Apparel x Cafe: Tommy Bahama Cafe in Ginza :'D

Recently, popular brands in Japan have started introducing their own cafes and I visited one last week. Starting with Shiseido, SK II, L'Ocitane, cosmetic brands had had their cafes for a while! But recently apparel brands have joined in the fun too. Shops like Gelato Pique and Journal Standard have created their own cafes as well. What can be more awesome than sitting down to a nice meal after looking at (and/or buying) pretty clothes?! :D

I decided to check out Tommy Bahama's cafe with Saki last week, apparently it was like Hawaii in Ginza?!

(picture from Tabelog because I'd forgotten to take these haha)

There was a bar on the first floor in front of the men's section and the whole wood/stones and openness of the place made it feel like it it was a shack at the beach. 

I'm not really a beach person because I don't like getting sand in my shoes and getting my hair gunky in the sea breeze, but this place = enjoy the beach atmosphere without getting mucky. yay :D 

We got really excited and were like "omg this is so cool there's a bar there!! we should come here and chill at night!!!"  and then our stomachs growled and it became "uhm, wait, where's the cafe?"

Then we realised that it was on the second floor, right in the middle of the ladies' section. At first I thought the whole place was going to smell of burgers and whatnot but there wasn't a single bit of anything from the kitchen cool. o__o Okay enough of that. Picturrrres!

~chill~

I got a pulled pork burger with barbeque sauce. Came with lots of french fries *_* I don't know how I was able to resist eating it right away just to take pictures lol. It was kind of pricey though, I think it was like 1200JPY (like 15sgd?). But sooooo good.

That funky curly thing in the burger on top of the pork was was actually fried onions. It was so crisp and sweet and just went so well with the sauce and everything I don't even omg -gush- Halfway, I just started picking out the onions and eating them on their own hahaha.

My failed selfie D: And Saki's sultry look hahaha <3  seriously need to practice these more haha. But all is good, I think my face looks smaller cos it's cut off :'D

Backstage! Mercedes Fashion Week Tokyo pt 2

Continuing from where I left off in the previous post, I'm going to share about helping backstage at Atsushi Nakashima's show through a friend's introduction. Now, this was awesome :D I had the chance to see them rehearsing, willowy out-of-this-world models fooling around, and I even got to speak with the designer Nakashima himself (*____*)

-show off- HEHE be jealous!!

My friend Ai and I arrived 3 hours before the start of the show, and met with the girls who were going to help with the show. They were mostly students from fashion design societies and/or fashion students, I felt like a fashion student for a day too hahaha. 

We were brought up via the cargo lift, and when we got to the hall people were already busy setting up the show. Models were being rushed and fitted, tiles for the runway being laid, lighting people scaling the scaffolds etc. everyone had something on their hands. The person in charge of us was a no-nonsense Onesan and basically we were just trying our best not to get in the way while waiting for instructions and people were rushing around all over the place.

Then finally we received orders to help set up the benches and runway. So, carrying the benches to the runway and setting them in place right? Seemed like a pretty easy and 地味 ("jimi"<-plain and boring) job but even then, every thing was measured to perfection.

The gap between the runway and the bench, distance between one bench to another (60cm), everything was measured precisely with a tape and nudged into place so that nothing was even a millimetre off the line. Something about this precision and perfectionism was just so Japanese. Love it.

And then we were hustled back backstage and told that there was pretty much nothing for us to do for another half an hour and we could just stay put and observe the preperations. That means free for all oogling at pretty girls and hot guys and getting to see how they prepare for the shows up close!

Yup, that's No-Nonsense Onesan in a stylo navy blue jacket giving instructions. And the guy in the shiny blue shoes next to her, that's the designer Nakashima-san being chill.

omg she's coming she's coming!! -fumble snap: blur picture T_T- 

Those shades were so badass haha.

Right up to the last moment, Kaneko-san was smoothening out the creases of the silk shirt. Lol, a lady in charge was like "who can do ironing here?!" and I was secretly thinking "omg ironing is something not everyone can do uh *___*". And if you look closely at the back you'd see like a orange legginged-leg? That guy was like hemming away like mad til the last minute. Pre-show rush omg so awesome.

And then we were told that we were allowed to watch the final rehearsals! Whee!

See the cool board where the light is shining through from? I helped to set that up どや >:D

Checking how far forward to walk on the runway etc. lol they were like messing and joking around but when the lights went out and the music came on it was like bam! model-mode.

Unobstructed view ♥ 

I really loved the vibrant colours in this collection, and the shapes, and the 立体感 omg my English is failing me, haha. the 3D-ness? of the construction of some of the pieces was really awesome. Like there was this bodice that looked like it was weaved out of ropes or something, but it just looked so flattering and curvaceous o__o like the models boobs were weaved on and super perky or something o__o 

本番！

Backstage was a frenzy though, people were yelling ("HERE BENJAMIN! GET YOUR JACKET OFF!!"), fumbling for/with/to take off/get on clothes. No wonder the music has to be so loud lol.

We were also allowed into the audience during the actual show, and I also got to meet the peeps from CoFesta who came to see the show! I wanted so badly to come watch this show with them at first, but I'm so glad I decided to help out backstage and got to see all these cool stuff in the makings instead :'D The whole thing was over so quick though, and we had to take apart everything.

Rolling up the carpet! I thought the blue safety helmets were really cute haha, much cuter than the yellow ones you see in construction sites in Singapore anyway XD

 

And a picture with the girls :)) omg they were so cute. I need to diet. 

