Singapore Fashion Festival: Francis Cheong

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It’s finally Friday – I’ve been looking forward to the Francis Cheong show the entire week. After Tan Yoong’s show, this is the one I have been quietly anticipating, especially since I’ve previously attended Cheong’s show at the Singapore Fashion Week.

I usually play the game of ‘Let’s Spot the Number of Chanel Bags’ if I’m caught in a situation at the Tent alone. It’s mindless fun when you realise you can find mirrored Chanels, Chanels with leather fringes, graffiti-ed Chanels, croc-skin Chanels… actually the list goes on and your head will swim.

However, today is Francis Cheong, mind you, who wants to count Chanel bags when you can count (insert gasp!) tai-tais and their big, immovable hair?! I remember spotting hair so big that the body moved but the hair did not last year at SFW, topped with glitter dust as icing. For those not in the know – “tai-tais” is the Mandarin/Cantonese endearment term for over-the-top socialites.

The hierarchy of women in the audience is extremely apparent. First off, women who work will enter the Tent. These are the reporters, PR personnel, backstage crew, and all those whose work depends on the night’s show. The Fashion Nation Girls belong in this category.

The second tier has to be the women who are just here to be entertained. They do not care a hoot about anything except to be mesmorised to the clothes on the runway.

The last group holds the women who are important. Once the workers and the general spectators settle down, the influentials stream in at notable, fashionably late timings.

For the Francis Cheong show, once seated, I kept my eyes peeled for ladies in evening gowns with trains so long they astound me. They never did appear! I saw a couple of big-haired socialites but these hairstyles were so tame it did not do anything to appease my watch-the-socialites hunger.

The show started and I had to swallow my indignation: ‘What?! No tai-tais?! Outrage!’, until Dottie whispered that the first group of models were Singaporean socialites. So that’s where they were, backstage! No wonder there weren’t any Marge Simpson hair in the front rows – not that I am complaining, of course – they were up there with the biggest hair of all. And big hair they did have:

Now tell me who’s the fairest of them all?! (:

Such a start definitely promised lots of ‘fwahhh and woww’s from the audience, you can expect loads of drama from the Francis Cheong show. Of course in doing this he is sending out the clear message that his clothes are ultimately worn by real people, and there has to be some form of confidence in sending these socialites out perfectly fitted and dressed up.

In all honesty the dresses on these socialites were magnificent to say the least, and I trust Cheong to have excellent customer relationships with all these perfect ladies to warrant such precious time as to walk for him.

First bit of socialite glamour on the runway over, the show goes on to the rest of the collection and the tai-tais take a seat, front row of course! Here’s what I mean by really big hair and I am SO GLAD I was not sitting behind them. Would have had to dig a hole in the hair and shove my camera in between to get decent shots… which shouldn’t be what an ickle blogger should do, eh?

Funny jokes and big hair aside, I was really entertained by this bit of the show, which explains why I am waxing lyrical about it. Socialites are as rare to my eyes as dinosaurs – never seen before and have no intention to approach! However I think they should be lovely to speak to seeing the amount of poise they have.

The dresses are less Asian than his previous haute couture collection, and all are lovely even though my preferences tend to veer towards Tan Yoong’s collection more.

The last dress is lovely, and modeled by Sheila Sim (with wings and all!) – she’s by far the favourite of Dottie and I, though there is a special place in my puny heart for Junita Simon.

And here is the designer himself, heavily laden with congratulatory bouquets, as Dick Lee looks on in the front row:

As expected, entertainment value exploded out of the funometer and the clothes were just as important as the VIPs who will wear them.

Dreaming of big hair
Stephie

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