Nijiiro Jean visits hansel Mandarin Gallery.

Every Saturday morning in Japan, a little white dog mascot (on a stick) called "Nijiiro Jean" takes viewers on a tour to different places around the world on her super popular TV travel show.

 
(Above screengrab taken from Kansai Telecasting Corporation website.)

Recently, Nijiiro Jean decided to meet me at my Mandarin Gallery shop! Here's Ms Nijiiro Jean ("nijiiro" means rainbow, as seen on her tiny scarf) outside my hansel Mandarin Gallery shop. (The real Hansel the dog would have loved to meet her too - but might have torn her to pieces.)

Nijiiro Jean goes everywhere with her camera.

But always goes with a change of clothes.
Well, to be honest, it seems only hats and bags.

In each city, Nijiiro Jean has a local host to show her around. In this shot, Nijiiro Jean is overseeing the filming of her Singaporean host Kim showing off a hello hansel printed dress. Yes, that angle is good, Mr Japanese Cameraman! :)

Come back soon, Nijiiro Jean! Jo Soh misses you!

hansel X Lomography Fashion Pops booth at Mandarin Gallery.

Have you seen this pop-up booth outside Mandarin Gallery on Orchard Road yet?

We were given the rare opportunity to occupy one of the Fashion Pops booths this year. Part of the annual Samsung Fashion Steps Out 2013, this pop-up booth will be only around till this Sunday 21 April.

We collaborated with Lomography Singapore to create a photobooth where we recreated the handpainted backdrop and handmade props from our SS13 "Sync or Swim" campaign (which starred Denise Keller!) Over 10 days from 12-21 April, anyone can come and have their photo taken with the Lomo Diane F+ camera attached with the Instant Back+ that allows the photos to go on Instax Mini film. Each photo comes with additional benefits in the form of discounts! (See below)

And this is how we put the photobooth together - with LOTS of cardboard and paint!

Working with LARGE sheets of paper for the handpainted backdrop is not an easy task, I tell ya!

Backdrop delivery!!!

The results at the Fashion Pops booth!

The very cute and eye-catching Lomo Diana F+!

What a lifesaver!

Here's a shot of me and Kim Reyes from styleXstyle!

World Intellectual Property Day, 26 April 2013.

I have been invited to feature some of my designs at a show promoting awareness of intellectual property on this year's World Intellectual Property Day on April 26. In preparation for the show, I had to illustrate one of the outfits that we would be featuring, on a woman in a series of four walking positions. These illustrations would then be animated! How fun! :)

I picked our eye-catching hello hansel hot pink Halter Long Trapeze Dress from the current SS13 "Sync or Swim" collection and gave it a go with a few different illustration techniques.


I settled on a technique that was simple to execute yet able to express the dress's bold shock of colour.

 Put them together and you get a simple walking series.

At the photo studio today, I drew the frontal standing pose (on the extreme right) with the entire process being filmed.

Then I left the four artworks in the hands of the crew to film and animate. I'm looking forward to seeing the results! :)

We've been nominated for Best Fashion Brand at the I-S Magazine Reader's Choice Awards 2013!

We have won this award 2 years in a row for 2010 and 2011 and we have just been nominated for 2013. Will we win again? It's your decision!

Please vote for hansel for Best Fashion Brand under the "SHOPPING" category.
Click here now to vote!

Thank you very much!!! :)

Kult magazine's 11th issue: BOOKS

kult magazine had invited me to design a book cover for their magazine's 11th issue which is all about books. I didn't want to simply redesign my favourite book (it's hard to name ONE favourite anyway) so I searched online for something more interesting to work on and oh boy, I found it!

I did the main illustration by hand then did a real simple layout on Photoshop. I was quite pleased with the results. :)

In addition to being featured in kult magazine, selected book covers were printed and framed and displayed in several locations in Tiong Bahru as part of the recent Design Trail organized by The Design Society. My piece is up on the walls of Flock Cafe in Tiong Bahru from now till the end of March 2013. Hey, the print's for sale! ;)

Thursday 28 March 2013 update: 
The newest kult magazine is out! You can pick up a copy from my hansel shop at 02-14 Mandarin Gallery on Orchard Road. (It's free.)

There's my piece! Awesome!

MediaCorp Suria Pesta Perdana 12 winner Wahyu Rahman in hansel.

An ol' pal of mine, Singaporean actress Wahyu Rahman, together with her fellow male actor colleague, recently won the  Favourite On-Screen Couple award at the prestigious MediaCorp Suria Pesta Perdana 12. What's even more exciting for me was that she graced the red carpet in a hansel gown! It was a night of double pride for me!

(All photos from Wahyu Rahman.)

hello hansel SS13 Sync or Swim knits!

I LOVE our intarsia knits and it seems that many of our customers love them too! Reflecting the 1950s synchronized swimming theme, this season's knits have a bevy of pretty smiling swimmers in their retro swimcaps in various formations.

Here're some of the trial knit pieces that go through before we get to the final ones that you see in our shops. These are the ladies that you see at the knit dresses' skirt hems.

We tried different colour variations. 

We get to have some fun during our sampling process too ;) Look at how BIG these swimmers are! We had to reduce their sizes down a little the for the final pieces.