KAYLENE's first trip to NEW YORK to showcase her designs in FFFweek 2013! (Part3)

Woah~ its really a crazy busy week for us! Am at home and finally could update you girls on the fashion show we went a couple of weeks ago! YES girlies, you heard us right! KAYLENE is very honoured to be able to represent Singapore to showcase our collection in NEW YORK CITY! ok, pictures are from turnerfamilyportraits.com (we have emailed to request the purchase of the photos)
Now let me tell you more about the collections...

We have 4 collections for this showcase, they are Pleats Pleease, Origami, Retrospectif and Rocking Royale. During the initial sketch out for the collection, I wanted to make sure that my collection will be a twist from present, inspired but the past. I was so inspired by Twiggy, Mary Quant, Victoria Beckam and all things from 1950s-1970s. I wanted to play with colours and I wanted to make sure the end results are wearable not overly couture-ish and most importantly fresh to any fashion forward ladies...


Collection from Pleats Pleease (photo credits from turnerfamilyportraits.com, purchase of images pending)

Collection from Origami (photo credits from turnerfamilyportraits.com, purchase of images pending) 

Collection from Retrospectif (photo credits from turnerfamilyportraits.com, purchase of images pending) 

Collection from Rocking Royale (photo credits from turnerfamilyportraits.com, purchase of images pending) 

When we were doing the fitting for the models, my emotions were really haywired. I was so worried that the clothes won't fit! I was so stressed! BUt thanks to my factory, the boss gave me good idea and advice implementing some ideas to the outfits. The models are fab too! They are very professtional, pretty and very accomodating. It feels very warms and fuzzy when they compliments KAYLENE's designs and mentioned that they are unconventional and unique. Am very glad that they love the designs as much as we do.

These collections may look really simple but they are relatively hard to make! The concept was to make sure the designs look simple and yet has our signature elements to it. Along the way, there were so many hiccups and a couple of times we were that close to pull our hairs! But glad we pull through and did well! so many walked up to me, grab my hands and told me how much they appreciate our designs and also they now know that Singapore has plus size designers who can come up with pretty pieces! Organizors from this event also love our collections and a lady from London even suggested us going to London to showcase our work in next years event! Bloggers were so nice to us! They are actually reknown bloggers in their countries and so sweet of them to help us spread KAYLENE to their own home. 

In short, Mr Ling the team and I were very glad we made it to USA-New York. We had pushed ourselves so hard and the effort was paid off. Are you proud of KAYLENE like the people from other countries? Are you proud that you can own KAYLENE pieces and that the girls from USA, Australia, Germany etc are so envious of? 

Thankk you for making KAYLENE to where she is today, if not, KAYLENE will not be able to plant Singapore flag to USA and made known to other countries as well. I also would like to take this opportunity to thank FFFweek and GWEN DAVOE (CEO of FFFweek) for selecting KAYLENE. Thank you my friends and customers for rooting us and sending us words of encouragements and while we are in New York. Thank you, my family for supporting me and encouraging me to take on this 'bold leap of faith' 

I LOVE YOU ALL and THANK YOU FOR LOVING ME

XOXO

K

KAYLENE's first trip to NEW YORK to showcase her designs in FFFweek 2013! (Part2)

Olla! I am back again for more! I decided to rush this post out as I will be meeting my sissy for a way overdued 30th bday dinner. I am old I know~~ to think I remembered I opened KAYLENE (then lavender closet) when I was just 24! So much changes has happened since and I believe it is for the better! Alrighty, back to our part 2 for our FFFweek adventure!

