life's a fuckin' fairy tale

It all begins with Once Upon a Time... and often ends with And They Lived Happily... but often or not, it ends with a not-so-happy ending, or sometimes, it just ends.

When my grandmother read my first bedtime story eons back, I knew that I'd be forever drawn into a world of words and tales woven out of one's imagination. That sheer magic of storytelling gave me my inspiration to try my hands into fashion for the first time...


The magic of the good is its inevitable relationship with the bad...
(Glitter Encrusted Skulls Necklace)


Once upon a time, there lived an evil queen...
(Evil Queen Cape Dress with Glitter Encrusted Skulls Necklace)


Her kingdom come, her will be done...
(Paparazzi Dress and The Other Birkin Bags)


But as she crossed paths with a man to tame her heart...
(Captivation Dress)



Don't we all wish for one?
(Fuckin' Fairy Tale Top and Pants)


Alas, the last page is turned...
(The End Shirt and Destiny Pants)


The full collection of the The Fuckin' Fairy Tale Series is on exhibit/sale at the mezzanine floor of POETRY at the Alley West, Siem Reap, Cambodia

what happened last year - thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is primarily a very American holiday, but having been raised in a city in the Philippines where American Baptist missionaries took good roots, we have been celebrating it all our lives. And besides, thanksgiving is such a universal celebration these days...


So it's only natural that we prepped up our Cambodian home for this holiday. I had an event organized for Guerlain Paris the month before so, I ended up with tons of scrap metal that I turned into two outdoor lounges.



We made and screen printed special throw pillows for the dinner with the names of our guests and guests-to-be (Obama and Hillary were too busy that evening)


We set our table with sculptures from Bill Bensley's Fantastical Creatures Exhibit and some bounty from the harvest (harvest at the supermarket, that is). We also made special placemats and coasters which stated things we were thankful for...



By dusk, the al fresco corner of the house was ready and so was dinner!


Me, my wife Faith, Don, Sheree (fresh from Newcastle, flown in especially for the Wanderlust fashion shoot) American authors Shannon and Jason and of course, Liz!

Our menu included stuffed chicken (turkey was too darn hard to find in Cambodia!), roast potatoes, buttered peas and veggies, battered fish, prawn cakes, pasta, stuffed pumpkin dessert, cream cheese cake, etc... Jason and Shannon brought a super cool drink that they concocted themselves!


Inside, we had our tree set up too for the holidays...


Guests got to bring their pillows as souvenirs!


A few days later, we had dinner with some new friends... Max, who's Vietnamese-French, Rachel, from the US, who's opening a boutique next door to us at the Alley West and Ruben from Mexico.


We definitely love welcoming friends to our home!

what happened last year - halloween

2009 was such a whack and it passed like a breeze. So many things and projects here and there kept me up for so long that the blog world seemed like a distant universe away from me. So what I'll do is try to catch up with the past year's missed posts... so here goes Halloween!


We started the evening at Linga Bar...


Snow White


Martin came out as a mummy with disastrous results. He had a lot of wardrobe malfunction and was half naked before the clock struck 12.


Stuart came as Michael Jackson


Georgie was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She followed the yellow brick road with a motorcycle...


Quite a drunk Ariel from the Little Mermaid


Ali G in da house!


Half of them came out as Greeks...


And this one's a Ghost Rider


Bonnie from Bonnie&Clyde, a ghostbuster and a UHC (Unidentified Halloween Costume)


Fairies and what-nots at Angkor What Bar


I came as an 18th century explorer!


Wild party at Angkor What. We can barely move!


I was with my Auntie Mida's friends from the US: Allan, Marlowe and Mark from Chicago and Seattle. They were on a holiday here and they definitely came at the right time!

louis & vuitton

For Christmas, we got Freedom two new pups to play with. Last year, our Labrador Chocky, mysteriously disappeared in our front yard and our son was devastated.


So we got him these cuddly little poodles... Louis and Vuitton. Somehow, they remind us of the colors of the monogrammed classic luggage... and they're French, hence the name. But for some strange reason, they remind me so much too of ewoks from Star Wars. Maybe we should have called them Leia and Luke instead? HHmmm...


Vuitton's a girl and is the darker one - almost like the color of the monogrammed canvas. She's the reserved, behaved and elegantly calm pup among the two. She's almost very lady-like... might be Marie Antoinette on her past life. Yes, she likes her hair brushed and loves cake too.


Louis, the lighter shaded pup, on the other hand is mischievous, fretfully friendly and such an "Energizer Bunny".He can end up covering himself in mud in no time. He is definitely Freedom's favorite.


He is also such a flirt. On parties, he'd flaunt his cuteness to guests who couldn't resist his natural French charm. Our friend Kimberly from New York, just couldn't help it!


And my sister Grace acted like their adopted mom during her holiday here.

