On The Move…

Prada FW 10 featured beautiful cropped knits like this... (Source: Men.style.com)

and this! (Source: Men.style.com)

 I *heart* <3 the cropped sweaters at Prada – can’t wait to try them on in just nine months or so!

That is, if I can get over my annoyance at noticing that despite a massive cast of some 50 male and female models at the show, Prada didn’t seem to have cast a single non-white model.  Not one black or Asian model that I could see, and I did look.  Very disappointing, given all the attention the industry has given to diversity on the runway and the progress that seems to have been made (especially in editorial and campaign work, in my estimation). 

Doubly disappointing given that for years Prada has been notoriously lacking in diversity on the runway but after several years of increasingly bad press the house had very visibly cast a couple of black and Asian models these past few seasons.  This feels like a terrible regression. 

I can understand, accept and even welcome tokenism, so for a cast of 50 to not have a single non-white model is really difficult to accept, especially given that the show had no discernible theme that demanded an all-white cast (and in any case even the “we had to fit with the designer’s inspiration” argument has it’s limits, with the visually poignant counter-argument in John Galliano’s FW 09 show which was inspired by “frozen Ukrainian brides” yet featured not just icy-blonde and blue-eyed Eastern European-types who made up almost the entire cast of 31, but also Chanel Iman–half black and half Korean–looking stunning…  dressed as a frozen Ukrainian bride).  And never mind that Asian consumers in Japan, China and elsewhere are probably Prada’s largest and most profitable customer base.

I’m kind of peeved, but wish I could pick Miuccia Prada’s mind about this.

PS:  The Prada runway show probably could have benefited from more flattering lighting – as in the photos above, all the models looked harshly lit and kind of sickly.

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Chanel Iman at John Galliano FW 09 (Source: Style.com)

 In case the make-up, clothes and styling don’t seem particularly flattering on Chanel in the above picture, go see the pictures or YouTube videos of the full show and you’ll see that she looked just as good as the other models and fit right in.

The big Christmas to New Year’s holiday season is barely over and marketing has already shifted gears to focus on the next big date: Feb 14.  Of course, this year that’s both Valentine’s Day and also the first day of the lunar new year, so it’s big.

Today at 10pm, after an entire day of almost no food, I speed-walked a good mile to the nearest not-so-nearby McDonald’s and ordered a Mega Prosperity Burger upsized meal (and various other things, but we can leave that aside for now).  It’s a giant, double-beef-patty long sandwich with black pepper sauce and fresh onions, but that’s not the point.  The point is that it’s a Chinese/Lunar New Year offering that’s been launched even as Starbucks is still serving special holiday treats and I saw maintenance workers just starting to take down the boughs of faux holly in the mall.

And then yesterday I bought my first Louis Vuitton trinket of 2010, an adorable and probably utterly impractical coin purse/clutch shaped like a chicken!!  It’s part of the new Animaux collection that’s apparently meant to commemorate Valentine’s Day… and the collection was launched worldwide on 1 Jan 2010.

Source: ilvoelv.com

Isn’t it fantastic??  I *heart* hens!  Actually, there’s a more attractive “songbird” version in a lovely blue colour, but I had to get the chicken… of course!!  The LV website hilariously tries to justify this piece of frivolousness (after all, it’s based on toy animals that the Vuitton family used to make, supposedly) based on it’s practicality.  First of all, it’s called a “Bird Clutch”, as if it has any possibility of serving as an evening clutch bag – this is an item that would be hard pressed to hold a box of tic tacs, no joke…

From the LV website:

Inspired by the wooden toys from the 1950s found in our archives, the Bird Clutch is a playful design in glossy Monogram Vernis leather. A delightful gift idea as either a coin purse or a bag charm.

Size: 4.9″ x 4.5″ x 0.4″

-Large capacity for coins
-Room for several credit cards
-Golden brass chain to hook the coin purse to a D-ring
-Foam under patent leather for extra softness

PRODUCT ID: M91406

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Let me state for the record that I just tried, and not even one single standard sized credit card will fit in this “clutch”…  but I still love it!  And I guess many other people agree with me, because the hen is already out of stock online (on Jan 3), while the songbird is still available.

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In the past three days I’ve just about finished three books, so we’re off to a good start, at least.  And in three totally different genres too – a light-hearted breezy read about the world of fashion by a fashion journalist (The Meaning of Sunglasses), a pensive/sombre novella by Kazuo Ishiguro (A Pale View of Hills), and hopefully tonight I will wrap on the thoughtful critique of Harvard by former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 (Excellence Without a Soul).

Reading the latter has really made me yearn anew for years past.  Or perhaps it’s just the comfortably fuzzy embrace of rosy nostalgia.

First lesson of the new year – don’t leave bottles of champagne in the freezer.  Whoops, I’m rather embarrassed I didn’t know that.

Other disappointment – I read just 11 books last year…  less than one every month!   There’s a ready-made resolution.

Marina Bay fireworks as seen over the Esplanade from the Padang (1 Jan 2010)