We were invited to attend ALL WHITE CRUISE event and it was a nice 2 hour ride and we managed to see Statue of Liberty from afar! It was at night and we really couldnt fix a good time to go in the day, hence for me to be able to see Statue of Liberty at night was more than good enough for me already.. Surprisingly, she is alot smaller than I think.. oh well~ anyways, on that night, we have met Miss Full Figured 2013 and met more models for our runway! You know, I was so impressed with these lovely girls! They were enthusiastic and literally ALL dolled up to the nines in ALL white! They were spontanaeous and all look so gorgeous! While screening through these lovely girls, it occured to me that should we have something similar in ALL white, the guests will not even turn up! These girls loves their curves and embraces their body with full confidence. Honestly it is really something we all need to learn from.

 Obvious signs of sleepy heads from the puffy eyes from the both of us! haha

 Although it was summer, it was so cold when we were out in the sea! Thank goodness I brought my shawl. It was my lifesave that night! Woot~

Then it was the blogger/buyers private event where the participants and designers all gather to meet all the bloggers that flown from various continents as well as potential buyers. We have met so many wonderful people and many gave us postive feedback on our products. Yummy~~ I am so happy! My model Keri was fabulous too, she was professional and friendly, she knew exactly what to do when guests were nearby. Love her to bits! Such a darling~

 Our simple set up for the Press/Blogger/Buyer event

  Yes Yes.. I know I kept repeating this but YEASH! I finally met gabi fresh in person! I spotted her from far and ran to her like a silly fan of hers and told her how much Singaporeans love her and would like to take a photo with her. She was so kind and took a photo with me. I kept thinking during this trip if I WILL EVER see her.. and I DID. I am not exagerating when I say I love her. She has this really cool sense of style and 4 seasons in USA seems to work very well for her to doll up for various seasons. If only Singapore has 4 seasons.. I will be happy girl.But truth is I am in Singapore and I shall work my fashion bug around the 'forever summer' island! Notice what she what wearing? its a midrif. Dont you find it so fashionable? I wonder if you girls will wanna wear it.. tell me!

 I wonder if in future I will get a chance to work with her. I am sure I will have a chance to. We will see how it goes... whee~~

Gabi, Kellie B and model representing Swimsuits for All with Kayde.

 GABI and me..... (faints)

 The sweetest BLOGGERS I have met, they featured quite a fair bit of KAYLENE in their blog post. Very thankful for all the feature! Danielle and Jennifer with Keri and Kayde

 COVER GIRL for Evans! I was going to faint (again) when I met so many cool people. Tell me, how rare is that? I was so fortunate that they were such a darling and willing to take photo with me..

ALrighty, Gotta run! Its 2pm and I still need to clean up the house before I go meet my sis. Its tough to be a working woman and married woman. I do not have a maid and all cleaning has to be done by myself! (the haze left layers of ash on my desk... TSKTSK!) I have been a good girl! Since my arrival to Singapore, I have been busy liasing with interested companies from various countries who are interested in carrying our line.. Yes lovely girls, KAYLENE is going international! WHEEEE... Dont worry giirls, as much as many good things are going to happen and change, KAYLENE will stay grounded and focused for our loyal customers as well. Dont worry!

Okay! love love love!

K

 For some weird reason, it was really cold tt morning when I took this shot. Its supposed to be summer isnt it! Pfft~~

KAYLENE's first trip to NEW YORK to showcase her designs in FFFweek 2013! (Part1)

Yes! We are finally back and will start photo bombing and give you girls the insights of the whole week in NYC and FFFweek 2013. It was really fabulous and definitely a milestone for KAYLENE to be part of the show. As there are way too many images of upload, I decided to do into different parts for easy reading!

Alrighty! Here goes!!

We arrived in NYC with heavy heads as we were still trying to adjust to the time difference. It was exactly 12 hours difference hence at 4pm when we got into our apartments, it was literally 4am in Singapore. The flight was really long~~ 26hours (or 23?) and it was terrible! I was very proud of myself for surviving the trip as my previous flight from Paris to Singapore was 16hours and I nearly died.. But I guess we were all very excited and filled with so much anticipation that we brushed off the lethargy and aching pains on our backs and started dolling up for the event.

