Tory Burch Fall 2015 Livestream

Up by 10pm tonight, Manila time. Let's watch!

Proenza Schouler Live!

What's so cool is, the next day, Proenza Schouler's F/W 2010 runway bags will be available for purchase through their website! Way way ahead of the market calendar! Amazing! This is a first in fashion history!

A Peek Into NY Fashion Week

Hey, come with me! Let me show you something...


Tadaaa! Started last Thursday. The last time the tents are going to be in Bryant Park!


Here's what happens outside the tents, lots of onlookers, photographers, and curious tourists milling about. It's not really glam and intimidating. In reality, even the people inside the tents don't really dress up "dress up" you know. So I find it absurd how some people think they have to wear a cocktail dress to a show. It's just a show. Wear a nice dress or do as the French Voguettes do and just wear a blazer and jeans (of course they have that je ne sais quoi), that's gonna be fine. Or do what most people do, go all black! Unless you're wearing Rick Owens or Margiela, there's a chance you might get mistaken for a dresser or backstage help though. So forget I said that.


I thought I'd take a photo of the photographers and cameramen waiting for the celebrities to come out the tents. They're always behind the scenes, somebody ought to take a photo of them!


Hey, did that guy just point his camera at me and Berry?

What A Decade!

I was thinking of doing this but was keeping it in the backburner until I had time. And when I saw Celine do hers, I thought why wait, it looks so much fun to look back at the decade that was and see how things turned out in ten years. Here's mine:

2000 - Started a new job in Starbucks Philippines. Worked as the COO's project assistant and bonded immediately with the other project assistant Gretchen, and Nina, the store development assistant, over our love for Mango, fashion, and all things silly! My gossip girls, lunch time shopping buddies, who are up to now - two of my bestest friends! The group was completed by Bic-bic and Jenny!

2001 - Career-wise, I got promoted as merchandising manager. Folks, if you collected Starbucks merchandise from 2001 to 2003 - yes, it's me to love/blame for choosing what goes into those Starbucks merchandise etageres! I still remember when Starbucks water bottles first made it to the merchandise list, I knew they were going to sell like hotcakes because everyone was into working out at the gym. And well, it discouraged the use of those nasty plastic mineral water bottles. My boss was like, "Water bottles?" and I was like "Yes! Every one would want to bring one with them when they work out!" True enough, it became such a huge hit when they first hit the stores! Soon enough so many water bottles found their way into the Philippine market - Nalgene, Sigg, and a host of others. Didn't water bottles become popular corporate giveaways years down the road too? Oh, news wise, this was the year EDSA II happened. I remember my dad calling me at work to tell me the military was withdrawing support. I should have bought stocks right away. Soon after, the AFP Chief was on his way to the EDSA Shrine to join the throngs of citizens happy to see Erap leave. (Thing is though, he is running again for President this 2010. Jeez.)

2002 - I met the love-of-my life who is now well known as, you guessed it, Dear Hubby! Started the process of applying to graduate schools. The year was a flurry of KAPLAN reviews, TOEFL, GMAT and AIMAT exams and writing essays. Wanted to study in NYU and live in New York, but love-of-my-life asked me to stay and study in Manila. It was a matter of choosing love or career. I took a leap of faith and chose love! Yihee! Traveling was limited to Singapore and Malaysia.

2003 - started MBA school in AIM. The year was spent reading case studies, writing business plans, WACS, doing financial statements, analyzing financial ratios, preparing powerpoint presentations with CAN group mates. Best thing about my dorm stay - my girl friends Jaraiza, Conci and Alisa! 

Current events wise, highlight of the year was the Oakwood mutiny. I was at home in Camp Aguinaldo and the camp was on red alert. My best friend Nina, who was (and still is) reporting for ABS-CBN was there waiting for news to break. When my dad confirmed that there was movement and Nina was doing a live report by phone, I was texting people to stay away from Makati CBD. The excitement was short lived. We soon found ourselves praying non-stop for a peaceful end to the mutiny because my dad, who headed Task Force Libra, was right smack in Makati leading the government forces. Latter part of the year, we moved to Fort Bonifacio when my dad became CG. Exciting things for Dear Hubby too! He graduated valedictorian from law school in Ateneo and was #2 in the bar exams.

