WE ARE READY to tell you!!!

hey girls,
I am FINALLY alone and in my peaceful mode and my PR agent and stylist cannot reach me today! And because of this I wanna take some time off and tell you girls something.... This is going to be a long post... please bear with me...

I have been keeping secrets for soooooo long and finally I am allowed to say! Yippies! For some of you have noticed and more will surface up that KAYLENE has been under the limelight pretty often (and more to come we hope!). It is really because we are extremely honoured to be selected to showcase our 12 piece collection for FFF Week 2013 (for more info visit http://fffweek.com/2013/home and https://www.facebook.com/fffweek ) in NEW YORK! You know, we are the FIRST Singaporean plus size boutique to showcase our work and the FIRST ASIAN company to showcase under the boutique category!! EXCITING isnt it!

A bit more on how I got selected to showcase our work...

For quite a while, I have been following FFF week via youtube. I was so amazed that there is such a strong network in USA till they actually have a FULL FIGURED FASHION week. I always say to Mr Ling, 'If I ever have a chance, I will show the world what KAYLENE has to offer! We Asians also have the capability to dress plus size girls pretty and in our style. So one day, I was going through our collection, I started to flip our racks and go through one by one and murmured to myself 'This can go New York, this too, tat can definitely showcase in New York and that last piece over there, ooh~ hotseller, sure will be popular to the girls in the west side as well!' Then a few friends popped by just at that moment and I blurted to them my crazy idea. Their response? Interestingly, very calm and collected and replied plainly,' You never try, you never know' So with that ridiculously amount of courage, I emailed them and requested for an application. They went through a panel of screening and the next I know, KAYLENE got selected! Can you imagine how excited I was? I did have a few concerns during that time though, that during this preparation period, I need to make sure I also take care of the shop and customers. I also needed to make sure the collection was strong enough to showcase what KAYLENE has to offer. The stress was mounting but since I haven taken the step to do it, the only way was to move forward and do it well.

I am so blessed to have a very good designer/owner whom I work very closely with and we started to zoom into this project. He was very professional, kept all my designs in top secrecy. and AFTER months of preparation, my 12 piece collection is finally ready.. Honestly, I love my 12 piece collection. I felt that it best represented what KAYLENE is all about and that we showcase to the girls in the West side that we have soemthing to offer to them too! When I took a closer look at my collection a while ago, I felt that genuine tears were welling up. They are made with love, they are KAYLENE and they are Kayde's. Its really like a birth of a little young kiddo. After months of waiting, the 'baby' has popped out.

So back to the trip, we will be heading up to New York on the 15th June - 30th June 2013 and our showcase is on 22th June. I know timing will be a little odd, but I promise I will keep you girls updated! I am sure you girls will be also excited for us right right? And in case you wanna know, KAYLENE is going with a entourage! A total of 8 (potentially 9th may tag along) of us will be heading to New York to make this happen! Honestly, I was over confident that Mr Ling and myself can do it alone. But truth to be told, it is impossible. Speaking of which....

I was overwhelmed till I started to stress out. I started to vent anger and frustration on Mr Ling because I had no help and I refused to receive help. But thanks for my nosey friends, they squeezed their way in and decided to help me out. Their husbands even took time off to help me and even told their spouses to go ahead and help me! It was really amazing and wonderful journey you know. And slowly one by one, I realised that with their help, my problems seemed smaller and smaller... Juliah was fantastic as well! She always tell me to go ahead and do what I need to do and she will look after the shop for me. With her around, I can always do my work in peace and without feeling any pressure to head back to shop asap.

At this point of time, I would like to express my gratitude and thanks to the people who helped out in any ways. Thank you much for extending your love towards KAYLENE and me. Mr Ling and I will never forget the love showered upon us, we are very grateful and we mean every word from the bottom of our hearts.

So girls, not that we have been missing in action, we havent been! In fact, we have been stepping up even more than usual! Noticed we changed our logo too? Yeah we did and in the next post, we will tell you how this logo was derived! And yes! in a few days time, we will be doing our simple renovation and you girls will be wowed by it and finally see the overall consistency from logo to shop reno and even down to details like namecard! Are you excited for us? are you happy for us? I am very sure you are too! Really wanna thank you all for supporting KAYLENE and without you all, KAYLENE will not be able to have the courage to step out of this tiny island and showcase to the West with our collection.

Alrighty, i think its a handful and I havent eaten, shall go grab some food and  YES girls!! NEW YORK NEW YORK! HERE WE COME!

(please click like or share this post for us so that more girls can know about this! This is not only a plus size thing, it is a SINGAPORE 'thing', if you know what I mean...)

Stay healthy girls!

Love,
K

Tot this photo was the best to put because this was taken in USA as well!

Excuse me, Do you have friends?

This is really a personal post and I have to say I was struggling to post this up as there will be people who will read this. I have always been a rather private person and I guard Mr Ling's and my privacy very seriously. As one of the 'leader of the pack' I need to maintain a certain positive image so that you girls can understand that at the end of the day, we as plus size girls has every right to be happy and have a happy marriage, good career etc. Unfortunately, I had one of the most stressing 2 weeks ever! I was about to have a major breakdown and thank God I managed to get out of it quickly. Ah~~ heck privacy eh? This post should be posted up and at least you girls know that life has ups and downs and I am having one of my downs right now~

Well, it has been a crazy ride for me! How so? First of all, I had a big problem with my collection for a project and the samples came and I was unhappy. I felt that the collection had something wrong but I just couldnt pin point what went wrong. I was so stressed and insecure, I really couldnt bring myself to take out my design and ask around for their advice. I just couldnt do it.

