I was asked the other day what the target age market of Style Reverie was.
I opened my mouth to respond, with the numbers of "between 20 to 35" on the tip of my tongue, then stopped.
That's not true I thought to myself. If my mom wants to wear something from the collection, she would look perfectly fine (and fabulously trendy) in it. And mom is not within the age group of 20 to 35.
These days, with the combined factors of beauty products, the media and the resulting increased of confidence in women, looking good and stylish is no longer confined to those who are young and / or wealthy. Commercialism, innovation and creativity have made looking beautiful and confident accessible to women of all ages (look at Elle MacPherson!) and across many levels of income. Gone were the days when only those women who were not married, who were educated enough to be working or were married to rich husbands can afford to buy and put on good make-up and beautiful clothes. With the emergence of multi-level marketing (think from Red Earth, Mabelline and Revlon to MAC, Lancome, Christian Dior; designer wear now being available at Target) and online shopping channels, women these days have ample (if not unlimited) options to products that make them look and feel good about themselves.
In fact Helena Rubinstein's infamous quote There are no ugly women, only lazy ones is more relevant now than it ever was.
I think again about the question posed to me, and I think the right answer would be that Style Reverie caters to a market who appreciates beautiful clothes of simple elegance at reasonable prices (as we do not have to pay building leases or store employees). Style Reverie delivers to a particular taste, a sense of style, but not to a particular age group. To constrain ourselves to an age group would be to deny the ability of others to feel confident and be creative about what they wear.
And this is a belief that we'll like to share.
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On another note, William proposed to me last night. I am now engaged :)
Friday, February 26, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
On Noble Jobs
In my career I have mostly come across people who are in their jobs because they love the challenge and hype of the corporate world and of solving complex problems for big organisations, or because they love the money that comes with it. Therefore I have always been impressed by people on the other side who choose to take up jobs which are sometimes dangerous, do not necessarily generate them a lot financial return but which I find so noble.
Ticking off the list, there are the policemen, the firemen, the teachers, the garbage collectors, the prosecutors and the doctors (only partially because most of the time they do get paid heaps), and let us not forget, the bus drivers.
Now, bus drivers are people whom I come across most mornings when I go to work. Although most of the time the bus trips are fairly uneventful, I observe that the bus driver is perhaps one of the few occupations that come with stress at multiple levels even during an uneventful trip and worse still, during an eventful one e.g.
- time pressure - buses usually have to be at a certain location at a specific time
- time pressure, in addition to driving a big complex machine with about 20 different buttons
- bad driving from other vehicles - I have been involved in a "bus accident" on 2 occasions and witnessed 1
- providing sufficient and safe space on the bus to your passengers - telling anxious, perhaps work-late people that they can no longer board the bus because it's full
- dealing with kids and other fully-abled passengers who do not voluntarily give space to people in need
- and the most unfortunate of them all, dealing with passengers who are abusive towards other passengers or the bus driver themselves - type in "bus driver attack" on google and be surprised by how many incidents that are returned
I understand that in some of these instances they might not have a choice (these would be the drivers who merely grudgingly nod at you when you say "good morning" to them), but I have also seen bus drivers who are in their jobs purely because they love it and they love getting people to their destinations on time (these are the drivers who play chirpy jazzy music in the mornings and greet you with smiley "good mornings"). In fact, if you remember the sad news of Mr Sin who lost his eye last year from a bus attack, Mr Sin had been a driver for 18 years and liked his job. Needless to say, he would not be returning to bus driving after the incident.
Like any other jobs, but particularly so for these noble jobs, I find it sad that people are discouraged from doing what they love doing due to the ignorant, callous and sometimes violent acts of others. I think that we have to remember that a lot of these noble people are performing their jobs for the betterment of the society, jobs which most of us would not risk our dear lives to do - so instead of criticising them we should show them the amount of respect they deserve. On a selfish note, I would not want to wake up one morning and find that there are no longer bus drivers around - city parking is very expensive (this will be yet another topic for another day).