2004 - Second year of grad school churning out papers, reports and presentations. Worked on the MRR with Conci. My dad became CSAFP. Moved to the White House in Camp Aguinaldo. School trips to Shanghai and Hong Kong. Stayed behind for a couple more days to explore Hong Kong with Jaraiza and Isabelle. Started writing "My Money" for Lifestyle Asia magazine (thanks to Celine!). Such a high to see my name on print! My grandpa passed away =( 

2005 - Started the year with a school trip to Vietnam and Thailand. Graduated and got my MBA. Became a management associate in Citi along with grad school classmates Aset and Mike, we hit it off with fellow MAs Jong and Jacob. Such a fun bunch!

Took pattern making classes in Lasalle College in Makati. Highlight of the year - Got engaged to Dear Hubby, who was accepted into Harvard's LLM program! News Trivia - Remember the Hello Garci days? One time, as Dear Hubby and I were preparing to go out on a date, we went to the ground floor of the White House to get something from the communications room. I saw two kids running around there. As we stepped out of the house, the driveway was filled with cars and a news van. Soon after, Sgt. Doble claimed his family was held hostage in the basement of our (then) home! Turns out those two kids were his. Hostage? What basement? Where? What a liar! If walls could talk!

2006 - Joined cards marketing in the bank. Got promoted.



Went on a family trip to Palawan.

Visited the future in-laws in Vancouver. Dear Hubby started school in Cambridge, MA. Took sewing classes at FIP in Ortigas. Started this blog as an outlet to document my fashion/style obsessions and observations! Soon after, got featured in Inquirer and asked by Jill of Kikay Exchange to contribute blog posts.

2007 - Got married in the Supreme Court. Was interviewed on TV when my friend Pam asked me to be the spokesperson for her site, Steal That Look (don't we all miss that site!). Visited Dear Hubby in Harvard, their family friend Uni in CT, and my friend Me-an in NJ. 

Before graduation, Dear Hubby got a job offer from a law firm in Manhattan. He accepted. 3 months later, I joined him in the US and became a housewife (God's way of saying, "See, isn't this a better way of getting you to New York?" He answered my prayer plus I was married to Dear Hubby! God really works in mysterious ways!). Spent my days exploring the city while Dear Hubby worked. Spent weekends hanging out with our friends Me-an & Eric.

Became a regular window shopper and occasional shoe customer at Barneys and Bergdorfs. Hahaha!

Started blogging in Sanriotown (to be revived again very soon)! Re-connected with my high school friend Tet who moved to New York from Frankfurt with her husband and daughter. Became good friends with online buddies Ruby and Ingrid and neighbor Paz!

2008 - Greeted the New Year with Dear Hubby's Harvard friends atop their apartment building in New York's west side. Church wedding in Manila.

Reunion with my bestest friends from high school.


Met Cecile and Grace in Pepper Lunch and found myself in Manila Style.

Got to dress models backstage for New York Fashion Week. Got to watch a couple of runway shows too. Started my column for The Radar in the Philippine Star. Again, amazing and super exhilarating to see my work in the paper I've read since I was 9. It never gets old. Re-connected with college friend, Sarj, who turned out to be a real housewife of New York City. Met-up with friends in Orlando, FL during the fall and spent Christmas in Vancouver. Best news of all, we became pregnant with Berry.

2009 - Visited my friend Xsa in PA. Went to the Bryant Park tents to watch a show with Sarj during NY Fashion Week and got photographed too. This blog got featured in a Preview supplement thanks to Joanna F. Pierra L. asked me to share my Boston travel tips in Lifestyle Asia Travel. Berry was born in June and 6 months later, became googoo&gaga's Kooky Kid of 2009! 

Went through ge lai. I can imagine getting pregnant again, but I am not ready for ge lai any time soon. In fairness, ge lai helped me recover from the birthing process super fast. I strongly suggest all new moms to practice this. I got my cousin-in-law and her friends who are all chic, sophisticated New York moms convinced, they said I should write a book about it. I think I will! If any of you have ge lai tips, recipes and anecdotes to share, email me at manilafashionobserver@gmail.com. You will definitely be credited for it of course! Finding a literary agent here in New York should be on my 2010 to do list.

In a nutshell, in ten surprisingly short years (it seems like the decade went by in a flash - although graduate school seemed like forever) I earned my MBA, made a career shift from retail to banking (then banking to housewifing!), found myself on the front row seat of Philippine historical events, got engaged and married to the most wonderful guy in the wholed universe, started my blogs (MFO and MFO for Sanriotown), moved to the US and became a homemaker, fulfilled my dream of going into the Bryant Park tents for New York Fashion Week, had our beautiful baby Berry, became a columnist for the Radar in the Philippine Star, met lovely and sincere people who became treasured friends, traveled considerably (but not as much as I wanted to) and moved at least 6 times in the past decade. Whew! What a decade! Each year just keeps on getting better and better! And with God's grace, I just know there are still much more beauty and blessings to unfold for each one of us! Can't wait!

