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A strange thing happened to me last week. My phone morphed into a Cool Girl’s phone and was flooded with the numbers of cute boys from worlds both real and fictional. The power was overwhelming, and of course with great power comes great responsibility yadda yadda UNCLE BEN PARKER IS THE BOMB DIGGITY, and so I used this power responsibly: I texted. Most of them ignored me (I’m talking to you, George Clooney), and some just replied, “HU U?” But some of them were kind enough to hold a proper text conversation and for this I will forever be grateful.

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But now my phone is back to normal and I am back to being uncool and only slightly delusional. Carry on with your lives, everyone. Carry on.

Big hugs,
Marla

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When I was in high school, I was always thinking of ways to get my mom and dad to give me allowance on breaks. My brothers and I tried working at our laundry shop (listing down the clothes that came in by kilo) and though we caused more confusion than anything, I learned a very good lesson. That you need to work hard to earn good money.

Last week, Marla and I were invited to be judges at the RSSI League of Fashion’s culminating event at Greenbelt 3. The participants proudly strutted down the makeshift runway in outfits they styled themselves. Look how cute they all look:

Basically, they spent their summer interning at the different RSSI stores: Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Warehouse, Topman, and Ben Sherman. They learned all about sales (they were given a quota per day), online marketing (who gets the most friends to like the different brands’ Facebook Pages), style (they took photos of their outfits and sent it to the people at RSSI), and even got to star in a video made by blogger David Guison.

All of them said they enjoyed their summer spent interning with RSSI and most of them would consider a career with them in the future.

Pretty cool way to spend your vacation, right? Would you join the League of Fashion if you had the chance?

Love,
Macy

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Here’s me with Stephie, Sam, and Roch at the photobooth last Friday (Photo: mypicme.multiply.com)

Hi everyone! Jed here, and I’m beyond excited to be joining the Candy team as your new fashion and beauty assistant. It was also great to have met some of you guys at the Candy Style Awards last week!

For today, I’d like to talk about tomorrow. Tomorrow just so happens to be that extraordinary day in the year when, if you’re a fashion geek like me, your social media feeds will no doubt be inundated with news and photos of fashion people at the Met’s Costume Institute benefit gala. I’d like to think of the Met Ball as very much like prom—with the same amount of bright-eyed anticipation, only with less drama de jeunesse and more powerhouse fashion.

This year’s exhibition is called Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations. I’ve never made the Schiap-Prada connection before, but the Met’s articulation of their parallels is strangely illuminating. The two women designers, after all, have a trademark penchant for, among others, trompe l’oeil and surrealist fashion, and a definitive, avant garde sense of “ugly chic” that reconfigures the eye on what’s new and next in fashion. Prada once said, “I fight against my good taste.”

One of my favorite surrealist moments in recent Prada history is Chinese filmmaker Yang Fudong’s First Spring, a fashion mini-movie that coincides with the Prada menswear Spring/Summer 2010 ad campaign.

A still from Yang Fudong’s First Spring (Photo: Prada)

I like how this one scene can bring to mind many things at once: Mary Poppins, the documentary film Man on Wire, René Magritte’s “Golconde”—all set circa Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.

In the Mood for Love (2000) starring Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung (Photo: USA Films)

“Golconde” (1953) by René Magritte (Photo: The Menil Collection)

One of the things I really love about fashion are the momentary references to art (and sometimes music, cinema, and literature). One of my favorite fashion images as of late is this picture, from Vogue’s “The Cult of Beauty” editorial last December.

Saoirse Ronan in Balenciaga, styled by Grace Coddington (Photo: Steven Meisel/VOGUE)

The image is a reference to “Ophelia”, a pre-Raphaelite painting by Millais. It depicts Ophelia’s drowning in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

“Ophelia” (ca. 1851-52) by Millais (Photo: Tate London)

If you’ve seen Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, you might also recall this scene with Kirsten Dunst in her wedding gown, half submerged in murky waters.

Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia (2011) (Photo: Nordisk Film)

For me it’s endlessly fascinating how a fashion image can at once seem serene and romantic, yet with a such macabre underpinning. It’s fighting against good taste, almost, to showcase a sparkly, pailette-emblazoned Balenciaga in such an ominous setting, with withering botanicals to boot. Yet it works—see, it haunts me still five months after its publication.

Then again I guess that’s essentially the power of a great fashion picture. Beyond cute clothes and celebrity-driven micro trends, what it does is capture the various universes of one’s interests, making it all the more inspiring to dress up.

How about you, what’s your fashion story? Share it with me at the comments section below, or tweet me @jedgcandy!

Jed

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Hey Candy Girls!

Hailing from the realm of Interns, your guest speaker today is Arianne! I’ve been working with the Candy Team for two weeks now, and having said that, it is my great honor to be able to say that they let me attend a press conference today, at the Eastwood Richmonde Hotel.

Are any of you KPOP fans?

I hope so! Because I’m about to give you a short account of my first Press Conference, Jay Park’s.

He’s really sweet, you know? He joked around with his sponsors on stage, took a formal shot and a whacky shot with each big representative that was called on stage. A lot of his fans call him a little boy trapped in a 23-year old body, I could really see why!

He also talked about life as an idol – he said that being an idol was difficult because he had to do things on his own, sing entire songs on his own and it took strenuous tolls on his health. But at the same time, he said it was enthralling, because having been given the creative freedom to do as he pleased, he felt that he could truly express himself as an artist. Ah, he was so professional and smooth!

He also said that if he had the time, one of the things he’s really wanted to do is check out the Filipino night scene. See what hip hop is like here, and how many people he can touch with his music. And to everyone who aspires to become a Hallyu Idol like Jay, he said to always work hard and never give up on your dreams.

The interesting part about that last paragraph was that I asked both questions that garnered those answers, and today I learned that I throw words out like pullets of a shotgun when I’m nervous! He told me to slow down, and he laughed. But hey, at least I got him to laugh. ^^;;

At the end of the 12-minute press conference, there was another photo op, and while everyone hounded the stage, I stood back a bit. The best part? I called out – “JAY!” – and shot my hand up to call his attention, and I got this~

Looked me straight in the eye(lens), and snap! ^^ Honestly the best experience ever. Thank you, Candy!

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Hi, Candy Girls!

Are you all set for the Candy Style Awards? We’re all so excited and all of us here at the Candy HQ are just as anxious as you are about what we’ll be wearing on that day. Of course, with fashion dilemmas comes beauty ones too. Have you girls decided on how you’ll wear your makeup? I know I’m excited to try my new beauty babies for the event!

I can’t wait to use the Finding Mr. Bright kit from Benefit. (Check out their new branch at Rustan’s in Shangri-la Plaza!) I’m not really a fan of too heavy eye makeup and would like to just have luminous and glowing skin for the event. This kit will definitely do the trick!

How about you, girls? Are you all set for the #CandyStyleAwards this Friday?

See you there,
Steph

P.S. The ticket is included in your May issue with the super cute Mario Maurer on the cover.

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