STYLE Loves: Inspiration Board

My friends were hanging out in my home a few weeks ago (watching new movie from the internet (tsk, dvd player is so out of date!), debating on what is the best way to make caramel popcorn and laying in the bed -and floor- convincing ourselves that the best way to finish our homework is to do it by ‘ourselves’ later at night), when they suddenly asked me what is that brownish board with tons of random pictures that I hung on the wall right in front of my bed (noted: my bedroom is quite small, so the brownish board come to the view almost instantly)?

I was in shocked and ‘unbelievable’ state.

How can a grown up did not know the existence of an inspiration board?

Okay, as blogger (uh, fashuuunnn bloggerr!!!) and also a fashion geek, inspiration board is such an interesting and exciting training to keep my brain in use (since I am not that creative or effortlessly design-genius. It takes time for me to come up with an idea). It takes a lot of patience, space creativity, and passion to gather images and post-its from different sources and put them together in one medium-sized brownish board (don’t believe me? Try it for yourself and I won’t accept messy pin board with tons of messy, abstract images. We are talking about inspirational brownish board everyone…).

Plus, I have never seen designer without an inspiration board inside their offices or home!

This board just put everything right into it’s place while also maintaining the beauty of our creativities.

So, what are you waiting for?? Go get one!

And by the time I finished talking, they were already fast asleep (means we just entered a whole new level of hanging out, when we are good enough to sleep on someone else’s bed*).

*that’s said without having any unnecessary intention.

Image taken from Style Bubble

Fairmont Pacific Rim Penthouse

Apartment is today’s trendiest choice for urbaners. It costs less than a town house, need less attention, and come with great security. But some of them can be really…expensive. We are talking about another level of an apartment. Yes, people, the penthouse. Penthouse  is like the dream achievement for people who live, or want to live, in apartment. It floats high on the sky, as large as the building (sometimes even larger with extra panels or whatever architects call those extra tiles), and come in really high price. But I never thought that a penthouse can cost as much as $21,000,000. Yes, 21-fucking-million-dollars and it is located in Vancouver, Canada.

I have to admit though that this penthouse has the best view of Vancouver with it’s forest, river (is that river?) and townscape whatsoever, but 21 million is just really expensive. I don’t even know if my arms and legs cost that much. Hmm, maybe I should try to sell my liver…just kidding. The penthouse come with 4 bedrooms (okay, this tricky, Fresh Home writes ‘3 bedrooms and 4 bedrooms’, I pick the later because it sounds more…reasonable, but I  only have 3 bedrooms pictures so…whatever!), really hip kitchen and luxurious living room. I love the strong colors the decorator picked. Lime green, purple, brown, pink, black, and silver all blurred into one solid harmony (along with the velvet-like textures, wooden kitchen and sleek furnitures), which gives the penthouse’s price almost sounds make sense.

Anyway, this piece of high-lifestyle is on sale and if you are interested, just look for Fairmont Pacific Rim’s numbers on Google, make a call, go to Vancouver and hand the salesperson your 21 million dollars. Ugh, just by typing the price, gets me ghost-bumps! Ah, for your info only, those furnitures…I am not sure if they’re included on the offer or not. Please, do your own research while I mourn my defeat. In peace.

Taken from Fresh Home

Porches and Terraces

I have to say that I don’t know a lot of people who have terraces or porches in their homes because that thing can cost arms and legs in Jakarta. Even though they have one, they will leave it alone like an abandoned child in their homes, gathering dust and ultimately become a secondary storeroom (or store-space. Whatever). Such a waste! But when I told my friend what I think about the terraces, they said that it is really hard to make a good terrace that doesn’t a) gather dust and b) lead into ghoulish view of Jakarta’s infamous dirty river (and pollution) (and some old… punks, if they can still be considered punks) (and those smelly plastic trashes).

They’re right. But they’re wrong too at the same time! I did some googling and found these wonderful terraces (and porches) that won’t be gathering dust because you will find them really beautiful and you will want to spend the rest of your lives in there. All you have to do are plant a few big trees, add some small patch of flowers, a little bit big fans and lots lots lots of gardeners.

And… you can thank me later (at your new garden party!).

Taken from Fresh Home

Eileen Pappas

I feel really bad because I have this gigantic amount of photos and pictures and some articles from fashion magazines, but I don’t bother to even look at them or even blog about them. I think I have this post-depression-after-exam syndrome. I need a really good holiday to back on track. Anyway, I was trying to channel with my old-happy life again by looking through old archives and I found Eileen Pappas works.

If I am not mistaken, she is from Greece and one of Parsons The New School for Designs’s students in United States.

I heard about her from competition held by Kering and Parsons. I have to say that among other contestants and finalist, Eileen managed to steal my attention. Her designs look a little bit rough and not as clean or sharp as Alexander Wang, but it has some personalities. I like the messiness of the styling, the structure and that baggy pants doesn’t even look half bad. This is good. We better keep an eye (nope, two eyes) on her because I have a good good feeling.

P.S: I will post other finalists too because young designers are soo hard to resist! Creative designers are on the loose, people!

Taken from Style

Work Space

Where do you usually write your blog and do all those writings/googling/playing?

Okay, that’s an easy question with embarrassing answer. In my bed. Seriously, my bed is like the only place I find quite comfortable to type and think about what I want to discuss next with you guys. And by writing on the bed you can always have your pajamas on, which is the most comfortable clothes ever invented by people. Of course sometimes I feel diligent enough to get up and try to write on the table like any normal students will do. It only lasts for 20 to 30 minutes and I always start to think that my back is hurting itself and this is not good for my health and… back to the bed. Ah, healthy back means healthy lifestyle.

