Under a wooden rip-curl at Henderson Waves

It shares the stage with other recipients of the award, including Designers of the Year like Koichiro Ikebuchi of Atelier Ikebuchi, and Chris Lee of Asylum. They were in attendance among other designers being honoured at the opening ceremony of the Singapore Design Festival 2009, held at Ion Orchard this afternoon. We meet President SR Nathan and Adran Pang after the jump!

Designers, guests and press mingle at Ion Orchard

It was a very ‘international’ event, with people from all over the world, hobnobbing and mingling, talking design and art. I heard Japanese, snatches of Korean, Australian and American accents, and there was even a man with an awesome bushy mustache that curled at the ends like you see in cartoons. Waiters moved around, handing out  glasses of pink drink and canapes that were basically local bites like chicken rice balls and chwee kway made to look pretty.

The President of Singapore was at the event to declare the opening of the Design Festival, and went around the exhibitions, mingling with designers and press.

President SR Nathan and guests at the Singapore Design Festival opening

Of course, fangirls that we Tattlers are (watch Kerrie and Laea gush over Zoe Tay and Tay Ping Hui at the Raoul opening.), we could not resist a photo opportunity with Adrian Pang, who was hosting the event. “I saw you in Blue Mansion,” said Kerrie, right after the photo was taken. “And Polo Boys,” I blurt. He laughed and turned crimson, “Yea well, thanks for all your support; I’m grateful for whatever support I can get.”

At Tattler, we hunt celebs and shoot them. With cameras lah.

The Singapore Design Festival 2009 is themed “Design2050: Possiblities for Tomorrow”, and will be held from 20 to 30 November with a wide range of design events and activities. We at Tattler scoped out the list and here are some highlights we found interesting:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

By MOJOKO (www.mojoko.net)
Exhibition 25 Nov – 1 Dec, 11am – 8pm, Free Admission
The Substation, 45 Armenian Street
A showcase of 2D and 3D artwork inspired by the cult movie Bladerunner by Singapore’s new wave of underground and emerging artists and designers.
Click here for more info!

Strangelet’s Own

By Strangelets (www.strangelets.org)
Exhibition 20 – 30 Nov, 12pm – 7.30pm, Mondays to Saturdays, Free admission
Strangelets, 87 Amoy Street
An eclectic collection of furnishings and accessories from studios all over the world, offering new approaches to old problems. The new Strangelets collection will also be launched then.
Click here for more info!

THE_ISSUE  Magazine launch

By HJGHER (www.theissuemagazine.com)
Magazine Launch Party 26 Nov 2009, 9pm onwards, Free admission
Velvet Underground, 17 Jiak Kim Street
A bi-annual thematic magazine based in quality of life issues. We’re intrigued.
Click here for more info!

A Void Experience

By Pixel Pastry (www.pixel-pastry .com)
Exhibition 20 Nov – 5 Dec, 11am – 11pm, Free admission
Various HDB void decks (go to www.avoidexperience.com for more information)
As one who lives in a HDB, I’m all too familiar with the asocial behaviour of neighbours who pass each other by without acknowledgement. This exhibition uses void decks as showcasing platforms to open up this social issue.
Click here for more info!

Unnatural Beauty

By Trine Design Associates (www.trine.com.sg)
Exhibition 20 Nov – 4 Dec, 11am – 8pm, Free admission
The Arts House Ground Level, 1 Old Parliament Lane
A visual installation of intricate chandeliers and art pieces constructed from biodegradable cornstarch cutlery. Beautiful AND eco-friendly. We like.
Click here for more info!

Look at her, all professional looking at the 2009 NRJ Awards!

Here she is looking tres chic at the 59th Sanremo Music Festival

Katy with her beau Russell Brand (Dunno bout you, but methinks her taste in men is questionable.) Loving her look here though!

So what do you guys think? Dig her new look or no?

I will be the first to confess that most mornings it takes me an average of two outfit changes before I finally settle on what to wear. I totally hate the feeling of not knowing what to wear, even though my closet is stuffed to the brim with clothes. I think guys have it lucky. They probably just close their eyes, stick a hand into their cupboards and grab the first t-shirt they feel to wear with the jeans they wore yesterday.

So there you are standing in front of your chock-full closet, ripping your hair out over what to wear. The clock is ticking, the morning train waits for no one. Your hair is not done, and neither is your make-up. And you can’t find a damn thing to wear. Before the day has started, you’re already a stressed out train wreck.

A messy closet is a one-way street to morning meltdowns

Well, here’s a couple of tried-and-tested tricks to help you dress without the stress.