Ticking off the list, there are the policemen, the firemen, the teachers, the garbage collectors, the prosecutors and the doctors (only partially because most of the time they do get paid heaps), and let us not forget, the bus drivers.
Now, bus drivers are people whom I come across most mornings when I go to work. Although most of the time the bus trips are fairly uneventful, I observe that the bus driver is perhaps one of the few occupations that come with stress at multiple levels even during an uneventful trip and worse still, during an eventful one e.g.
- time pressure - buses usually have to be at a certain location at a specific time
- time pressure, in addition to driving a big complex machine with about 20 different buttons
- bad driving from other vehicles - I have been involved in a "bus accident" on 2 occasions and witnessed 1
- providing sufficient and safe space on the bus to your passengers - telling anxious, perhaps work-late people that they can no longer board the bus because it's full
- dealing with kids and other fully-abled passengers who do not voluntarily give space to people in need
- and the most unfortunate of them all, dealing with passengers who are abusive towards other passengers or the bus driver themselves - type in "bus driver attack" on google and be surprised by how many incidents that are returned
I understand that in some of these instances they might not have a choice (these would be the drivers who merely grudgingly nod at you when you say "good morning" to them), but I have also seen bus drivers who are in their jobs purely because they love it and they love getting people to their destinations on time (these are the drivers who play chirpy jazzy music in the mornings and greet you with smiley "good mornings"). In fact, if you remember the sad news of Mr Sin who lost his eye last year from a bus attack, Mr Sin had been a driver for 18 years and liked his job. Needless to say, he would not be returning to bus driving after the incident.
Like any other jobs, but particularly so for these noble jobs, I find it sad that people are discouraged from doing what they love doing due to the ignorant, callous and sometimes violent acts of others. I think that we have to remember that a lot of these noble people are performing their jobs for the betterment of the society, jobs which most of us would not risk our dear lives to do - so instead of criticising them we should show them the amount of respect they deserve. On a selfish note, I would not want to wake up one morning and find that there are no longer bus drivers around - city parking is very expensive (this will be yet another topic for another day).
Monday, February 1, 2010
Highlights of the Week
1. My first comment received on my blog! After 2.5 months of diligent writing I have finally received a comment (being aware also that this might not be a "real" comment given that it's written in Mandarin - I wouldn't know!). I tried to put it through Google Translate and it sounded ok. Thanks!
Note: Google Translate is an awesome tool which can provide you with a literal translation for most major languages. Although it will not translate a 40-page Japanese report into an understandable report in English (I tried), but it works well enough for basic purposes. Just for fun, try putting these Korean words through "내 블로그를 읽어 주셔서 감사합니다".
2. Will and I haven't been spending a lot of time by ourselves for the last few weeks so we took the opportunity to turn a fishing trip in Bicton Quarantine Park into a picnic for only the two of us. The view of the Swan River from the park was breathtaking (and we can view the magnificent Mosman Bay just directly opposite us), and we stayed on late enough to see the full moon casting bright, shimmery, white light onto the waters. Although we didn't catch anything that night it was a lovely night out.
Bicton Quarantine Park
3. I found out late last week that I will be commencing on a new project within these couple of weeks. This is a great opportunity as the client is a reputable global organisation, the project is a critical driver and I will get to work with real experts in the field (from the US). I cannot wait for it to begin!
4. Another highlight at work today (which can almost match the above) was that Nestle was doing a promotion on their HEAVEN range ice-cream and we received free ice-cream today! I picked the chunky cookie flavour and when I bit into it, I felt like I was in ....
5. Style Reverie is undergoing a rebranding exercise at the moment. For the last week, with the assistance of a very talented friend (www.horngshii.com), I have been making myself busy with the redefination of the SR logo. I have settled on the following. It should be imparting a chic, simple, fun feel. What do you think?
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