Bangkok fashion | Frivolous Universe

CLEANIN’ OUT MY CLOSET

By: Kim Philley

04-09-2012

To clean house you gotta raise dust. Today I’m packing up my Bangkok apartment. I’m cleaning, mopping, schlepping heavy books for resale, trying to wrangle an XXL suitcase, writing a radio script on an esoteric Burmese spirit festival, and bracing myself for a 54+-hour flight with five layovers–all in the next 48 hours.

Thank goodness for bubble-monkey pauses.

I have Baltic-blue wedges, a mop,

string-cheese biceps,

more laundry to do than is humanly possible, soda water,

books on high shelves,

in-flight reading material,

and, best of all, a meditation MP3 from a guy named Dr. Wise intoning:

Acceptance is relaxation

Bisou! My next post will be stateside.

shirt: Hey Pilgrim (Chatuchak Weekend Market, Bangkok); jeans: ZARA; belt: vintage (4th floor Union Mall, Bangkok); gold-and-lapis necklace: 1970s Bangkok; earrings: Charlottesville boutique; gold ring: Mondulkiri, Cambodia gemstone–a gift from my friend Heang; wedge sandals: custom-made at Mosstories (Terminal 21, Bangkok)

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ELEPHANTS DO IT BETTER: A classic little black dress and a black-and-white BCBG Max Azria get me nowhere. Thank goodness for great friends and ice-cold coconuts.

By: Kim Philley

20-03-2012

Kim

Girls, boys, girl-boys, boy-girls, and pachyderms — it’s been a difficult week. I just mustered all I could recall of my high school/Phnom Penh-cuss-out French to send this text message to someone I perceived, until moments ago, to be an honorable Frenchman: Je ne suis pas une putain. Pour médiocre boom-boom, je crois Rue Cowboy!

My facial expression pretty much sums up how I feel about the men I meet when I get all gussied up to go out on the town in Bangkok. No offense, Mr. Fancy Elephant, but when I ask you, How was your Thai massage at Wat Pho? “I just want massage do by you,” is not an elegant elephant reply. Please stop it with the sexting.

Who said chivalry is dead? Here’s hoping it’s just frozen in the Greenland ice sheet, it’s DNA soon-to-be-revived by global warming.

A hot Thai photographer snapped this actual Polaroid of me at The St. Regis Bangkok on Friday night. If I had my Sharpie-druthers, I would hand-caption it, When I was a copywriter in Bangkok . . . To remind myself that all situations are temporary and that my time on earth is fleeting.

This is my go-to little black dress. I bought it off the sales rack at the Boise Macy’s, but the brand is nearly un-Googlable. The label reads tiff by Tt and it’s Made in Los Angeles. Someone is selling one on eBay. And that “Tt” ain’t Trina Turk — not for what I paid. The lace chevron cuts much lower in back, so I’m sorry the St. Regis photographer failed to snap a rearview. As my Twitter-friend Tommy quipped, i’m bringing sexy back. to the store. because it’s broken and i’ve hardly used it and i want my money back.

Thank goodness for good friends. The night, and the St. Regis dress, were redeemed by a good ‘ol Soi Nana crawl with the so-much-fun-they-should-be-illegal Gabi and Skip Yetter and the lovely Miss Eliza Chute. Most tourists visit Nana for the boom-boom. We went for the Thai young coconuts.

And no, salacious Frenchman, that was not a euphemism.

The Dress Below: BCBG Max Azria

Earrings: Lumphini street stall, Bangkok

Bracelet: Wooden snake, Indonesia

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When suddenly Pedro gets the feeling he’s being surrounded by corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets! Coming in in all directions white shining corsets with their tutus in tatters . . . .

By: Kim Philley

13-03-2012

Kim

He saw corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets.

Do you know how to pony? Like bony maroney.

Do you know how to twist? Well it goes like this, it goes like this:

It’s 10pm in Bangkok and, rest assured, I haven’t eaten dinner, I’m blogging from a shopping mall, and I’m rocking a neoprene wrist support on my right mouse-clicker (back in the olden days they called them ‘hands’). The mall rat smack has hit my veins and it sounds a lot like Patti Smith singing horses, horses, horses, horses.

But Bangkok’s new Terminal 21 shopping mall — each floor themed after a different international city — exerts a loopy alchemy. Suddenly I get the feeling I’m being surrounded by corsets, corsets, corsets, corsets! Perhaps I’m paranoid. Or perhaps Pedro and I have lingered a little too long on the Tokyo floor, home of happycorset.com:

My figure has been more Smith than Monroe as of late. All I do is work; my ass is beginning to take the shape of my cheap, sunken office chair. No offense to Patti, but I’m over being a gay man’s muse.

Part of my family’s lore is a story about my great-grandfather wanting to get some sleep after a long day’s work. He stumbled into the bedroom he shared with my great-grandmother. When he saw all his wife’s ‘underthings’ strewn about the room, her corset included, he barked, ‘Gracie, get those women off of my bed!’

I want my women back. I want hips like María Félix when I don my little black dress.

For this week’s post I found a beautiful woman with a gorgeous figure to fill my size-10 shoes. Don’t let the name Pedro dissuade you. ‘He’ is definitely 100% La Doña. Pedro looks smokin’ in his Happy Corset. And that Tibetan breastplate sure don’t hurt — a dramarama accessory I believe FU has singlehandedly put back on the fashion map.

Black corset: Happy Corset, Tokyo Floor, Terminal 21, Bangkok

Tibetan breastplate: Bethany Walter’s fabulous online jewelry store, Armor Bijoux

Copper bracelet: The Gold Mine, Ketchum, Idaho

Strappy heels: Geez, Pedro — where’d ya get those sweet heels? Fill me in when you got a sec.

How have we gone from ooh la la guitarra to Victoria’s Secret in 50-odd years? It must have been the Fin de siècle.

Thank God there’s a burlesque dancer to redeem us all: the mermaid-pale, azure-corseted Dita Von Teese:

Well color me purple. Next time I draw you a Liger, Pedro, I’ll make it all Gotham-like. Ligers are like a lion and tiger mixed — bred for its skills in magic. Just like mating an antique Tibetan breastplate with a cheap Bangkok corset. Same species, Pedro.

Dear Pedro (a.k.a. Vanessa Boots),

Thanks again for all the sweet hook-ups and for letting me be a lazy blogger. If you don’t come back to visit soon I’m going to have to grow some T&A along with a midnight work ethic. I’m just so tired — gosh!

Peace out,

Napoleon