#1 Out with the Old

I find that the more clothes I have, the harder it is to dress everyday. If you find that your cupboards are bursting at the hinges, then maybe its time for a little spring cleaning.

A handy guideline: it’s okay to chuck any item you haven’t worn in the past six months. Chances are, you probably won’t in the next six months. And do you really need 5 pairs of jeans in the same cut and wash? I love cleaning out my closet. Not only does it make room for new clothes (yay shopping!), I sometimes discover gems that I’d totally forgotten that I owned, or an item that is back in trend.

#2 Get organized!

The next step after clearing out is sorting out. First, sort your clothing by type. I hang up all my dresses and jackets. I keep all sweaters and cardigans in one drawer, shorts in another, jeans in one stack, pants next to them. Now when it comes to tops, and I have a lot of those, I’ve personally like to sort them out by colour. Sorting my tops out by colour worked really well for me. I could find a particular top much more easily by zooming straight into that colour stack. And for uninspirational days, I could fall back on black or white. I can separate keep my clothes easily after they’ve been laundered, and it makes my closet look so much neater and organized.

Sorting by colour looks good and makes it easier to find a particular item

#3 Emergency Outfit

You’ve worn something that made you feel like a princess the entire day. Great! Now keep it for an emergency. It’s always useful to prepare an emergency outfit for days that you need to look good but have no time to conjure up an outfit. I keep a simple cotton black dress for emergency days. It’s not rocket science, and it sure as hell won’t get me on a magazine cover, but I know I look good in it. Throw on some accessories and nice shoes and I’m good to go. With an emergency outfit, I can avoid morning meltdowns on the rare occasion that I’ve overslept or feel just plain uninspired.

Youtube make-up guru Michelle Phan gives us some very useful tips to prevent mascar-y accidents. And its quite a funny video too. She isn’t normally so humourous in her other videos, this one’s a laugh. I’ll definitely be saving those pesky business cards now.

I went to The Cathay today to watch the new-ish Jack Neo film ‘Where Got Ghost?’ earlier today. And while that movie wasn’t showing there anymore, a display in the Gramophone windows got me very excited. “Ohmigawd Colbie’s new album is out!!” I shrieked. Yes, I am on first name basis with Colbie Caillat, and Hayley from Paramore and Cher and Madonna. I’d gone to a couple of CD shops on August 25 hoping to buy the album the day it was released in the US, but unfortunately, it didn’t occur to me that we aren’t in the US. Duh.

I’m not normally a CD buyer, having found a quicker, cheaper and more convenient way of getting my music: Rapidshare. Besides, I’d run out of shelf space for physical CDs somewhere in 2003. And everyone I know gets their music for pretty much free nowadays. It just seems a little silly to be forking out tens of dollars for music you can get from someone else. But when it comes to artistes I really really like, and know are gonna produce awesome albums, I will spare no expense.

“How much is it?”

“Err… $16.95, after discount,” I said, thinking it was pretty cheap compared to the $20 CD I was clutching in my other hand.

“What?!! So expensive. I already downloaded 5 of the songs from that album leh,” he complained. “And why did you buy the Colbie Caillat album? Didn’t Becky already download it?”

Becky is my younger sister, and she had already downloaded the album when it was released in Europe a week ago. I had adamantly refused to listen to it and take part in robbing Colbie of money from CD sales. “Wah lau, if you like them then you should support them! The music industry is dying cos of people like you!” I yelled down the phone. “So do you want it?”

“Is there a booklet in it? Yes? Okay fine get it get it.”

“Okay I’m paying for it now, don’t change your mind,” I said, taking the phone away from my ear to hang up. And then as I make to press the ‘end call’ button, I hear a little metallic voice from the phone:

By the way, the album is really good. Colbie co-wrote a lot of the songs with Jason Reeves and Kara Dioguardi (AI judge). Love!

Channing Tatum steps up from dance school into the world of ball-busting action

Channing Tatum as an All-American G.I Joe, that’s what.

So a girlfriend calls me up on Sunday saying she’s organizing a movie outing and it’s all boys except for her. “Go leh, I don’t wanna be the only girl,” she begs. And there I am thinking that she’s the kind of girl who normally enjoys chick flicks and the occasional comedy, why would she be keen on G.I Joe??

Well, now I know. Girls, as much as G.I Joe is a testosterone-filled, macho show, there’s something in it for you as well. His name is Channing ‘I can dance and fight’ Tatum. Or if you’re into funny, but still smoking, ‘chocolate men’ (cue tinkly piano intro from Vanessa Carlton’s ‘A Thousand Miles’), there’s Marlon Wayans of White Chicks fame.

