oj hofer's jottings

2011-09-08T20:11:00.000+08:00

TAIWAN... Tea,Temples and Twining Cherry Blossoms Intertwining cherry blossoms…fragrant, fragile and soul inspiring…guided me along the path at The Lingxiao Chapel of Chi Nan Temple and The Jiu Tian Temple in Miao Li County where I ascended all 606 arduous steps with a wooden statue of Taoist saint San Nai Fu Ren cradled in my arms. How did I end up on this eight –day

2011-06-18T00:00:00.000+08:00

Margette’s Indian Summer Margette’s table setting of blue and white Limoge china, centerpiece foliage with peacock feathers on top of mandala design table cloth Cebu’s most evolved host and my favorite yoga teacher Margette Sarmiento recently came back from a month-long training at an ashram in Kerala, Southern India. She invited her closest friends and this jotter to an Ayurvedic

2011-06-07T21:23:00.001+08:00

The Magical Glow of ANGKORIAN AETHER In 2004, my good friend Jing Ramos and I flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia to see the temples. We stayed at a private home owned by a couple of educators and moved to Grand Hotel d’Angkor on our last day. Devatas @ Angkor Wat There, we saw portraits of the hotel’s famous guests: Somerset Maugham, Charlie Chaplin, so on and so forth… Transfixing us

2011-05-22T21:45:00.002+08:00

STYLISHLY SIMIAN VIBRAMS A stickler for economy of lines I found myself engrossed with the minimal and somehow simian design of Vibram Five Fingers, named one of the best inventions by TIME Magazine in 2007. I own a number of huge, bulky high-tops that I mainly use with shorts, skinny or drop-crotch jeans but admittedly, they’re more for looks than function. For comfort, I use minimalist

2011-03-30T21:19:00.002+08:00

if i ... ...... were an elderly impolite white man who has burned too many bridges in Hongkong and in Cebu, would I elicit disfavor from this city’s respected grand dames by maligning them? Recently, the above mentioned aging social mountaineer (let’s call him Ripley) had a heated exchange of words with another guest at a wedding reception after he disapproved of what the guest wore

2011-02-17T22:16:00.000+08:00

Inno @ 30 In 1995, my closest designer friends in Cebu Jun Escario and Jojo Romoff insisted that we travel together to Manila to watch the fashion gala “Inno Sotto: Anno XV.” Top model Suyen Chi had gotten us three tickets, and the prospect of seeing Inno’s 15th year collection mesmerized us, thus we packed our suits and headed for the capital. Inno did not

2011-01-18T13:59:00.000+08:00

Art of Kaiseki Cuisine @ Nadaman Kaiseki or Kaiseki-ryori, is a traditional multi-course Japanese meal, which puts emphasis on artistry, graciousness and the changing of the seasons. It also refers to the collection of skills and techniques that allow the preparation of such sumptuous exclusive meals analogous to Western haute cuisine. The meaning of Kaiseki

2010-12-22T17:57:00.000+08:00

The Valera Redux Design genius Ramon Valera, the first National Artist for Fashion, is celebrated in a 24-piece ready to wear collection by Freeway, a local brand that offers clothing and accessories that follow current international trends at reasonable price points. Valera’s signature creative cut, grand silhouette, unusual colorization, and opulent but tasteful embellishment

2010-11-26T14:17:00.002+08:00

Style-Spotting @ Japan Fashion Week 2010 (Part IV) I saved the best for last---this is the ultimate installment of your jotter’s style – spottings @ Japan Fashion Week. MIHARAYASUHIRO Meeting this unassuming designer was worth the unmanageably hectic schedule and the flight anxiety one had to go through. I wore my favorite gold trainers that he designed for Puma and

2010-11-14T12:09:00.002+08:00

Style Spotting @ japan Fashion Week 2010 (Part III) Third installment of your jotter's recent style spotting @Japan Fashion Week. These are the best Japanese collections for Fall-Winter 2010. YUKI TORII INTERNATIONAL The show that capped the season underscored quirky luxury that stylish Japanese women are globally know

2010-11-01T17:37:00.005+08:00

Style Spotting @ japan Fashion Week 2010 (Part II) Here's the second installment of your jotter's style spotting @Japan Fashion Week recently. These are the best Japanese collections for Fall-Winter 2010. GUTS DYNAMITE CABARET Unconventional, Non-conformist, Exhilirating... A pink bunny mascot playing with the audience before the live, blaring

2010-10-23T09:56:00.005+08:00

STYLE SPOTTING @ Japan Fashion Week 2010 Your jotter put on his most comfortably fashionable clothes and went style spotting @Japan Fashion Week last March. In this four-part post are the best Japanese collections for Fall-Winter 2010. DRESSCAMP Shiny silks, nappy velvets, military fatigue, and leopard print tights--winter is a safari at Dress Camp.

