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Woven earrings from Mexico that Consolata found at the galleon trade exhibition.

Cameo earrings from Bleach Catastrophe, Php649.75, currently 20 percent off.

Photos by The Sartorialist, text from Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

So I was in the park just now. The roots of the chestnut tree were sunk in the ground just under my bench. I couldn’t remember it was a root any more. The words had vanished and with them the significance of things, their methods of use, and the feeble points of reference which men have traced on their surface.

Then I had this vision. It left me breathless. Never, until these last few days, had I understood the meaning of “existence.” I was like the others, like the ones walking along the seashore, all dressed in their spring finery. I said, like them, “The ocean is green; that white speck up there is a seagull,” but I didn’t feel that it existed or that the seagull was an “existing seagull”; usually existence hides itself. It is there, around us, in us, it is us, you can’t say two words without mentioning it, but you can never touch it.

Le Blog de Jean-Paul Sartre

The Sartorialist: Closer by Scott Schuman, Penguin Books 2012. National Bookstore, Php1089.

Gigantic abel bag by Rene Guatlo. We throw in laptop, books, shoes and we’re ready to go. Rene will be selling bags, scarves, shawls, table runners, placemats and napkins made of handwoven traditional Ilokano fabrics at the Habi Bazaar in Rockwell. For inquiries, contact rene.guatlo@gmail.com.

From our friends at Habi, the Philippine Textile Council chaired by Maribel Ongpin: The annual year-end Habi bazaar will be held on 20 October 2012 (Saturday) at the ground floor of Power Plant Mall (by the fountain outside Zara) at Rockwell, Makati.

The bazaar will showcase Filipino weaves from north to south: abel blankets, bags, placemats and napkins from Ilocos; hablon, jusi, pina and sinamay from the Visayas; t’nalak from Lake Sebu; Yakan weaving; ready to wear apparel, fans, antique jewelry and other accessories.

Also available are pure silks from La Union, Tepina from Palawan, casual dresses embroidered and embellished by T’boli women, and limited pieces of handwoven 100% cotton cloth.

This year Habi features woven items from Laos: traditional textiles produced in the ateliers of Carol Cassidy. Cassidy, who has been working with silk weavers in Laos since 1989, shares her experience in preserving traditional weaving and promoting native silk products in a talk titled “Weaving Success in Southeast Asia” on 20 October, 2pm at the Bernas Room of the Ateneo Law School beside the mall. Admission is free.

What with the weather having gone off its rocker—blazing sunshine one minute, a deluge the next—we’ve been living in our blue Sebagos for weeks. Hey they’re boat shoes. If they can provide traction on the wind-lashed deck of a yacht, they can keep you from sliding on the rainswept streets of this city. We like walking (helps us write) and this particular pair has logged hundreds of kilometers at least; tempting to describe them as “worn-out”, but the blasted shoes will go on for the next few decades. If you’re looking for an excuse to buy a replacement pair, they will not help you; however, if like us you’ve been wearing essentially the same clothes since school (arrested development, but that’s another story), they’re a comfort.

Thankfully a reason to buy more Sebagos has come up: new colors! After two decades of post-preppy laying low, the classic boat shoes are back in fashion thanks to style-setters like Kate Middleton. “For years the fashionable people weren’t wearing Sebago Docksides, you only saw them on dads in their 40s,” said Sebago distributor Gifford Chu. (Gee thanks, Gifford.) “Then kids started raiding their parents’ closets and wearing them again. Now we have different generations coming into our stores.”
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We missed the Royal Style: Qing Dynasty and Western Court Jewelry exhibition at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Fortunately Leo Abaya visited the museum in June and we asked him to order the exhibition catalogue for us. After a two-month wait, the very heavy book mailed out of Taiwan finally arrived at the post office.

After poring over the catalogue we’re even sorrier that we didn’t see the actual exhibition. The pieces on display were selected from three collections: the Qing imperial ornaments from the National Palace Museum, the last emperor Puyi’s collection in the Shenyang Palace Museum, and Cartier’s modern jewelry collection. One need not be into alahas to marvel at the exquisite craftsmanship and splendor of the artifacts. Everything about them spells power.

Pair of earrings decorated with bamboo leaves in kingfisher feather
Qing dynasty, Tongzhi reign (1862-1874)
2.5 x 1.8 cm
Gilt silver, kingfisher feathers, pearls
National Palace Museum, Taipei

Pair of earrings decorated with Chinese crabapple blossoms
Qing dynasty, Tongzhi reign (1862-1874)
2.8 x 4.1 cm
Gilt copper, spinels, coral, tiny pearls, kingfisher feathers
National Palace Museum, Taipei

Pair of earrings decorated with glass-inlaid flowers
Qing dynasty, Tongzhi reign (1862-1874)
3.9 x 2.3 cm
Gilt, silver, glass, enamel
National Palace Museum, Taipei
These photos are photos of the exhibition catalogue.

Royal Style is on view until 9 September so if you’re in Taipei be sure to visit the National Palace Museum. Security is tight, understandably, and Leo reports that if you linger too long before a display a museum guard will start hovering around you.

Half the year is over (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa) but you still have time to show your colleagues, clients and competitors a sight they won’t forget.

Beautiful, hideous science-fiction and horror masks knitted by Tracy Widdess. via io9.

This one says, “We’re not parting with our network for less than Php200 Billion.”

And this one gives you credibility when you cry, “Of course it’s a super-duper-mega-monster-blockbuster-bonanza! Don’t listen to the people who actually saw it!”

Can’t argue with that face.

Meanwhile, in art crime news, read the curious case of the Spongebob artist, three ninjas and a gallery owner.