I didn’t expect to like the show, especially after the other testosterone-filled summer blockbuster that was Transformers 2. There was just waaay too much metal smashing into one another in that one.

Sure, the plot has more holes and is more cheesy than swiss cheese, but what did you expect, A Beautiful Mind? It’s a movie based on plastic figurines, for crying out loud. The action sequences are fantasmic, as they should be. Awesome futuristic technology, machines and weapons make things blow up everywhere, and because all things Asian are so cool now, insert invincible Ninja warriors complete with flying shurikens with the accuracy of snipers.

And oh, all the beautiful people in the show! Even Dennis Quaid at 55 still looks pretty darn good as General Hawk, leader of the Joes. There’s the blonde Sienna Miller who plays Duke’s (Channing Tatum) love interest/ex-fiancée now turned brunette bad guy. And then there’s the redhead bombshell aptly named Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) whose sole responsibility is to look really hot in a brown leather jacket and make me wish I had flaming red hair.

The hot lead, the fatherly mentor, the tech geek, the buxom bombshell and the comic relief

Some people complain that all the back stories and flashbacks slow down the pace of the movie, but I actually enjoyed them very much. It set G.I Joe apart from the likes of the Transformers franchise and made me feel a little more emotionally involved in the action sequences.

The ending of the movie just begs for a sequel and yea, I’m looking forward to it. Director Steven Sommers, I forgive you for making my beloved Hugh Jackman act in that lame-o show Van Helsing.

These store front signs give a whole new dimension to the phrase ‘junk food’.

This was spotted in the Golden Spoon Food Court near Residence Hall 16 in Nanyang Technological University. While I was staying on-campus last year, I practically lived on the stall’s Tom Yum Ban Mian. I’ve never found another quite like it. Needless to say, I have never tried their Dumping Soup Noodles.

If their Tom Yum Ban Mian is any indication, i'm pretty sure the Dumping Soup tastes better than it sounds.

And just the other evening, I was having a lovely spot of Earl Grey and Macarons at Obolo in Katong and next door was this small Chinese restaurant. I’ve heard that smelly tofu from Taiwan can stink up the entire street, but shouldn’t the term ’strong odour’ be reserved for armpits and the like?

One side of armpit tofu coming right up!

Sigh. I do love my junk food.

I would love to start this article shouting, “Summer is here!” But let’s face it. Singapore IS summer. All. Year. Long. This year, it seems the heat is on. I don’t know if it’s just me, or is it especially hot lately? I was shopping at the new Tampines One the other day, and stepping out of the air-conditioned mall, I took a deep breath of fresh air and almost drowned. I swear the humidity was so high, I felt the water in the air fill my lungs.

Needless to say, somewhere between the mall and home, my face started melting off like wax on a lit candle. Surveying the damage in the mirror yielded the usual suspects: smudged mascara rimming the bottom of my eyes making me look like I hadn’t slept in days, foundation that was missing in patches and eyeliner that only lined half my eyes.

Sick of make-up that ran more often than I did, I did what all 21^st century youths do best – Google. I scanned over a dozen pages and a handful of videos on make-up tips to beat the summer heat, and brought you the best of the lot.

More than that, I gave these tips a test-drive to see which actually work and which don’t quite. So welcome to my new summer make-up routine, tried and tested. Today I went to the Singapore Zoo with my game face on, to see if my make up would last all day in 35 degree, 85% humidity weather. This is what went on:

• Dermalogica Tinted moisturizer and sunblock (SPF 25) – leave peeling to oranges please. The moisturizer dilutes the foundation for a lighter coverage which fares better when the heat is on
• Maybelline AngelFit Liquid Foundation – a teeny weeny amount, avoiding hairline where sweat happens
• Benetint Lip and Cheek Stain on lips and apples of cheeks for a healthy glow that won’t move or disappear mid day
• Clear lip balm – pinkish and sheer lip glosses are good for summer as well
• Liquid Eyeliner from The Face Shop drawn close to upper lash line with a winged tip ending. Skip the lower lashes – make up is more likely to streak in the sweaty under-eye area. I find that pencil eyeliners have more tendency to smudge so liquid and gel eyeliners are a go-to for me
• Fibrewig Mascara – they aren’t called paint-on falsies for nothing. Best of all, smudge-proof, waterproof and all in all summer-proof
• Loose powder – sets your entire face, giving it a clean matte finish

All the beauty sites I checked out recommended using tinted moisturizer in place of liquid foundation, but I felt that that the coverage wasn’t enough, so I added a little amount of foundation to the mix. The mixture made my face shine like an oily wok, but the moment the loose powder went on, it became a perfect canvas for all the other products.

