Boutiques Watch Report

As a girl about town...or a girl about malls, I think BSC (Bangsar Shopping Complex) provides one of the weirdest combination shopping option.

You would imagine a shopping centre in an upmarket neighbourhood such as Bangsar would house the best of trends and variety and brands....you would be surprised if you spend as much time as me browsing the boutiques (killing time before your play starts upstairs at Actors Studio) there.

Most of the boutiques have relatively attractive window display and some have hideous ones. Most of the outlets have less than five chic pieces for all you Carrie Bradshaws out there, the rest are mixture of what we call the `aunty-and-ah-lian' stock, and of course, overpriced...because they are imported from Italy -- what I'm told ALL the time there. So now I imagine there are these really awful clothes that come all the way from Italy from all these terrible Italian designers who export to silly people like us..??

Or maybe these awfully-designed clothes are really from Hong Kong, Korea, or China who export to Italy and then end up in BSC, freshly labelled as from Italy...

I hope you get the picture...you basically find a lot of weird looking evening blouses, long black skirts that would pass as perfect funeral attire in these fierce looking boutiques, sometimes packed with very fabulous looking women with rocks bigger than their hair, other time you'd find me there, getting disappointed again and asking the shop owner where that crochet-beaded top is from.

All these special characteristics of BSC boutiques create a very distinctive business eco-system, I call it the Over-priced Ugly Designer (by designers you don't know of course) Wear for the Very Rich and Fashionably-Clueless women.

Hahah, these days I enjoy laughing at my own jokes. Yes, I'm broke and I don't mind you calling me a sour grape but I think I get more compliments on my styling rather those shop owners or their customers.

Again I'd stress that you do not need a large bank account to be stylish, you need style.

My last trip at BSC, however, was not all laughs at those 200-ringgit tee shirts from Italy. I checked a newly opened local designer house -- IntoxiKate, housed on first floor in the east wing.

I spoke to the Goddess In Charge, yes, says her card. All the clothes are designed by Malaysian(s) and yes, they look chic, stylish and quite wearable, the prices are reasonably middles class, ie. you'd get a fabulous jacket/cardigan for RM169, where in other shops there you'd probably be paying for some silly little singlet with sequin you can sew on yourself.

For RM 110 you'd get a variety of original-looking (ie. only available in this label) Bolero little jackets...in silk, etc.

I bought a beaded brooch at RM15. Then there were a few imported shades places away from the clothe racks, vintage design, something like what Sweet J's grandma gave me. I tried one one, it was fabulous, but it was over RM 300.

Some of the items I like might or might be on their site but do check out the outlet and see if you agree with me...

Till then, singing off...your friendly neighbourhood fashion bitch.