Thursday, June 29, 2017

everything neutral-y


ribbed tank, daiso. cutoffs, gap. heels, zalora. bag, sr squared by sondra roberts. filigree cuff, forever21. straw fedora, jessica simpson.

t, secondhand hot topic. lace shorts, tally weijl. heels, zalora. bag, vintage. bangles, vintage and Dumaguete City souvenir shop. straw fedora, jessica simpson.

Photos 1 and 2 from Thursday; photos 3 and 4 from today.

Sort of really untimely post especially for Thursday's outfit. I have yet to pay the annual fee for my original photobucket account to keep uploading photos on here from there. In the meantime, I have a second account to use yet. If I can't drum up the funds to keep my other pb account active for this blog's photos, I might have to look for an alternative image hosting site. Until then, photobucket is still the easiest for me to use more than even flickr so I'm sticking to it on here.

Bandagey heels, dressy lace black shorts and striped shirt go together well, it seems. Then again, so do grey ribbed tank tops and denim cut-offs. The vintage bag on today's outfit is something I put on eternal repeat day in and day out. Bags this medium sized and the larger, spacier ones usually are the most used weekly because I tend to put a ton of things in them. Fedoras/straw hats and baseball caps (as well as snapbacks) have been my go to lately to shield the eyes from the glaring rays of the sun. After some rainy afternoons, we're having a slew of hotter days again just like the summer that has supposedly passed---weird how everywhere else it's summer and here in the islands, it's just not, anymore (I need it back!)---so those are things I deem necessary nowadays. I'd gladly go for the accessories-free head of hair and sunglasses if I found the right classic aviators and wayfarers though. I keep losing my sunglasses somehow or breaking them...I'm not the best at handling these things with caution/care.

Nothing much on pop culture/fandom today except, yay! We finally have our first Filipina Asia's Next Top Model...on season 5, no less! Yep, I watched the replay of Wednesday night's encore episode on Thursday, near-lunch time. I really was thinking Shikin would win it all thanks to Maureen's Julian-esque (from Asia's NTM season 4) dead fish-like eyes on the runway...it seems to me that, that is a trademark thing among Asia's Next Top Model contenders that come from this country.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

whenever i don't feel like thinking of anything

 t, disney. shorts/denim cutoffs, vintage. flats, fulfilled (?) (really a gift from an aunt). clutch, also a gift from an aunt. cap, bobdog.

There are days, well...in this case, 2 weeks tops, when I get tired of thinking about clothes. And since this is my personal space slash blog, I probably shouldn't apologize from my looooong absence here or something... But anyway, today's outfit is an extension of the two long weeks where I didn't want to think of putting myself together fashionably...err...stylishly, whichever works, at the start of every day. A statement (-ish?) t works best on those days and hence why I am in this, a Disney shirt. I'm a fan of the mouse, as in Mickey though I've only seen bits and pieces of his cartoon on Disney Channel. Growing up, it was Sesame Street for me because we didn't have cable then but it was around high school or early college when I got into everything Disney, especially Mickey. There's High School Musical too at the time but Mickey is so much more recognizable, still. Some of my best friends growing up collected everything Hello Kitty or some other Sanrio characters---this is still the Asian continent after all---but for some reason, everything Mickey Mouse attracts me. It must be because the mouse can fit in well with whichever gender wears pieces designed after him. Hmn...I do suspect I have the urge to wear this one shirt constantly because Da-iCE's Kudo Taiki is endorsing a similar Mickey Mouse print shirt on instagram and a fashion magazine... I'm an out and out, vocal fan of Taiki's personal style so...figures. Haha. He has the type of closet I'd raid in a heartbeat...if I had access to it. I just wish though...