Spin A Win!

I think the Little One gets excited about Fashion Week as much as I do. When my friend Sarj and I went to the Bryant Park tents yesterday to watch the Pamella Roland F/W 2009 runway show, she (yes! we are having a little girl!) was kicking and moving inside my tummy as we stood in line at the McCafe booth (my friend Sarj had to get her coffee fix, I indulged by having a decaf iced coffee heehee!). I think the Little One knew she was inside the tents!



Because we had time to kill, we passed by the Havaianas booth to check out what goodies they had in store. Last season, Sarj said they were giving away free flip flops! But when we got there, they had this wheel of tiny colorful flip flops which we could spin. If you land on a metallic flip flop, you get a sling bag! Well, they say pregnant women are lucky and guess what! I won a red sling bag for the Little One (choices were black, pink and red. Because I think red is lucky, and well, it went with my outfit for the day, I got the red one!)



Check out the strap made out of the same rubber as the flip flops! Cute! The hardware on this sling bag was pretty high quality too! I think this would make a handy dandy bag for summer!


Sarj won this cute keychain with candy, which she generously gave me. She said it would fit the Little One! Hahaha! Sarj is such a hoot!


A photographer inside the tents approached me and asked to have a picture of my bag taken. Silly me handed out the Havaianas sling bag to him and he said, "No, I want to take a picture of you with the bag!" Ooops! So I posed gladly although a bit too self-consciously for him, but forgot to ask where the picture would come out. Oh well!

This is what I wore yesterday...


Playsuit/Romper: A.P.C.
Tights: Topshop Maternity
Boots: Golden Goose

Here's my romper up close...


I love how I can wear this for summer too with sandals or my fave Chucks. Notice the belly bulge? I'm almost 23 weeks now! How time flies!

Oh, speaking of the Pamella Roland show, since the designer is a celebrity fave, Sarj and I did spot a couple of celebs! We had a blast trying to identify them, haha! Cheesy but fun! Nicky and Paris Hilton were easy to pin down, Sarj saw Kelly Pickler, I noticed Kristen Bell and we thought Amanda Bynes was Lindsay Lohan from the side. We also saw America's Next Top Model's Miss J and Nigel Barker (Sarj nudged me and said "Why are they taking a picture of this guy beside us? Who is he anyway?, of course I was like, "Sarj! That's Nigel Barker!" Hahaha!)

Too bad of all the days I would forget to bring my camera to the tents, this was the day! Oh well! I hope my narrative was entertaining enough!

(Photo of the Havaianas booth from racked.com)

MFO Turns Two! We've Come A Long Way Baby!

Happy Birthday T(w)o Us! Yes, MFO turns two today and guess what, yours truly will be going to New York Fashion Week this coming September! Yes, as in actually working the circuit to go to shows and even backstage!!! Well, not to all the shows unfortunately, only the ones that I can get into for now, and can fit in my housewife schedule, hahaha! We can't leave the house dirty and Dear Hubby with nothing to eat right?

Check out the schedule below for a preview of what's to come! (click to enlarge)

Who knows, maybe next season you'll be joining me! Life is full of surprises and writing this blog never fails to surprise and amaze me! Two years ago, I was just sitting on a couch in front of the TV, writing out my thoughts to myself. Yes my audience of one. Fast forward to now and I'm actually taking short courses at FIT, meeting New York fashion industry insiders (from buyers to showroom owners, fashion label executives, sourcing consultants and soon, fashion event organizers!) and enthusiasts (fashion students, professionals looking to a career shift in fashion, etc), visiting showrooms and all that so that I may have something interesting to share with you all! Take my hand and let's look back to my previous posts just to see how far we've come (although the trip really, has just begun)!

AUGUST 17, 2006

Hello! Nice to meet you dahling!

Before anything, let me introduce myself: The Closet Fashionista

I first came across the F word over a decade ago as I was poring through the pages of British Vogue while waiting for my flight out of London Heathrow. It was the summer I turned 18, living on allowance but pretentiously into labels I could not afford, that I lived the life vicariously by buying fashion magazines. (To my parents' middle class sensibilities, it was a puzzle why I was into clothes & the styling life when I was neither socialite nor star. They could not understand my deep interest in fashion and I could offer no explanation.)