The model-wannabe in me couldn't help it hahaha 調子乗っちゃっいましたｗ Did I mention I love my short hair? :'D

I got to take home one of the goodie bags sponsored by Maybelline New York who did the hair/make up for the models too! :'D

So this concludes part 2 of my MBFW Tokyo post :'D Hope you guys enjoyed the peek backstage as much as I did. There's one last part to the fashion week events though! In which I watched a show outdoors with famous bloggers (!!!) whom I thought would be snobby or something but were actually really very nice and sweet and lovely people (*_*) 

Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Tokyo 2013 行ってきました♥

Warning: image heavy!

Omgosh last week was super crrrrazy awesome! Thanks to Esther, I signed up as CoFesta Ambassador where a small number (?) of students from overseas get to take part in cool events as an Important Person of some sort (this time we attended in as press and with overseas merchandisers haha) and the first event I attended was just last week: Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Tokyo! wooooohooo

In 3 days, I attended runway shows, worked backstage for a one (!!!), went to a buyer's show as press :x and met many awesome people :) (including Beckii Cruel, Miyake and the Yamada sisters!) Never would have gotten the chance if I didn't come to Japan. My head is still somewhere up in the clouds surrounded by pretty models trying to find its way back to earth haha. Going to school today was like :((( sad.

Oh well, on to the pictures! Sadly, I don't have camera so I was only able to snap pictures with my iphone that mostly turned out overexposed but here they are anyway :) It's all too much to stuff into a single post so I'll probably breakt it up into two or three.

Day One. RoomsLink! Nozomi Ishiguro's show. Press/Merchandisers exclusive hehe :D

This was the escalator of awesome. Everyone attending the event had to go through this escalator so watching this elevator was basically watching a fashion show already haha.

Waiting to go in! lots of people! 

Beautiful dimly lit stage complete with chill music. The collection itself was very interesting; it was like a mix of haute couture-y big dresses and casual street fashion sweaters and tees o_o

I really liked that outfit on stage but you can't see it in this picture >_< so I cheated and found it online. Stars and stripes + heart bodice! There were lots of stars and stripes in his collection, I wonder what's with that? haha. It was really cute with the heart motif though :'D

At first, the models went down the stage in the center and we were like "aw man we won't be able to see a thing!"

Then they walked right in front of us :'D I want that sweater! though it probably costs an arm or something, haha. And look at that awesome hair. 

I guess you can't really tell from these (bad) pictures but the models were styled really cool. (Damnnn I really wish I had a camera) Kinda whimsical but street at the same time.

Check out the rest of the collection here:

 Nozomi Ishiguro 2014 S/S Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Tokyo

 Well this was my first ever fashion show (besides Seoul Girls' Collection, which was relly more like FTisland and Kara's concert haha) and it wasn't really what I was excpecting, you know, like the too-cool-for-you avant-garde runway shows haha. But it was really chill and street and pretty damn awesome :D though it was over in like, 15 minutes and we were out in no time. whuuut. 

And then we exited the hall and found a board for photo taking... XD

Super sweet Beckii and the Yamada sisters :D 

So Anitha and I decided to join in the fun and pretend to be cool bloggers too.

We had a picture with Beckii! Jealous right 8D. More coming later

...まず身長から違うT___T　 これはどうしようもない。痩せてほそながくみせるしかない！！

And then to end things off we filled our tired and hungry bellies with cheese-gyudon at a Sukiya nearby, lol :'D I mixed it up before getting a picture of it D: oh well. :'D

Well that's it for part I guess! Hang in for the next one, in which I helped out backstage for Atsushi Nakashima's show, and that was reaaaaallly awesome. 

Advertising on the road in Tokyo

One of the things I always enjoy seeing in Shibuya, besides pretty girls and hot guys ehehe, are the brightly lit trucks running along the streets playing the latest pop music. Of course, partly because they are of my favourite artistes haha. :'D but also because it's kind of exciting to just see something like that run down the road!

And for the artistes, whta better way to tell people about the latest albums than to play it on the streets while people are bored while waiting to cross the road? probably costs less than a TV commercial too. brilliant :D

Ft island's truck spotted at the Shibuya Scramble. Totally didn't know they had a new album out!

Took this one a while back when I heard a familiar voice playing on the street. IU's new single. Comes in 3 versions. :D 

Andddd Akanishin Jin's new DVD spotted from an overhead bridge. Haven't seen him in a while. 

 I'm always excited to see these trucks, they're kinda like mobile entertainment haha. And you can always see people turning their heads to see where the music is coming from/try to get more of their eye candy/snapping pictures. 

But these are not just limited to plain old trucks. Sometimes, things get a bit more interesting. 

Dundundun. Lone Ranger's truck completely with a life sized Johnny Depp figure asking you to catch the movie in theaters. Also a really good way to make use of a traffic jam, along roads next to pedestrian walkways! I saw this while strolling along Omotesando by the way.

And then there are just weird and interesting ones, lol. Oh Japan :'D

This was for the opening of a new robot restaurant somewhere XD these were soooo annoying! Really loud high pitched voices above noisy music along the streets lol. But I have to say it was really effective since it since it annoyed me to the point of knowing what it was as soon as I even heard a whisper of the voice lol, and virtually everyone I asked had seen/heard it before and knew it was about the robot restarant.

So that's  it for this post! Entertainment and advertisement on the streets, pretty cool doncha think :D