Sunday Sisters

Celebrating our Church's 27th Anniversary in style. Taken with my sister's Blackberry and edited with her Iphone. Isn't technology amazing? We can take and edit pictures just about anywhere already :D

Happy Sunday, everyone!

♥ Cooky and Tin

RedBlackWhite

Never Too Old

London Lovin'

About this Look: "Ruffles and Pleats"

I wanted to go for a more elegant feel with this look, while still keeping it fun. That's why I decided to pair the white ruffled top and the salmon-colored electric pleated trousers (more formal) with the floral wedges (fresh!) :) This look is also a product of my mid-year sale escapades. 

The wide-legged trousers from Topshop were half off, cutting the price down to PhP 1,200.
The floral wedges from Aldo were also on sale, and I got them for PhP 2,800 (from about 4k!)

Two great pieces from two great brands at really good prices! :) It's times like these when Patience really is a virtue. It pays to wait a while til shops go on sale... then you score really great finds and manage to save some money ;) 

♥ Cooky

Ruffles and Pleats

Waiting.

Fashion Travelogue: Bangkok Lovin'

The last few years, I've had to fly to Bangkok, the beautiful capital of Thailand, for work-related projects. Being part of a multinational advertising agency has allowed me to brainstorm with other like-minded creatives in the region and work on foreign TV productions over there.

Last month, I went back for an editing job and during my downtime, I was able to go around the city and do some window- and actual shopping.

Bangkok is famous in Asia for carrying fashionable items at dirt cheap prices. And I say this as a Filipino (to think that the prices of clothes, shoes and accessories in general over here are very affordable compared to those of our Asian neighbors). Whenever I'm in Bangkok, I can't help but mentally compute the price differences of various items. Their clothes cost a fraction of ours here, their gadgets are significantly cheaper and to fill one's stomach with food won't cost you more than a few baht.

The thing with Bangkok is that you need to know where to look. To shop at high-end brands, you would go to malls such as Siam Paragon and CentralWorld. 

To get style-eco friendly looks, you would hit the night markets of Bangkok (they're on every street and pedestrian overpass starting 8 pm), malls such as Platinum (floor after floor of really fashionable but more than affordable clothes), MBK (which I will write about in a bit) and the Chatuchak Weekend Market (famous for its really wide range of items at bargain prices).

Here are some of my photos from my last trip.

 A typical street market scene. You can find almost anything under the sun from dresses, tops, skirts, shorts, trousers, leggings, jewelry, shoes, bags and sunglasses in these street markets. Don't forget to haggle, too. Chances are that cheap item you're eyeing will be sold to you for much cheaper. The Thai vendors are generous like that.

Printed trousers on sale at 179 baht (PhP 250 or USD 5). Did I mention that stylish clothes were really affordable in Bangkok? 

One of the many tables selling sunnies for just 69 baht (PhP 95 or USD 2).

This is one of their high-end malls, CentralWorld.

A couple of hundred meters away from CentralWorld via the walkway system is my most favorite shopping place, MBK. It's one huge mall (eight floors) that sells the most varied things from gadgets to clothes, shoes, bags, accessories and everything else you can possibly think of.

A shot from one of the many intersecting escalators. MBK's interiors are something to look at. If you haven't been inside long and frequently enough, you might get confused because of how big it is.

 Printed tops priced at 299 baht (roughly PhP 400 or USD 8.50).

Whenever I shop for my brothers, I always make sure to pass by this particular stall. It carries branded sportswear for a fraction of what they would buy here in Manila. I was able to buy a pair of the latest Adidas basketball shoes for our brother Chuck for roughly PhP 2,500.

At Loft (located in Siam Discovery), one can find this wall of make-up accessories. Because of how the items were stocked, you leave the place wishing you could've bought every single one of them.

Thailand is famous for their silk. So, men, you should seriously stock up on neckties whenever you visit Bangkok. I always make sure to get several for my dad, a necktie fanatic. You can buy affordable ties at MBK for 100 baht (PhP 140 or USD 3) or pricier ones at 500 baht (PhP 700 or USD 15). This shot was taken inside Tokyu, in the department store within MBK.

According to my Filipino friend who now works in our Bangkok office, OPI is the staple nail polish brand used in salons across Bangkok. A far cry, I daresay, from our salons here which usually carry local brands. Not that I have anything against local brands (in fact, our blog aims to promote brands whose quality and styles are at par with foreign ones) but I've yet to encounter a local nail polish brand that doesn't chip easily and has a wide range of options in terms of colors and texture.

A shot of the night market across the street from my hotel, which was Arnoma.

The Thai have a very unique sense of fashion. I'm not quite sure if this girl was trying to pull off a Kate Middleton-esque look.

Even bunnies there are fashionable. Buy one bunny, get a bunny outfit for free!