Next was that my gran is ill. Seriously, I ought to be damned. In the past when people tells me that their love one is sick, although I expressed my concern and love, I know I was not genuinely concern because if I had been genuinely concern, I would called and followed up and find out the progress of the sick patient. Now I am getting my punishment. About a couple of days ago, gran some how sprained her back. We sent her to the doctors and they simply replied that she has sprained her back and nothing major. But it wasnt the case from the way we observed. She started to be in a daze and talked gibberish and started talking about the past. My uncle called me and I could sense he was in distress and immediately rushed down to see if I was of any help. I was shocked. How can a old sweet lady can turn so sick and frail in 3 just days? Suddenly I felt guilty, worried and devastated. I hadnt done enough! What the heck have I been doing all these years when she was so healthy? I felt so angry with myself and kept blaming myself. I had no choice and did the necessary and that was to close the shop for the day.

Here's the irony. With mind full of the past and worry, I had many calls and wadsap messages on why the shop is closed. I must apologise for sounding impatient on the phone because my mind was only on gran and the questions asked were... odd. Thank God that most were fantastic and understanding customers. They knew that I have family matters and couldnt open shop. (oh! the reason why Juliah couldnt help out was because she was out of town) The girls loves our clothes so much till they are afraid that the items will be sold out. It is a irony as much as we would love to increase our order, we still prefer to keep it in a controlled quantity so that you girls can enjoy exclusive items from us. You wouldnt want to be spotted in the same outfit as someone else EVERYWHERE you go isnt it? as for the designs, we will increase the number of designs instead of quantity to meet up with the demand.

Lastly, I will be heading to New York in a couple of months for KAYLENE and seriously, its alot to do!! Talk about managing finances, itininery and suddenly emails from New York wants me to provide them with alot of things. Craziness! How can I stuff all these into my brain? How can do all these within a short period of time? I also redid our company logo with professional help and redid our namecards... RENOVATION is up next in mind as we are planning to renew our contract with Far East Organization (yeah)

When I reached my hotel ( I flew out for meeting ) and all alone, I broke down. I wailed and wailed and wailed! I was so stressed and upset!I started to be angry with myself and started to ask myself why am I doing all these for? I was really like a mad woman with the makeup smudged all over my face. If anyone has seen me that day, You prolly will immediately called for doctor thinking that I have turned mad.

Thank God for technology, I got bored and went online and was browsing my Facebook. shortly after, I have messages (concurrently wadsap, FB msges) from my friends and they were asking me how I feel and asked me questions related to the mentioned stress. I also met 2 darlings in the hotel room later that night and I poured everything to them. After they left, I felt so much lighter and at ease. For some weird reason, being a very private me, I poured everything out to these people. From my gran to A, and about my New York to K and about my upcoming project to D n O, my nitty gritty nonsense to Mr Ling and E. (i have been busy that night and was multitasking!) I rather keep their names private as they are very important to me and I should respect them. I ranted and ranted and vent out ALL the frustrations that I have to them. The magical thing was that one by one, they were helping me ease my pain by helping me solve problem, giving me advice and telling me what to do. I thought to myself something really silly. "I have friends!" I actually have friends who are genuinely concern and have been hawking around Facebook to see if I am online. And should I be online, they will bug me and talk to me, ask me how I am and what problem I was facing and they will really sit in front of the laptop and hear my complaints. Okay. I exaggerated on the hawking part~ Then I snuggled up to my bed and thought of all the crap happening. Then I realise something very interesting. If I had not have friends and listen to my problems, they wouldnt have a chance to give me excellent advice and they were literally holding my hands and walk step by step. Mind you, they are not giving silly advices like "oohs~" and "aww.. you poor girl" They really gave professional advice to me and with their help, my worries seemed alot smaller.

So if you ask me, what are your friends for? Are they really genuine to you? Do they show you love and concern when you it most? Do they not judge  you and help you overcome every fear and hurdle? Real friendship are really hard to come by. True friendship allows you to strip off all your insecurities and they will hug you and stretch out their hands to you when you need it.

So there, my conclusion for this post is that I am so blessed. I have a wonderful husband and family and also a bunch of seriously funny and loyal friends. I have friends!! What about you? Feeling oh so peotic right now, I wanna compose a simple peom to my silly bunch of silly friends who has been bugging me for this tough time and staying by my side.. ( I am not a peotic person, but this is the best I can do!)


I have a bunch of really silly friends.
They bug me from time to time and constantly calls me and checks on my end
They are seriously cute people and I think they are angels and God sent
Whenever I feel down and out
They gather and form a circle around me and I just need to vent
I scream, lament and cry, they do not care,
For they know I need them and has a heavy heart to bear.
Oh my dear friend, how precious you are to me!
I on my hand will also reach out to you when you want me to be.
Because this is what family and friends ought to do
Just by listening to you can possibly tide the difficult time through
Oh my dear friend, how precious you are to me!
Let us celebrate this special friendship!
With some good wine and really good chips!