The first event we attended was diamonds and denim night where it was the official opening night for FFFweek. For me, I was really nervous as I did not know anyone. But my stylist and manager did extremely well, they blended in and before we know it, the girls started asking for my namecards and telling me how much they heard about us even before we arrived and that they are looking forward to seeing our collection on the runway. I was overwhelmed with their sincerity and very quickly, i made some new 'boo'

 

We also met some of our models like Nicole and Keri who were at the event and they were so warm! Their smiles were genuine and I was really very impressed with the organizers giving me really good models to walk for the runway. Before I know it, I bummed into a really vivacious lady and many of you will immediately scream once I mention her name. Yes, I met Marie Denee! She is well known even in Asia as a blogger and it was really cool to get to speak to her. She is really sweet and so glad we managed to catch up with her. 

Me and Mr Ling were resting our feet before MORE full figured lady came to say hi to us~~

As we settled into the location, we spotted a lady who wore a T shirts that says "BOSS" I knew right away that she is the lady whom I have been liasing with, she is THE lady who created FFFweek! Woot!! Miss Gwen Davoe! She was so warm and screamed 'Singapore!!!!" when we met and I will never forget the warmth exuding from within her. She is really a fine lady whom I deeply respect. (yeah~ i know she is really tall and pretty eh? I look so kid standing beside her..pfft)

We also met Heather from Lane Bryant and Dora L from Curvy Couture. AMAZING PEOPLE man... They are so sweet and we had a good time chatting with them. It was as though we have met previously! There was no akwardness or any of sorts!

Pris with Marie Denee below

Me with my awsome 2 out of 12 models

During that night we met a lot of cute bloggers and told us how much they love our clothes. They kept asking if there is any ways we can ship it to USA, Australia, Canada, Paris, Germany... I can faint just by listening to them as they were so excited about our collection! I felt so blessed that our designs are actually very well liked by the westerners...

Group shot taken with Nikki P, another famous blogger. She is one COOOOOOL lady....

the night ended and we had to go back and snooze. More events coming up and we had to stay focus and refreshed. There will be more post on FFF week hence stay tune ladies!!!

xoxo

K

the LOGO has been revealed...

as promised in my previous post, i know this is way over due but then later is better than none right? I know.. not an excuse but really pardon the late post as we worked so hard before NYC and finally can post this up (thanks to my jet lag, its 4am and i am still WIDE awake..pfft)

now, there is really an interesting story behind this logo. This logo is actually handwritten by me using a marker and a plain white paper. The PR agent as well as myself felt that its more personable if I actually design the font. Well, there is not such font hence I shall call it the KAYLENE font. haha~ If you observe the 2 'e' you will realise they are actually different. It is one proof to show that this is really a handwritten word and is digitalised by the designers. FAB huh~ me thinks so too!

Another thing to note is the need with the 'k' loop into the needle hole. We wanted to stress that we do design our clothes and the thread or lace helps form the word. The colour is used blue as it means integrity and we pride ourselves in doing our business with integrity and it also is a colour for fabric chalk when the seamstress use to do a pattern before any sewing.

This design alone took Mr Ling and I a couple of late nights (really late like 5am!) to finally derive into this beautiful logo. So there, do take a closer look when you free and see the love and effot put into this logo. In this logo, you will see our commitment to design exclusive designs to you, still have the personal service touch whenever you visit us and most importantly our business is run with integrity and love for everyone of you.

XOXO

k

We are heading to NEW YORK today!

Hey girls! A quick note before I hop onto the plane later. I really need to squeeze in time to blog a little something for you girls! Yes! We are leaving tonight for the prestigious FFF week 2013! Whee! All the late nights is finally over! Well, maybe not... but regardless what it will be a fabulous time with my team!

All these months of preparation will finally be paid off when my collection will be showcased on 22nd June 2013!!!

We hope to do really well in New York, impress them there and do US SINGAPOREANS proud!

Will be updating our happenings in FB and blog! Stay tuned!


xoxo
K

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!