Hi everyone!

I’m finally back from my month long trip to Australia. It was an absolute eye opener for me in terms of career, relationships, family, lifestyle. How the aussies appreciate everything around them, how they are able to slow down and smell the roses, enjoy their food,  enjoy their art, their music, their drinks, their beautiful nature made so available to them. The whole vibe of Australia is inimitable no matter how hard we Singaporeans try. I’m going to continue talking about this and risk sounding like I’m verbally bashing my own country and it’s people.

I feel at times trapped, confined, stressed up and my imagination bound only to the recesses of my mind. I speak as a person who has been in the creative industry for some time. There is little room for artists to grow locally. As much as the Singapore arts council goes on about the millions of dollars pumped in to boost the arts scene, what i feel needs to be really changed is the attitude we carry about ourselves. The ignorance and the arrogance from both artists and mostly the audience is just plain distasteful. I say this knowing that our country has raw talent. But we are just incapable of processing, marketing and selling these talents into something so much more. How warped is our society that we have evolved and advanced so far into the scientific future  but are worse than cavemen when it comes to anything other than? Where is the true appreciation?

For example.

We buy our Chanel, LVs, Miu Mius, do the locals really buy them because they appreciate the art of dressing up? Of styling themselves? If so, why is everyone carrying a miu miu bow bag with shorts, tee and slippers (and you know what I’m talking about. Not the Helmut Lang casual get-up i’m talking about here)? Just absolutely no sense of color, style, clothing coordination. I’ve thought a perfect analogy to describe this situation. This behavior is akin to buying a $4500 bottle of fine red wine and drinking it out of a plastic cup with ice cubes in it thank you very much. So why spend that money to buy those expensive items when they have no idea in any artistic way, shape or form how to wear them? Is it just because they want to show that they just simply can? I think so. So what does this make us? A bunch of tasteless show-offs? The French do not give two hoots about owning a piece of LV. Yet we clamour, tour buses after tourbuses, queues after queues right outside the giant brown monogrammed shop. Makes me laugh at the couple of LV bags i have hanging in my closet, I have to admit i was once caught up in that whirlwind of ‘just owning an LV bag makes me fashionista’ NOT. (they were gifts btw) Are we enjoying these products of fashion because of it’s beautiful leather, perfect stitching, genius design, and how it’ll jazz up the next outfit you put together. Or is it because its erm.. cool to have it because everyone else does?

I could go on and on, this is only from the fashion perspective, mind.

What I’m trying to say here is, we are light years away from finding some form of meaning behind our current ‘lifestyle’ simply because it is mostly superficial and meaningless. I speak about the general population. We commonly get caught in the rat race and lose sight of what we actually want and need. Question is, can we really describe what we have now as a ‘lifestyle’? Do we really appreciate what we have? Do we focus on what’s truly important? Nah, don’t think so. Not a lot of us have that mentality unfortunately. We’re too busy making money to buy cars/condos/Chanel bags to show off to everyone else that, oh i have a pretty house and i can do so much better than you. Kind of an unfortunate situation I feel, no? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting beautiful clothes, a lovely house or a posh car. But I question the motives behind driving us to want these things.

I shall continue to ponder about these things as i get through the withdrawal syndrome of fresh returning from paradise.

Meanwhile there’s plenty to get excited about! Clara H Nails will be offering a fantastic deal soon if you register and sign up to be on our mailing list! Stay tuned!!! I have loads of pics piling up and spilling over.

Stay cool bitches.

Peace out.. Your Nail Guru