(no subject)
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June 15
I'd been invited to the Hermes private sale and thought I should stop in as they area client and I've been remiss at attending their events. I was expectiing to find some good buys there, and was especially hoping for their men's leather belts to be on sale. I was looking for the one with the shiny palladium "H" buckle, with reversible black and white leather. But alas, the sale was pathetic and disappointing. Not only were most of the sale items women's wear, the menswear items were easily the ugliest of their inventory. And definitely no belt.
I have to say, the buyers in Singapore are a pretty pathetic lot. Whether it's for the most expensive designer boutiques like Club 21 and Dolce & Gabbana, or mass market department stores, the garments and accessories and items they decide to bring in are often the most boring, unattractive and repetitive of any collection. For example I'd seen Dolce & Gabbana's stunning Spring Summer 2007 collection and rushed to the boutique here to look for the gorgeous satin and silk blazers that'd been such a big hit on the runways. The sales girl stared blankly at me when i asked for these items and announced in that typical Singaporean monotone "Not available in Singapore. We din bring in..." and pointed to what the buyers did decide to import - a shapeless, conservative grey jacket that looked as if it'd been left in the boutique by a someone's uncle.
Similarly, when I went in search of Valentino neckties at Takashimaya, all they offered were a selection of the most boring and conservative striped patterns - none of the vibrant colours, rich brocades and exciting prints that he'd also featured in his collection. The buyer seemed to have ordered only the ties that would match an aged English professor's wardrobe, leaving behind the most beautiful ties. It's the same with shirts and slacks - almost every brand at every department store in Singapore offers only baggy shapeless shirts in boring prints that all look the same, and the pants are almost always pleated horrors. Baggy shirts and pleated pants are extremely unflattering to almost all men, and especially those of the height and build of the average Singapore male. Yet there they are, row after row, shelf after shelf of these tailored terrors.
And when I ask the sales staff why they don't have the others, the reply is always the same, "No demand" -- meaning the public prefers the safe, conservative, dull and dated over the vibrant, exciting, modern and stylish. So it seems that Singaporeans are trapped in a circle of sartorial hell of their own making - buyers will bring in the safest blandest outfits because that's what the public wants, and the public's tastes will never change because they are not offered anything better. This would explain why so many numbers of Singapore men are such shockingly bad dressers - despite our affluence and vaunted sophistication, our streets, offices and stores offer an endless parade of men in baggy, ill-fitting shirts, bland and boring ties, and poofy, unflattering pants. To paraphrase H.L Mencken, "we get the clothing we deserve."