2010-09-25T12:38:00.003+08:00

A Whiff of Freshness Five years ago on my birthday, I received a gift from one of my muses and closest friends. From the shape of the simple white paper package, I could tell that it was either a cologne or skincare product. True enough, I received a bottle of clear scent. “Why would anyone give a cologne?” I wondered. Scent is a very personal choice; you have to put it on to see how

2010-08-29T23:36:00.000+08:00

JIRO’S CIRCLE At the MOMAT last March, (Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) I spent the whole morning going through the museum’s collection on my free day. The 4th floor had art from the Meiji and Taisho periods from the 1900’s to 1926. The 3rd floor highlighted the Pre-war Showa Period and art during and after World War II--rather depressing , I struggled to get through

2010-08-15T14:56:00.000+08:00

Terrific Day in Tokyo If you had a day to spend in Tokyo where would you spend it? Topping my list were three places: Ginza, Omotesando and The National Museum of Modern Art. The Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art Ginza, an upscale area of Tokyo with numerous department stores, boutiques, restaurants, and coffeehouses is recognized as one of the most luxurious

2010-07-31T23:55:00.002+08:00

Summer HUGS in Wintertime cary santiago, merce brenner, emanuel hamoy, & jun escario Last winter, a friend took a two-week break from his 5th Avenue work at Blanc de Chine, New York. Escaping the freezing cold of the Big Apple, Emmanuel Hamoy warmed his tropical days in the company of friends and family in the Philippines. eman, merce, arcy gayatin, & jun He went home to

2010-07-09T22:48:00.001+08:00

if i …were to name the three most stylish women today they would have to be Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Carine Roitfeld, and Zoe Kravitz …  …were the present paramour of this young, rich and handsome Chinese-Filipino who is reputed to impregnate his girlfriends only to find new love when they have had miscarriages, I would stay away from him so he’

2010-07-01T20:58:00.004+08:00

The Subanen Princess During my visit to Zamboanga Sibugay for the holidays last year, I sought out indigenous fabrics for a possible garment presentation/auction in an art gallery abroad. In my earliest collections, I incorporated fabrics such as the T’nalak from Davao and Langdap from Marawi into garments of clean, linear silhouettes. These fabrics were readily available through

2010-06-11T12:52:00.010+08:00

if i …were to host dinner for other parents from my kids’ PTA, I wouldn’t brag about the cost of my Birkin. Especially if one of the parents know that I haven’t settled a million-peso debt with one of Cebu City’s high profile designers. Would some really just go broke for a Birkin? ...were throwing dinners at my private abode I wouldn’t be brazen when inviting

2010-06-06T08:24:00.002+08:00

Chic Chihuahuas my pet DHARMA with Kate's pink collar If diamonds are a girl’s best friends and dogs are man’s best friends, then what are pets with crystal collars to us? My little Dharma is a stress buster; she sits in her Dedon couch nestled between black pillows the whole day watching as I work. When I get disgruntled with glitches and pause for some deep breaths, she

2010-05-25T13:01:00.002+08:00

Artful Warriors @ The MET “Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156-1868,” is a sumptuous, revelatory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and having learned and practiced Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu, a Japanese form of swordsmanship perfected by Miyamoto Musashi, I was drawn to the revelry like moth to a flame. “Art of the Samurai” represents a decade of work by

2010-05-10T18:29:00.007+08:00

The Berrie Winter Room An Englewood Winter Room Autumn. I always think of the first autumn I experienced at the elegant Englewood home of Angelica Berrie. My dear friend Greg who lives with his sister Angie invited me to stay with them in 2007 and that stay sparked off creativity. Stimuli of colors, earthly scent, variegated textures, rustling of passing wind, and even something

2010-04-22T11:46:00.003+08:00

Taking Tartines @ PQ on 5th Emmanuel Hamoy, a close friend who was one of Cebu’s best designers before he relocated to the States fifteen years ago is looking like a native 5th Avenue New Yorker these days. His characteristic all-black, luxe wardrobe beautifully sets off the refined speech and gestures. On my second visit to the Blanc de Chine Flagship Store at 673 Fifth Avenue, an

2010-04-04T23:47:00.002+08:00

The Vellum Paper Dress The very fist time I ever saw paper dresses was at our neighbor’s house when I was in grade school. Eileen and Christine Horlen dressed up their paper dolls in what seemed to be stylish paper garments that were fastened with tabs. They folded the tabs unto the flat paper dolls and changed the look of their dolls at a whim. This fascinated me since I was

2010-03-13T12:51:00.006+08:00

Ming Elegance @ Blanc de Chine 2010 Blanc de Chine, a luxury brand with a flagship store on Fifth Avenue New York, began in 1986 as a concept workshop in Hong Kong. The idea was to bring together eight principles with three classic Chinese garments. The guiding principles were simplicity, sensuality, purity, functionality, comfort, harmony, subtlety and serenity. The three garments