Rings are everywhere in Bangkok. These were sold on a blanket laid out on a pedestrian overpass. You can get silver and brass rings for as low as 30 baht (PhP 45 or US 95 cents), 50 baht (PhP 75 or USD 1.60) and 80 baht (PhP 112 or USD 2.40) depending on the style and size.

Really cheap belts of every color and every style can be bought from the night markets for only 50 baht (PhP 70 or USD 1.50). I regret not hoarding. Imagine how many of these I can pair with different kinds of shorts or jeans? Failure on my end.

To end this photo-heavy post, here's a shot of me with one of my unique finds there: an iPhone case in the form of an old school casette tape. 

It would be great to take Cooky with me the next time I go. I'm pretty sure she'll go wild when she sees all the things she can buy there. The last time we were there as a family (it was a girls' bonding trip with our mom after I graduated from college) was seven years ago. It'd be great to go there purely for leisure and for sightseeing.

♥, Tina

Here Comes The Sun

Weekly Lookbook Shoot Outtakes: Here Comes The Sun

Glad to have the sun back after the long rainy days :)

Color Blocked

The Return Home

High on Heels

No Fear

Have you guys ever been afraid of the future? Uncertain of where you were headed? Well that happened to me this week... and this is what I learned...

You realize you're afraid.
You stare that fear down.
Then you kick it in the face!

Best reminder I got was that with God, we have nothing to fear. He always has our back ;)

This look shows a different side to me, specifically my hip hop self. Gotta be proud of who I am!

Rainy Summer Monday Morning

It's the day I dread the most in a week, and it happens to be a rainy one. When I got ready to leave, instead of stepping out in open-toed flats or sandals, I had to go through my closet for my thickest wool jacket in anticipation of our office's subzero air condition units. Really, it's a double whammy when you compare today to the lyrics of a song that go, "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down." But what's a girl to do when faced with days like these? 

Put on your favorite boots, that's what! 

So I brought out my favorite, most comfortable (in an I-can-walk-all-day-long-in-them way) leather boots and wore them to work today.

This was another great and surprising find from my trip to Hong Kong in December of 2009. I happened to come across a Cotton On branch along Granville Road and, surprise of surprises, the whole shop was on sale. This was the last pair of boots in my size (coincidentally, Cooky and I have the same shoe size, so we can share shoes) and they were being sold for 50% off. So I bought them for a grand total of just PhP 600 (HKD 100, USD 13). Whether I pair these with skinny jeans or shorts, and a loose top or faux-winter wear (since we live in the tropics anyway), they're a great accessory to have. 

Do you have a pair of favorite boots? What's the story behind it?

♥, Tin

Color My Cloudy Skies

A Match Made in Summer Heaven

I've found that mixing more high end pieces with basics does just the trick. This weekend, my sister and I treated ourselves to summer buys. Yesterday, she found these yellow flats with a woven sole and ribbon accent from our ever-beloved SM Department Store. Today, my family and I took a side trip to Marks & Spencer after our Worship service at Eastwood mall. I found this gorgeous hat with a leopard print bow.

Yellow Parisian Flats. PhP 300.

Marks & Spencer Woven Hat with Leopard Print Bow. PhP 1,000.

What was great about these items were that they were both on SALE! More than that, they were the last pieces available. It was a match made in heaven! High end pieces + basics are indeed a great combination. After all, when you put them all together, who would know which is which? It's all about how you carry the look!

I'll be styling these two pieces into a nice summer look soon. Maybe when the sun comes out again :) Til then!

♥, Cooky (with Tin)

Photography Niche

I've always had artistic inclinations. When I was younger, I was either drawing or writing. At nine, I wrote my first novel on my aunt's computer (back when Word Star was still everyone's word processor of choice), then proceeded to delete it when I thought it wouldn't be a Pulitzer Prize winner.


Now that I'm part of the workforce as a writer for an advertising agency, I continue to find ways to keep my artistic juices flowing. Six years ago, I discovered photography and inherited an uncle's Canon EOS Rebel. I would bring it almost everywhere I went in the hopes of finding my photography niche. At first, I thought that I was more of a landscape "photographer"; I was addicted to finding the right kind of lighting, capturing ranges of colors, creating postcard-worthy images. I also tried food photography, often bringing my camera into restaurants and stopping people in the middle of their sentences just so I could take a picture of the food on their plates.


Then I discovered the world of portraiture. I would practice on family members, friends, and commissioned subjects. I realized that I had a knack for capturing people's emotions during the most unexpected and surprising of moments.


When my sister and I decided to work on this blog together, we decided to combine our strengths: her penchant for fashion and my love for photography.


Hopefully this blog can help people realize that fashion doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg – you just have to know where to look and how to put things together.

♥, Tin