Our cat, Cartier was truly jealous!

family portraits

Our not-so-little boy came home to Cambodia last month with Nanie, my mom and my sister and made our holidays the best we've ever had. It was our first Christmas and New Year altogether so we had to do our portraits!


My son, Freedom, all grown up!


The two of us doing a Lacoste ad!


Family snaps

Our Family! From left: my mom Love, my sister Love Grace, Don - the high priest of Cambodian avant garde fashion, my wife Faith, our son Freedom and Nanie.

cambodian connections

The great thing about living in Cambodia is being able to welcome people you'll probably never have a chance to meet at home or anywhere else in the planet for that matter. I guess it's just a matter of being at the right place at the right time...

A couple of weeks ago, we welcomed the group of Ben Chan, creative director and founder of Bench, the Philippines' largest retail group with clothing stores stretching from San Francisco to San Fernando, Dubai to Divisoria, Beijing to Boni Avenue. He was with Miguel, the head architect of Bench; talent managers Arnold and Rey; Xander Tantoco and Mons, daughter of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo.

They visited our shop, Poetry, and did a big shopping spree. Ben got a couple of stuffs and was especially fond of the book I did. He asked me to collaborate on him on some design projects for Bench and Pinoy Lab. My designs will be available on Bench this December!

Had dinner with them on the last night at the Aman House. T'was such great fun.

The next couple of weeks, I got a call from the Philippine Embassy in Phnom Penh to welcome and help out Senator Pia Cayetano on her trip to Angkor. She came with friend Anne who happens to be a triathlete like the senator.

Senator Cayetano was here as a speaker for a United Nations-sponsored conference. A young driven politician, a great mom and a health buff, she is truly an incredible person that it's hard to believe she exists in the flesh... my wife and I have just become a big, big fan.

three countries, one calamity

You've probably seen it in the news, or you've probably been one of those affected ones brought bu what is now dubbed as "Asia's Katrina" or the storm that broke records. Typhoon Ketsana will definitely be on everybody's books and until now, countless people are still picking up the pieces. I was "unlucky" enough to experience its wrath... in three countries nonetheless.

It started on the morning of the 25th of September, when I was still in Manila. I was preparing for my trip home to Cambodia, so I went to Greenbelt and Glorietta to do my final shopping as my trip is not until 2:30 in the afternoon. I left at around 8 am and the rain has already stopped. At around 10:30 am, the rain was absolutely beyond control and it was impossible to get a cab. After an hour of trying, I was able to find myself one but when we reached San Lorenzo Village in Makati to get my luggage, the house where I was staying at is already flooded to the waist. I was able to get my 40-kilo luggage from the flood waters all the way to the waiting taxi almost a kilometer away (the driver wouldn't plunge his car to the water even of I paid him a million bucks) and off to the airport we go. I was drenched to the bone. My Issey Miyake sneakers were squishing and I was shivering from the cold. I told myself I'll change when we get to the airport.
But as luck would have it, 80% of Manila was already underwater and we were stuck in traffic trying to find our way out in a little more than 4 hours. At 3:30, I gave up and asked the driver to take me to any hotel in Makati.



This is the scene right after the rain subsided, but it was just total havoc in the city.


The next day, I was able to get myself to the airport and was able to finally board the plane. The flight though was delayed for 4 hours as there was no electricity in the international airport. All baggages have to be loaded manually as the conveyors weren't working.

When we arrived in Bangkok, Ketsana has caught up on us and we were on standstill at the runway for an hour because of the lightning unfolding. I got out of the airport at almost midnight and Silom road was drenched to its knees.



When I went back, the airport was almost a ghost town. I finally made it to the flight the next day and was home in Cambodia at around 9 am.

But I was on for another surprise. Ketsana made it to Cambodia. This is the first time this ever happened as Cambodia is literally typhoon free. Everyone was caught by surprise when rain poured like crazy for 2 days. The river overflowed for the first time in history and this monk was trading the East River Road where theOrient Express Hotel is located.

Waters reached an alarming level and this motorcycle almost didn't make it.

Pub Street was still littered with toursits, but was also virtually a canal.

The Old Market Area is almost impassable and my car almost stalled in the middle of it this morning.

Don, my wife (both still toting Marc Jacobs and Vivienne Westwood in the middle of the calamity) and myself have to go out to shop for supplies as we have no electricity in the house in the past 2 days. I also had to get money from the bank to pay for my staff's salaries, so we had to brave the raging flood waters... in style...

Our fashionable New Yorker friend Eliz was still in vogue in the midst of it all. She deserves to be n the next cover of the September issue.

The biggest drawback here is that the Cambodians were totally unprepared for this storm. This has never transpired here and that was actually one of the reasons why we moved from the Philippines to here. I guess we all have to brace ourselves for global warming...