At that very instant, while staring at the italicized fonts, I understood why I was different. I belonged to a "cursed" breed, an army of connoisseurs who live for fashion; afflicted with an acute sense when it comes to spotting trends and appreciating details, that the idea of mainstream horrifies them.

Knowing I was a fashionista and coming out of my closet to admit that I was one posed a problem. Growing up in a no-nonsense, frugal home, exhibiting my passion for fashion would make me an obvious target for ridicule. However, I feel I have an obligation to explain the essence of a fashionista, skinny jeans, breezy frocks, oversize bags, dirty linen and all.

The Fashion Foibles

Fashion is an addiction I struggled with, forcing me into suspicious if not bothering behavior: tearing receipts so my mom wouldn't know how much I spent for another pair of shoes, foregoing savings for cult jeans, risking a traffic violation while checking out a lola crossing Kamuning road because I was inspired by her Marc Jacobs meets Prada look, buying a watch just because my style icon Madonna wore one herself, and spending six months of accumulated summers in London during my teen years scouring the streets (read: Knightsbridge, Oxford Street, Bond Street), bumming in parks, going to museums, and watching people every day; rather than taking summer courses on finance at the University of London, as my dad had suggested, seriously believing that both activities were equally worthwhile.

Coming to Terms

Writing about this confession came at an opportune time. At best, this is my coming out letter, a published tell all of my fashion faux pas, an admission of a secret life. At the least, I have given my two cents worth on the fashionista phenomenon. This is not just about having the money to buy designer clothes, wearing what's hot or being in the fashion industry per se. As authors Dela Cruz and Robinovitz of The Fashionista Files puts it, it is acknowledging that fashion is a "form of art, self-expression, and a representation of more emotional roots". It is a serious field of study that Holly Brubach, a self-confessed Dedicated Follower of Fashion, likens fashion to architecture.

Simply put, a fashionista is not simply interested in clothes and trendy must-haves; she knows herself and wears clothes to express her history and individuality. Her passion extends to art, culture, and social issues and disproves the impression that her kind has cashmere for brains. A fashionista derives satisfaction in looking and feeling good, but knows that what matters most of all is who she is beyond the stylish clothes.

AUGUST 17, 2007

Birthday Blog! MFO Turns One Today!

Happy Birthday to us! Yup! One year ago today, I put up this blog to keep me busy back home while hubby was in Cambridge, MA taking up further studies in law. It also served as an outlet for me to document my observations and obsessions about stuff I liked, in the hopes that talking about it would satiate my urge to buy it! Which in a way worked! Hehehe! Its just a happy coincidence that in the course of keeping me occupied, it also entertained and informed my fabulous fashionista readers as well! Thanks to you guys, my fixation with fashion doesn't seem so frivolous anymore because I feel so useful when you ask me for advice and request for posts on stuff you'd like me to feature! It also makes me so happy when you tell me you enjoy reading my posts!

Looking back, I never expected that MFO would evolve into what it is now. What started as rambling musings turned into an advice column/recognizable shopping blog. What's best, in one year, I gained a lot of online friends and quite a following across the world! Not bad, not bad at all! I hope you continue to stay with me as I start a new chapter and a new year for this blog! Because I can guarantee you that there are more exciting things to come! I just know!

As I look out the window now to a fantastic view of the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline from our apartment, I advise you to gear up for a fun ride because I'm taking you with me on another adventure as we take on the streets of Manhattan --Fifth and Seventh Avenues especially!

That is, when I'm not running errands or cleaning house! Hahaha!

Well, I'm still running errands and cleaning house, but true enough, my days have become very exciting indeed! At least now I get to do the things I would just read and write about before! And for me, that is quite a feat! I never would have thought back when I started, when I was just surfing the net and clicking on runway photos that I would actually get to step foot inside the Bryant Park tents during New York Fashion Week in just two years! I never expected that I would be invited into New York City showrooms and trade shows to see the clothes that will come out in stores a year in advance, and it still amazes me to observe buyers and boutique owners picking out clothes and accessories and seeing which taste jives with mine, hahaha! Hmmm, I may have a future in buying for posh stores or better, buying for my own specialty store! Hey, you never know, anything is infinitely possible these days!

I get this feeling, Manila Fashion Observer may pretty soon be a New York Fashion Insider! Hey, it's free to dream! Hehehe!

Thanks everyone for the comments and the emails all these years! Thanks thanks thanks! Mwah Mwah Mwah! For sticking with me kids, buckle your seat belts, I'm taking you all with me!!! We'll celebrate dear readers!!! We've got places to go to and people to see, it's gonna be one heck of a joy ride!!!