What do I do when I don't want to think of clothes, style, fashion? I wallow in everything fandom...err...pop culture. The past two weeks or so, it's the kpop group, Highlight (하이라이트). Whoop whoop! My first kpop group I casually stan! I can't hardcore stan anything or anyone as I'm just a casual music enthusiast/listener. Music is first for me, gimmick is often second so I am the type to stick to the ones that I know deliver the goods day in and day out, case in point, my fave Avex groups: lol (エルオーエル), AAA (though just sometimes? I don't know either...they've been an on/off interest for me lately), Da-iCE and SOLIDEMO. Now there's Highlight (하이라이트), the sixtet that now has become a quintet since last year, that was once upon a time called Beast (also stylized B2ST). I was revisiting Let's Eat with My Friend, that travel and eating reality tv show attached to the kdrama Let's Eat 2, two weeks ago for reasons unknown...I caught it first on TVN in bits and pieces...well...one reason may have been because I recently caught the tail end of Highlight (하이라이트)'s I Can See Your Voice season 4 episode and ended up in love...deep like? with them as a group. In case you're going to ask, yes, I have watched about every episode of Weekly Idol with them in it...they're so much fun to watch. So, so, so, so much fun to watch it takes the gloominess, depression and such away, at bay. Anyway, today, I'm currently watching Yoseob's Oh My School episodes. That one is one hilarious variety show, thank heavens for english subbed episodes at Dramanice. My head may just burst from trying to comprehend things being said in Hangul/South Korean should there be no english subs to these things---experienced it while watching Jun Hyung's Hitmaker with that one MC whose name I keep forgetting who's also in Weekly Idol---and I ended up crying inside, telling myself my head processes Japanese/Nihonggo better than it does this particular east asian language in raw form. I don't really have any plans of learning the language. Japanese/Nihonggo is enough for me to deal with when it comes to foreign languages and maybe French at times as well, but mostly just Japanese/Nihonggo. I update myself lately with every kpop as regularly as possible but I'm beginning to feel like this is one strange, really dramatic circus to the one I'm used to, jpop everything so one day, I see myself stopping this habit altogether and sticking to the more familiar things (to me). We'll see... Anyway, Highlight (하이라이트) music, what little they have out yet, is really good. Like, so good. Sleep Tight is my current favorite. I love that they started on their re-rookie-dom with a really fun song, 얼굴 찌푸리지 말아요 (English translation: Plz Don't Be Sad). But I don't discount their work as Beast/B2st, too. I'm still crazy about Beautiful, YeY and now, Midnight Sun. They've been as consistent in releasing boppy everything as Da-iCE and their ballads hardly disappoint as well, I count Sleep Tight as a ballad though it has hints of alt rock in it especially around Yoseob's singing (you could tell easily I am Yoseob-biased...well...yeah...). I prefer their bops to their ballads outside of Sleep Tight more however. Anyway, I could go on and on about this and get people reading this bored so I'll stop here for now, I guess.

It's quite a surprise I like a group in South Korea now when I prefer their jpop counterparts more. I get around to certain things/fields on my own that I used to not like/sort of hate way, way before. This is why I don't write off a lot of things so easily because I know in the end, something or a part of those will later come to get me around regarding how I think or view them as a whole.

Anyway, who's excited about Asia's Next Top Model season 5 ending tonight? It's the top three! I just caught up with it late last week. I want Maureen from our own country to win but I feel like it'll be Shikin (I'm not a big fan of Tu...much...). Yep. I'll watch the finale's replay tomorrow morning. I hardly stay up past 10 or 9 these days. Starworld airs it at 9 p.m.

I'll try to post regularly this week and especially in the next few months...

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

a couple of white dresses


photos 1-2: dress, from multiply (old - some korean/chinese brand i forgot...hah). choker, verano ph via zalora ph (but from seasons ago...). tights, daiso (if memory serves me right...). heels, zalora ph. bangles, vintage and souvenir shop-dumaguete city. photo 3: denim jacket, vintage levis. dress, vintage. boots, rubi by cotton on via zalora ph. bag, clutch bag, gift from aunt.

And here we have another double outfit photo, photos 1 and 2 being from yesterday and photo 3 that's from today. What they have in common are the white dresses that I can't seem to live without. Another wardrobe staple (at least for me~) aside from the cream silk cami, yes. Here, today, we had some rains but they weren't too strong, just drizzles and they were on and off, too, in the morning. In the afternoon, it became the usual almost-extremely humid. As it was a little cooler especially in the morning and late in the afternoon, the denim shirt worn as a jacket on the third photo had to come out. It's soft denim and clearly a guy's shirt so it's oversized on me. It's the most useful as a jacket, to me. It's warm too but not too warm so I find that it suits mid-cool (not too cold, not too hot) daily temperatures that we usually don't have majority of the year here (only during the wet/rainy season, I guess). The boots and white dress is one combo I don't think I'll ever get tired of. As for photos 1 and 2, this might have been the first time I've gone all floaty and girly on here...err...no? This isn't really my typical style---I like to mix girly with edgy or masculine most of the time---but it works here, I guess. I was looking for something to wear with the tights other than the ankle boots so the pumps were the ones I sprung for thinking it would give a pop of color to an otherwise all black and white outfit. As for he white dresses, I really like that you can do anything in them, even dance to groovy jpop and tropical house music, jump on the trampoline, climb a tree also cook or make some salad because I just had to before lunch today... That's pretty much the charm of white dresses, the mini kind, for me.

Hmn...the staples post will have to come around Friday this week or next week...I'm not sure yet but this is definitely in the works at the moment.

Monday, June 5, 2017

rain ready

 silk cami, vintage ralph lauren. jeans, secondhand. hoodie (worn as belt), secondhand anne klein. boots, rubi by cotton on via zalora ph. clutch bag, gifted by aunt. bangle, vintage.