I am ashamed by my work habit too. I mean, it won’t be cool when I am working in Vogue (I pray for the day to come) and I feel that imaginary back pain and instantly looking for someplace to rest my back. Anna (or one of those beautiful creatures) will kill me. But what can I do? There are certain places that make you feel more creative and fresh and that place for me is my bed. For your info, my bed is not a fancy bed. It’s quite small and hidden beneath piles of magazines and super fluffy pillows and bedcover. There are socks too which I wear during rainy seasons because they feel just right with a cup of hot chocolate and good magazines. Ah, heaven… eh, heaven for work space I mean. I work hard too by the way.

Where is your favorite work place? Office? Home? Living Room? Kitchen (I know someone who really likes to work in kitchen because kitchen is just ‘delicious’)? or maybe same with me, bed?

Gothenburg Apartment

I have a new hobby recently, trying to find out as many apartments as possible all around the world. I have this strange ambition that I will travel all over the world (think Eat Pray Love) and photograph people in different cultures and cityscape. How amazing is that? And maybe I will write a book or two, telling about my journeys complete with photographs that I have taken along the way. Very chic.

But before that, I have to make sure that there are apartments or flats available for me. And because I am a big fan of Eat Pray Love (roll your eyes!), I want to live in a bright, quite minimalist and has this beautiful vibe to keep my creativity going (and loneliness away… quite dramatic, right?). I have found different apartments in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Sweden (which is the capital of cool apartments) and my next choice is this really cool apartment in Masthugget area, which is one of the most elite historical area in the city of… Gothenburg, Sweden. Ah, well, Sweden is everywhere in global real estate markets. Second only to New York and London. Don’t blame me for reviewing Sweden again and again.

Just like a good and classic Scandinavian style apartment, this Gothenburg one uses white as it’s main color and begin to fill it with minimalist furnitures which are chic. No, very chic. And to make this apartment even cooler, the location is perfect for street photography with coffee shops, old buildings and gardens towering and filling up the road like roasted beans (means very easy to find), this place is perfect for holidays or short term vacation (there are differences in those two, but we will talk about them later). Don’t you worry your minds with ventilations (important!) and how-the-hell-this-apartment-works? kind of things because this place really is easy-breezy with windows projecting a beautiful cityscape views in almost every room (except bathroom to reduce human’s basic instinct. Pervert).

The best thing is this apartment is for sale! You can purchase (eh, rent) this beauty by calling through the Swedish real estate company,  Alvhem Mäkleri & Interiör for 1 700 000 Swedish SEK. I am not really sure how much this apartment really worth, but better keep real and remember: never show too much interest in buying a house (or apartment), otherwise they will charge you more. No smiling, just nodding. AND no laughing for you couples because laughs are quite expensive in real estate markets.

Oh, don’t forget that I will rent one… soon!

Taken from Fresh Home

Geek of the Day: Dimitriy Reinshtein

Macro shoots always a fun thing to do for me. I like capturing something that isn’t really moving whenever I shoot macro like flowers or maybe paint brushes. Maybe because it’s so easy to mess the whole photo with just one slight movement or shake or the winds are just fucking (ups!) with my camera, etc. And to capture moving, unsteady things in macro, you need a really good skills which I don’t really have by the way. That’s one of the reasons why I like Dimitriy Reinshtein works about insects and their hats. Yeah, hats. Actually it’s not micro hats line designed specially for insects. Nope, it would be silly not creative (fine, maybe creative and silly).

It’s just simple water drops which dangle on top of the insects heads and look like hats. But I am sure it’s still a hard thing to do. Imagine dropping water patiently on an insect and have to rush to your camera to get a good shot and repeat the same process again and again until you get a good photo. But just like what Dimitriy just said as long as you get the passion, the difficulties are nothing. Good words dude!

One thing I really appreciate from this photo is the editorial alike shots. The insects are the perfect models and they’re really rock the set with new released water-hat collection. This is not a really big deal because Dimitriy also spends a lot of time in fashion photography and he started this whole insect photography is because he wanted to look for something special. Well, well, I guess he just found what kind of special he is.

Taken from Fast Co Design

The Vale Apartment

I get a lot of complaints recently from my friends and families telling me that they love the Architecture category on my blog, but can I post something nearer to Jakarta? The answer is I don’t really care about the location or how far it is from my hometown when I write those posts. They’re beautiful and really enchanting and I will post it. Period. But point taken, I re-read my Architecture posts and realized that they’re telling the truth. Maybe I have to write something from South-East Asia and that’s why I found this luxurious, simple and elegant (really good adjectives to use) apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Designed by Blu Water Studio, ‘The Vale Apartment’ looks really similar to the ones in Indonesia. It is simple and more modern, but not as clean or elegant as the ones in Westren countries, it still has some traditional material like touches of woods, dim lights and a lot of natural views of the mountain. The furnitures are kept to the minimal to increase the simplicity feelings and functional environment, but I don’t really like the concept. I really want to live in a cool, a bit more artsy apartment and I really think that this kind of apartment feels really cold and… lonely. Okay, totally have to stop watching drama movies because they’re clouding my judgement. Cool apartment! Yeay!

Taken from Fresh Home

I Call This Simple Ad Post : Relab Studios

Design has come in many shapes and functions and one of them is to market your products. To do something tricky like that we have to find a real and talented designer (or designers), and it is freakin’ hard !

I introduce you to new and talented studio called relabstudios.com, they’re great designers and have this enthusiasm that I appreciate more than anything in design world. This new Australian studio based in Melbourne is more than welcome to get new clients and projects ( They have done ANZ Bank advertisement and I love it !). Interested ? Visit relabstudios.com for more infos and resumes.

P.S : One of their clients is Australia Grand Prix ! Really cool right ?