THE RESULTS OF MY EXPERIMENT

YAY! No melting or shininess after an entire day traipsing around the Singapore Zoo in summer heat.

I made regular checks on my make-up throughout my zoo adventure: Once at lunch at KFC in KidsWorld, once at the leopard enclosure, and once more at the end of the day while waiting for the bus out of the zoo. My liquid eyeliner which usually starts flaking off about mid-day, stayed on the entire day in the sun. Even the cheek stain which fades over the day remained pink. I didn’t have to use a single sheet of oil blotter or re-powder my face at all. Uh-mazing. Thank you Google.

“Wow. My grandmother could never do that,” I said to my companions one morning, as we paused along a grimy roadside in Hanoi to look at an old lady, 70 at least, swinging from a short tree like a monkey. I half expected her to launch into full-on pull-ups. As we watched, she let go of the branch mid-swing and landed deftly on her feet. And as she started stretching, another old lady took her place swinging from the branch.

Various forms of exercises take place all over Hanoi every morning. At the crack of dawn, a crowd gathers in little roadside parks to do Tai chi, little old ladies do their stretched and swing from trees before setting up their stalls, tourists emerge from their hotels and begin walking around the old quarters.

Like most other visitors to Hanoi, I had based myself at the old colonial quarters surrounding the picturesque Hoan Kiem Lake. And like most visitors, I took a map and went on a walking tour of the town, and inevitably got a little lost. The Old Quarter is a maze of bustling streets and alleyways (that all somehow look alike) with shops selling all kinds of stuff like souvenirs, handicrafts, clothes, shoes and even gravestones.

A Vietnamese woman cycling along Hoan Kiem Lake

Street peddlars hawk their wares in makeshift ’stalls’ along the roads. After their morning exercise swinging from trees, the little old ladies bring out pots of steaming soup, short tables, stools and prepare for a long day of selling traditional pho, or rice noodles in soup.

If you think you’d rather not risk food poisoning, there are plenty of other options for meals. One great place is Quan An Ngon, a ‘marche’-like restaurant where you can walk around and see the different kinds of foods being prepared and order with the help of English-speaking waiters and pay for everything in a single bill at the end of your meal. The variety is incredible, as is the food – authentic and delicious.

Scarf down a sparrow in one bite

I had a swan and bamboo soup and noodles on one of the nights there. Mmm, let’s just say swans look prettier than they taste – they taste kinda like gamey duck. My companions went crazy and ordered quail and sparrows. I like sparrows. They’re cute and taste good. You’re supposed to eat everything, head, bones, et al. Quail, on the other hand, really does just taste like chicken: small, tough and bony chicken.

The Surprising Cave

Outside of Hanoi city itself are plenty of other attractions. We had our hotel arrange a daytrip for us to Halong Bay to see the islands and caves. “It is called Halong Bay, which means ‘descending dragon’, because when you have a bird’s eye view of all the islands, they look like the back of a dragon going into the sea,” said our tour guide, en route a 3-hour bus ride to the attraction. It made me wonder briefly what a dragon’s butt looked like. I still can’t figure it out.

A cruise ride and one lunch later, we found ourselves at the foot of a mountain where we proceeded to climb up a steep incline of stairs in stifling heat. At the top of the stairs, I was greeted by a blast of cool air. “Thank God for air-conditioning!” said the Australian lady who was in the same tour group. But it wasn’t air-conditioning at all. We were standing at the mouth of a cave and there was a cold breeze coming out of it. I stepped gratefully into the cool darkness only to almost slip on the damp ground and go tumbling down limestone steps.

This cave was called “The Surprising Cave”, and surprising it was. We went through three different chambers, each larger and more beautiful than the last. The final chamber was cavernous and so majestic; I can only imagine how it must have been like for the early French explorers who discovered it. I felt like I was journeying with Brendan Fraser to the centre of the Earth, or discovering treasure with Indiana Jones.

Hanoi is a city, still spared from commercialization, a by-product of increasing international tourism. There is no Macdonald’s, no Starbucks. Yet. But all this is quickly changing. I went 5 months ago in December and all I could find was a KFC. On this trip I found 2 KFCs, a Gloria Jeans and a Thai Express. It won’t be long before the vestiges of tradition and authentic flavour of Hanoi are overtaken by commercialization. So visit this beautiful city before the mermaids with the long hair and two tails take over.