The silk cami is becoming quite the useful staple for this summer that's now slowly turning into the rainy season. Just right after shooting this, it ended up raining when I'm supposed to be picking stuff up outside for a strawberry and beet smoothie concoction. Days like this, I cannot really forgo having anything hooded when going out. I'm not a huge fan of umbrellas though I would usually have a folding automatic kind in my bag, which is often a tote bag by the way, at this time. Other times, I just get one of those transparent umbrellas that aren't at all the folding kind to use when out. They are the most convenient. In general, I'm not really fond of going out during the rainy days, I'm more of a sunny day-preferring someone, so the umbrellas and raincoats aren't as useful as they should be but they remain a necessity either way. Anyway, I'm currently thinking of a summer, dry to wet seasons staples post...something I'll get to one day this week as it seems that in this blog, a lot of things are being put on repeat enough to be considered just that, staples.

Well, I guess, at least it's cooling down in the afternoons. I like the almost-indian summer heat the most but this humid majority of the days and wetter and cooler during the late afternoons is good too.

Lately, I've been wearing my earrings like this:
Exactly, miniscule rather, microscopic and mismatched people are likely not going to find that I have mismatched ear accessories when out considering it's kind of difficult to notice as they're way too small to be noticed at first glance. I lost my favorite crescent moon studs while travelling around a couple years or so ago. Lately, I like my accessories microscopic.

In other news, since yesterday, I've been wallowing in everything SOLIDEMO on ダンゼン Live! via youtube posts from other fans. I'm beginning to love all their four main vocalists: Shunei, Akito, Takeshi, and Kazuya. I'm loving them way more than I did and still do their back-up and occasional secondary or tertiary vocalist, Nakayama Yuki. It might be because to me, they are what make the core of this boys group. The thing about SOLIDEMO is that even when they don't have either Nakayama Yuki and/or Yamaguchi Tomoya (who may be out for gigs like stage plays, tv series tapings and more...), 6-7 of them still function fine in lives. They can make their audience forget they're actually missing a member or members to other entertainment biz gigs/engagements. You can say SOLIDEMO is a complete boy group in everything as any member, especially among the core 4 I briefly named earlier, can easily step in to cover for the absent members. Their ダンゼン Live! stuff are really good fun, hilarious though, so I enjoyed trying to catch up to a lot of those of this I now frequently miss watching live. I think this show is on Nico Nico TV/Live in Japan as I don't think it is on Ustream like Da-iCE's monthly broadcasts so I can't really watch it live as I only have the app on my currently non-functional iPad Air---I'm considering having it fixed one day yet...I think I just overloaded the thing with photos and some heavy apps as the one I own only has 16GB worth of space for stuff. Yep, SOLIDEMO. Them and Da-iCE are two boy groups from Japan I really like/love as they come from the same agency or talent management: Avex. And speaking of, SOLIDEMO music should be good in this really rainy afternoon. Their discography is full of beautiful upbeat pop, mid-beat pop and really pretty ballads so it's definitely suited for such a day. The downpour outside is really strong at this time. It's only 5:15 in the afternoon here and there's hardly any sunlight, too.

Friday, June 2, 2017

sort of uniform and some music chatter

 t, h&m. lace shorts, tally weijl. bag, ninewest. boots, rubi by cotton on via zalora ph. straw fedora, jessica simpson. cuff/bangle, vintage.

I'm growing to like this pair of lace shorts and normally, I'm not into lace a lot unless it's placed strategically in a certain piece of clothing, like a one-piece mini dress. Or maybe a slip dress. White t and shorts is basically my default during humid summer days. It doesn't even have to be the lace shorts type either. Denim shorts and cutoffs---since most of my jeans end up being cut short unless they were the snug-fitting ones or the skinny ones that I seem to prefer most of the time---are my eternal favorites. 

It's the start of the rainy season and it has been raining on and off in the afternoons. It's still sunny majority of the days however so I might have to prolong summer dressing until the rains become more constant. Here, in the southern part of the Philippines, we only ever really get two seasons: wet and dry; rainy and sunny/humid hot, therefore there's a need to change wardrobes twice a year. In my case, I refrain from doing so, changing wardrobes twice a year, and prefer to stick to owning versatile pieces that can be worn with everything else I own instead.

Music talk: Anyway, yaaaayyyy! Da-iCE's トニカクHey's music video is out. I LOVE IT. All caps, yes. It gives a very kpop vibe when you watch it except it's not because the lyrics is in nihonggo. The music is also very characteristic of the feel good jpop that I frequently prefer more to kpop's edgy, choppy ones---for some reason, kpop, particularly those from boybands from that camp, come off that, choppy and fragmented, to me when I listen to some of them so I tend to avoid them entirely instead.
Ah, this is only a teaser. The full length music video is uploaded on youtube. You can look it up on that site should you want to. Just note that it may be region-locked to those outside of Asia. Japanese stuff often are, apparently, granted even the DVDs I have from there are region-locked as well---for the latter, I make do with unlocking them with a software and good thing too as my dvd player reads them fine. Back to トニカクHey however, it's definitely a summer tune better than Everybody although a notch lower from my eternal favorite from them that's Paradive. So needless to say, I'm hooked. This and Flowback's Booyah! will be on repeat for me this week. I can't really explain what I like/love about this music video...I would say everything, I guess since all I can think of. Now I can't wait for the single release! It's only a few days away until then.