bag bug!

My wife's obsession for Louis Vuitton is unparalleled, and as a loving, obedient husband, I have no choice but to fulfill her lust for the monogram every once and a while. But since the financial crunch has cast an uncertain twilight on the consumer-trodden world (I just love using that excuse these days!), it simply means I can't afford to give her a new bag every time Marc Jacobs releases a new line every season.

So it is with this bleak financial incapacity that has pushed my creative juices and my shrinking wallet into crisscrossing boundaries...

If you can't buy your wife a Louis Vuitton bag... then make one!



Or better yet, make a couple. Then sell it as an exclusive line of bags and make money out of it!

So the idea of making my own bags for my wife and for women (and men) like her came into being. I thought of designing the bag in itself in the shape of a pocket, so it conjures accessibility, practicality and well, just for the fact that I like that shape. And since eco bags are all the rage these days, it couldn't have fit more perfectly! Don's seamstress does the basic stitching while my Khmer staff does the silkscreen printing and detailing.


The first bag I made was the "can't afford Louis Vuitton" and it was all sold out in the shop in a matter of days. I had to make a 2nd series, this time on black stretch denim. "The devil also wears Vuitton" is a new batch.


This bag was inspired by my designer friend Elizabeth Kiester who moved from New York as a fashion icon to Siem Reap and opened her own shop. The NY side is on the other side of the SR side- so you can actually have two bag designs!


This is inspired by my friend Don who has been bugging me to give him a Balenciaga motorcycle bag for Christmas, but with a retail price of $1,730 (78,000pesos), I think it'll still be a while before I could afford to give it to him... so this is perhaps the next best thing!


Inspired by car bumper stickers...


This book-inspired statement has also been getting good mileage from buyers...


The Obama bag has also been a big riot in the shop the moment I placed it on the rack! One freaky buyer exclaimed: "Oh my God, I've got to have that in my life!"


Although I have never bought my wife a pair of Louboutins (or Blahniks), I thought that this would be cool... some bags like this have different treatments like beadworks, embroidery, tassels and what-nots.


My wife told me that when I get rich enough as an artist (as rich as Damien Hirst or Murakami), she'd like to quit her job and become a trophy wife!


So I told her also that if she gets rich enough as a marketing consultant for a global firm, I told her that I also would love to stop working, close my shop and be a trophy husband!

Each bag which comes in a limited edition of 3 or 6 pieces per design retails exclusively at The One Gallery by the Alley for $25 (1,250 pesos) each.

saigon 101

I was in Saigon to buy a birthday gift for my wife, and going around Vietnam's dynamic business heartland gave me a brand new perspective of how lucky I am to be living in this part of the universe - Southeast Asia - where a bus ride for six hours can take you to another world. It has been almost three years since I have last been here, and the changes you see around is utterly remarkable.

First and foremost, Saigon is not known as Saigon anymore - it has been renamed Ho Chi Minh City since the country was reunited in the late 1960's. But for a hopelessly romantic travel nomad such as I am, it will always be poetically-correct named as Saigon.


I roamed its streets again and was taken aback with an overflowing sense of nostalgia, from the vestiges of its French colonial past, to the American War, even to my personal connection to its history...

The gothic-spired Notre Dame Cathedral is a significant reminder that despite the country's solid stance on communism, it is still largely deeply rooted in Catholic faith - a gift of the west via France.


The Reunification Palace used to house South Vietnam's government before the Fall of Saigon. Now, it seems to be haunted by ghosts of the past.


The park facing the Opera House is also an outdoor art gallery - housing exhibitions of images and visions from around the country.


The iconic Opera House featured the Vietnamese Army Band outside when I came to Louis Vuitton to buy my wife's bag. I had a live music background while at the LV store in Opera View which conveniently faces the Opera House (hence the name). It was like they knew I'll be there to shop for love.


Coffee culture, a remnant of France's heritage in Vietnam is everywhere... Trung Nguyen Coffee is considered king.


The Vespa is also king of the road in Saigon...


The humble Cyclo comes in close second...


The Vietnamese are extremely skin-conscious people. I know the Chinese are notorious with their skin care but they cannot compete with the Vietnamese obsession in protecting their skin from going tan.


It's streets are littered with women (and even men!) who cover themselves from head to toe to escape the scorching heat, but not the overflowing perspiration!


And like an apple lost somewhere between a haystack and a peach tree, love exists in Saigon in unexpected corners... from the lovers French-kissing on a tree by the park or through a newlywed couple starting happily ever after outside of Gucci. Yes, love will always be in fashion anywhere you find it...

forevers and louis vuittons

Four years ago, I married the girl of my dreams.



Being a penniless, starving artist that I was then, I had no means to give her the wedding of her dreams – a flowing white Vera Wang or a Vivienne Westwood dress, a sunset ceremony on a deserted beach, wedding rings by Cartier or Tiffany, a theatrical reception with a string orchestra, chocolate fountain, free flowing champagne and designer canapés and a dinner whipped up by three-star Micelin chefs from France.


Instead, I married her in our little house garage in Iloilo. She wore a fifty peso ($1) long skirt which she converted into a dress from Landmark in Makati. Our rings were bought for 200 pesos ($4) from Divisoria’s Tutuban Mall and our reception was catered by my own mom who cooked everything from scratch. Our entire wedding cost us 10,000 pesos ($400) which I got as payment for designing the uniforms of Club Noah Isabelle in Palawan. Our plane fares were free, as we’ve accumulated enough points from the loyalty program of Cebu Pacific, back when they still had the Summit Club. I also got some extra money from selling two paintings for only 5,000 pesos ($100).


Since that was all I could offer her at that time, I vowed to myself to MAKE IT UP to her as soon as I am financially stable. Through time, I have learned to keep myself abreast with the thing that has gripped my wife’s fancy into a growing obsession since time immemorial… LOUIS VUITTON.


I remember seeing her face light up every time we pass by the LV flagship store in Greenbelt IV when we were still living in Manila. Her cheeks would gush at the sight of the monogrammed canvas, and when Marc Jacobs, creative director of LV, took bolder steps in collaborating with more artists in designing new bags and reintroducing the classics, the fire became unstoppable. Being introduced to the blog of another LV fanatic Cecile Zamora Van Straten (chuvaness.livejournal.com) didn’t help at all.

So after a successful exhibition in Manila last April, I took her LV shopping. But as much as taking Cocaine and a woman’s Louis Vuitton obsessions are the same, they will always crave for more. Lately, my wife has been bombarding me with not-so-subtle hints (see a comment on my last post!) of what she wants for her birthday.


So as my love for her is growing and getting stronger each day, I have no choice but to translate that love into a silly, materialistic, consumerist, capitalistic symbol of desire to spend forever by her side…. I AM EMBARKING ON A JOURNEY OF LOVE – a long, six hour drive from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (it actually took me 23 hours on the road as my rickety Toyota Camry's transmission system broke down!), and a seven hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to Saigon (the nearest Louis Vuitton store) to buy another LV bag for the woman I am dearly enamored with.

How far will you go for love?