis Vuitton monogram patent leather handbag (let me see, the last time I saw a patent leather handbag was 2 seconds ago, when I looked in my wardrobe and there were five)… So? These “news”, aren’t exactly “news” by any standard.

There’s no individual style here per se. Money, rather than the people at the receiving end of fashion, seems to be the perpetrator of “trends”. The media goes at length to dig their heads in the sand (even fill their heads with it) in order to convince themselves a $200 plastic watch can’t be cool because it’s made of petroleum derivative, not of endangered animal or rare metal that money approves of.

Take the example of Juicy Couture. What’s the difference between a pair of cotton stretchy pants and a pair of cotton stretchy pants? They are the same until the first pair was sold at Times Square at an elevated price of one wozillian dollars, while the second was at an outlet somewhere in Wanchai. So does the Juicy Couture store opening at Time Square deserves a mention? You tell me. I am only a lowly inexperienced journalist who has no idea what style means in Hong Kong. (Refer to paragraph six)

Now I might appear I despise money. I don’t despise it, nor do I worship it that my eyes are blinded by the aura of God. There are ways to earn money without ripping apart your integrity. There are ways to spend money without perpetuating a vicious circle (rich conglomerates get free press, newspaper runs out of space to cover a collection by a fresh grad, talented designer becomes visual merchandiser).

I’ll leave you on the note of what Elli Hakami (director of programme development at Discovery Channel USA, also a former BBC employee) has to say about attitudes towards creativity in the UK and in the USA (capitalism model which Hong Kong thrives on)

“In the UK we talk about the most innovative programme we have come up with in the past year. In the US, we talk about what your end of year results were.”