Last February, in the marble lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel, there was a moment that seemed to sum up the whole concept of celebrity fashion designers. As photographers shoved each other with their oversized lenses, and gossip journalists shouted out questions, the designer Todd Smith, better known as LL Cool J, stood in the center of the throng, diamond stud in ear. Bored-looking models lounged around the room, the boys in crocodile jackets, the girls in tiny dresses, ignored by everyone.
What made LL Cool J think he could be a fashion designer? "I have the sensibility -- I am sensitive to pop culture," came the answer. So he designed his collection all by himself? A momentary beat. "I didn't have total input, but I was the one inspiring it." And off he was swept by his fearsome battalion of PRs and security men.
All in all, an experience pretty much on a par with the shows held in New York by P Diddy (brown suede hotpants) and Jennifer Lopez (fur-trimmed ponchos) in previous seasons. Such is the world of celebrity fashion shows: pushy PRs, perfunctory involvement by the celebrities and very poor clothes.
But across town, a smaller, quieter show suggested this trend was being bucked. In the house of actress/model Milla Jovovich, models strolled around cheerfully wearing clothes that were -- goodness! -- really, really good.
For the second full collection of her label Jovovich-Hawk, which she designs with fellow former model Carmen Hawk, the inspiration was "strong women," meaning that it was almost certainly the only show of the season that featured the words "Gertie Stein" on its press release and cited Katharine (as opposed to the more usual, and far less interesting, Audrey) Hepburn as inspiration. There were elegant patterned blouses, vintage-style tunics and impressively well-cut trousers -- all very cool but grown-up, pretty but modest, and with nary a crocodile jacket to be seen.
Sitting in a London hotel, laughing at one another's jokes and chattering away in their endearing Bill and Ted accents ("Totally dude"), Jovovich and Hawk are still shocked that what started as an afternoon hobby in each other's bedrooms four years ago is now about to be stocked in Harvey Nichols, "which is, like, insane," Jovovich practically yelps.
But despite the girlish breathiness, both women clearly take the job very seriously, and are in charge of everything from manufacturing to distribution, and only realized that they could hire others to help them last year. For one of their first collections, they sewed the clothes themselves in their bedrooms.
Jovovich and Hawk met more than 13 years ago and are now best friends, finishing each other's sentences and stealing Marlboro Lights off each other. With two models as designers and the frequent references to "vintage inspiration," one might assume that these are clothes for a small (in both number and physical shape) coterie. But both women, who are in their early 30s, are adamant that they are for all ages and sizes, even using Jovovich's mother as a size model.
"For us, it's about strong women or making women feel strong," says Jovovich, who is very pretty with a warm face. "When I first met Carmen, what I liked about her was that she was a strong but still feminine woman, and that she didn't have to show she was strong by wearing baggy jeans or whatever, like I was doing. But also, I look around America and there are so many girls who feel they have to walk around half-naked to attract men and we're just trying to say: Do you really have to do that? And would you really want to attract those kinds of men anyway?"
To say that Jovovich-Hawk is by far the best celebrity fashion range has more than a touch of the faint praise about it. But things are changing, now that celebrities are finally realizing that putting their name to a bunch of velour tracksuits (J-Lo by Jennifer Lopez) does no one's career any good.
There's Gwen Stefani's label, L.A.M.B, which the pop star not only seems to wear every day -- a sign of faith I've never seen Paris Hilton demonstrate with the Barbie-lite clothes she puts her name to -- but named her recent album after.
But Jovovich-Hawk has been the real surprise success. It was described in the New York Times this year as a fashion label, with no deflating celebrity prefix, and the press and buyers have been almost universally supportive. "We were so on the defensive," says Hawk, "waiting for people just to go, `Yeah, right, whatever.'" Jovovich would have been accustomed to this scepticism: ever since she began her career as a child, alternating between modelling, acting and singing, she has been accused of being a celebrity dilettante. But here, the proof was in the very good product.
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
Over the past year, a peculiar phrase has begun to litter Asian women’s social media accounts: “Oxford study.” An Asian woman vlogging about her dating life — and particularly about dating white men — gets commenters reacting to her updates with the words “Oxford study.” A young Asian student showing off her prom dress with her white boyfriend sees “obligatory Oxford study comment” on her TikTok. “I can already hear the oxford study comments coming,” one Asian woman captions a video of her dancing with her white partner. The phrase “Oxford study” refers to just that: an academic study out of Oxford
In spite of the next local elections being over two years away, there is already considerable intrigue and jockeying for position by politicians and their supporters. The local press runs quite a bit of content, mostly speculative, on who will run in what races and what the outcomes might be. This is an overview for English language readers to get a taste of the state of play. Four races in particular are drawing a lot of heat, those of mayors of New Taipei City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung because in all four the incumbent mayors will be term-limited out. In