Filippa K in San Francisco

Sweden Fashion house Filippa K opened its first US store in San Francisco, on Stockholm St. If you are in San Francisco and stop by downtown area, you should notice the huge sign of Filippa K. At first, I thought it was just another fashion boutique,and their business probably won't do well, however after a quick research, I found out that Filippa K is special. They only sell used and easy-to-wear clothes, which makes me realized that used ( or second hand ) clothes are finally stepping onto the main stream fashion. Their goal is to reduce garments, and recycling is obviously an effective way to utilize past resources. The store is 700-square-foot, a pretty spacious room for recycling fashion. Because of Filippa K, buying secondhand fashion is now seen both a hip and environmentally sound choice.

Alexander Wang

Alexender Wang is one of my favorite designers. He is a Chinese American who was born in San Francisco, and then attended Parsons in New York , the most prestigious fashion design school in the U.S. He was already well-known when he graduated from Parsons. He looks very young, just like a teenager. I really like his designs that are very flowing, baggy and simple. You can see that he only uses organic fabrics and solid colors. It is like the well-designed American Apparel. People asked him that where does your inspiration come from? He replied like a little kid, "well, actually it is from the girls on the street in Downtown Manhattan. " His clothes are multi-functional, extremely wearable, not over the top but very cool and hip. His design makes me associated with a word that is "supermodel attitude".

Vivian's picks

I think that it is time for me to tell you guys what I like, what my taste is. Vivian's girls are 60% Marc Jacobs with 15% vintage touch and the left 25% could be from anywhere. I like European fashion more than Japanese fashion, it may sound weird, because most of people think that any girls who are from Asia are supposed to be addicted to J-Fashion. However, I am not one of them. Probably, because I like nice and clean tailored jacket or love Rock-n-Roll and Acid Jazz, or adore the overall vibe that Western culture has created in terms of fashion and pop art. Well, I still admire a lot of Japanese fashion designers, and think they are fantastic on deconstruction and layered looks. I found myself to start loving London fashion since two years ago, I've watched their websites all the time, such as topshop.com and asos.com. They are great websites, and they convey the latest trends. Personally, I think that London fashion is more hip and edgier than anywhere. Not to mention that I love English accent. I post some looks that I love referred from asos.com as above. These girls kill and are smoking hot!

2009 Milan Fashion Week wrapped up

Marni 2009 Milan Fashion Week
I think that the Milan Fashion Week was impressive me more, since I always admire the color sense of Italian designers. Italian designers specialize in collaborating patterns and shapes and beautifully collage them. They seem to have natural talents in the mix and match of color palettes. Italian fashion is all about drapes and floral prints, which responses strongly to its fashion heritage. One brand that is worth to talk about in 2009 Milan Fashion Week was Gucci. Gucci became more hip and modern year by year. In my old impression, Gucci was for old and conservative women, however it showed to us modernity and urbanity. The wide padded shoulders in the show of Dolce&Gabanna was referenced from the 80s. I like a lot the sculptural structure of the jackets, which was very standing out.


Gucci 2009 Spring

2009 Emmy Awards

I am the person who don't really watch TV series, plus I don't have a Television at home, therefore, what l I knew about this awards in this year was that Madman was the biggest winner in drama Series and was been nominated 16 times and 30 Rock was honored the best comedy Series this year. The most widespread TV series, in my opinion, are sexy and city, desperate housewives, survivors, even you are not interested in watching TV series, you must hear of them. Even my friends in China, all heard or watched some of them. And also I am looking forward to the dirty sexy money stared by one of my favorite actresses Lucy Liu. I feel that anything sex related TV series will become the hit shows.

Let's talk about the best dress and the worst dress. I think that I adore the look the Eva Longoria presented to us, even though I heard a lot of negative comments about it. As a matter of fact, she was the only one who made a statement and was sort of standing out in the crowds, however, she was viewed as the worst dresser by some media. No wonder that every time, the actresses always play safe to please the crowds, and stick with the old Hollywood glamor. I personally believed that the short mini dress worked pretty well on her petite figure, and at the same time showed her long and lean legs, and effectively lengthened her hight. Bow-tie is a statement decoration, what is wrong with a classy bow-tie in front of her? It looked stunning and fabulous.

Also I found a pretty flowing blue dress on Tamara Mellon, although I don't know who she is, what does she play, I do like the dress, especially the playful and bright color, which looked elegnant, and she looked so fresh in this dress.

As a formal supermodel and host for project runway-one of my favorite reality shows, Haidi Klum looked high-fashion in this Armani Prive metallic grey dress. I like the one-shoulder design and two edgy diagonal cuts at the front. And Project runway is a great show that I never lose one episode. Brove have provided a series of design related shows, such as Top design, Shear Genius, Project Runway. I love all of them.

The worst dressers I got here is America Ferrera who said that she wore a vintage dress from Werle Beverly Hills. Unfortunately, the chunky dress didn't work on her, since she is a short and a little heavier girl, the multi-layered dress with a lot of drapes was not good idea to put on, which's done nothing good but make her look fatter and shorter. It was not a great look for the lady at the left as well.

TOPSHOP -2009 London Fashion Week

I've always been loved Topshop, and it is one of my favorites online shopping spot, even though I've never been to London, and never been to any Topshop stores. I guess that London designers just happen to be more creative and artistic than American designers. American sportwears, for me, are more commercial and casual, yet lack of the fashion sense, probably, because of the cultual distinction between The U.S and the U.K. England has much longer, richer and more spectacular history than America. The typical American brands, such as DKNY, Calvin Klein, GAP and so forth all emphsized on ease and comfort. Yes, American people don't really care about the style and fashion trends that much, which is just my personal impression. However, ease and comfort is so important, sometime, we just feel tired to wear fashion-forward clothing that makes you feel uncomfortable.

TOPSHOP is one exception, she is not only wearable and functional but rather trendy, I think that it is what we look for. I remembered the old time when I ordered clothes from London like craziness and checked http://www.asos.com/ and http://www.topshop.com/ every single day. I mean asos.com updated their new merchandise incrediblely fast, and the price is fair.

2009 NY Marc Jacobs

J. Vivian Yuan
S/S 2009 NY Fashion Week

The most stunning shows for this season were Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc and Proenza Schouler. Marc Jacobs is really a genius among all American designers. Basically, New York Fashion is not as watchable as London fashion week. European designers just happen to be more creative and edgier than American ones, however, a New York born designer-Marc Jacobs-is a true legendary.

As a chief fashion director of French luxury brand Louis Vuitton, an American in Paris, he has a sort of melting-pot mentality, and he brought to us a provocative broadway show in which all kinds of references were infused together. Someone saw the boating hats as the inspiration from the musical film Mary Poppins, others thought it of Yves Saint Laurent’s collection redux. Marc Jacobs said backstage : it was nothing complicated, just jerseys, tank tops, pants and shorts were cut and belted in the mix and match way. I love the multilayered and colorful garments accessorized with chunky necklaces and bracelets. I adore the metallic fabrics with the floral or geometric patterns. Not to mention that the folksy handbags were beautifully made. The overall effects were very remarkable. It was without doubt the best show in 2009 NY Fashion week.

In his diffusion line, Marc by Marc, Marc Jacobs took a look back to his spectacular signature-grunge look with a vintage spin, which is wearable and easy care. I am a big fan of Marc Jacobs. Marc Jacobs seems to accurately catch the characteristics of modern generation and inject the free spirits and ease into his collection. From season to season, I always can find something I could die for on his runway show.