Salvatore Ferragamo Sunglasses and Prescription Eyewear

Kim, being ever supportive, wanted to buy a pair of sunglasses for me so I can enjoy touring Korea even if the sun is out.

Initially, we wanted to purchase a pair of Prada sunglasses for me, but our go-to optical shop didn't carry the brand. We looked at Givenchy, but the offering they had, although was wide enough for me, its temple tip didn't quite anchor well onto my ear. We were resolved to purchase a pair of aviators from Ray-ban, but the model that was large enough to fit my face wasn't available, and my flight to Korea is in a couple of days. 

I had all but given up, when he asked me to look at the section where the optical shop displayed their Salvatore Ferragamo, Chloe, and Ermengildo Zegna eyewear. 

I was apprehensive, because I didn't want him to spend too much for my sunglasses. As I was checking on the Salvatore Ferragamo eyewear, I noticed some sunnies and prescription eyeglasses with red tags. On SALE!

Even better, I found a pair that I absolutely adored! It was love at first sight, when I first tried on this pair of sunglasses:

At less than PhP10,000.00 for Ferragamo eyewear, how could I not look into updating my prescriptions as well?

I just love Ideal Vision. The staff are so friendly, and they offer the best deals. My prescription is not readily available, and it took them 24 hours to prepare my eyeglasses, they went beyond and had the eyeglasses delivered to my office!

Roberto Cavalli by Franck Muller

This post has been long overdue.

At the start of the year, I was window-shopping for a birthday gift for Kim. He wanted a watch, so I had periodically been making rounds in watch stores. I chanced upon a store owned by Meridien, which sells Ingersoll watches, and other brands. In the store, I discovered a Swiss watch which would take me months to acquire - not because it was expensive, on the contrary, the price tag was well worth it.

Roberto Cavalli currently has a collaboration with Franck Muller. Cavalli designs the watches, and it is made by Franck Muller. Franck Muller's watches belong to the price range of Rolexes, Chopards, and so on. Imagine my surprise, then, when I encountered a watch made by the Swiss watchmaker being sold for less than a PhP 100,000.00!

I told my mother about the discovery and seemed nonplussed about it - so I decided holding off on purchasing the watch until after Kim's birthday. I said to myself, if the watch is still there come March, at least the model I had wanted to purchase, then it must mean its meant for me.

March came, and the watch was patiently waiting for me in the store in Glorietta - so I bought it!

Famous celebrities who wear Franck Muller, the Master of Complications, are the likes of Naomi Campbell, Elton John, Demi Moore, and 50 Cent.

Here are pictures of the Roberto Cavalli by Franck Muller watch that I purchased:

If you want to own an expensive watch at a fraction of the cost, don't miss the opportunity, buy a Roberto Cavalli x Franck Muller collaboration watch!

Art in the Park 2016

I visited Art in the Park 2016 with a mission in mind. Last April 3, 2016, Kim and I braved the drive from the suburbs of Quezon City and Antipolo to Makati, and looked for parking. Quite a challenge to find a good parking spot yet again, and we ended up parking in Paseo Center, which was a good block away from Salcedo Park. I was insistent on going to Art in the Park because I wanted to visit the booth of Ang INK and purchase more magnets for my reminders board in the office. I was able to purchase quirky magnets last year for PhP 70.00 each.

When we got there, I headed straight to Ang INK's booth, but they didn't have any magnets. What they had though was my Ateneo batchmate's, Jomike Tejido's, Sanctuaries coloring book. It features about 30 coloring plates based on his banig paintings.

His banig paintings by the way were sold out before lunch.

Jomike was also there so I asked him to sign the 2 coloring books that I purchased. Yay!

Kim and I went around - I'm quite relieved that they have multiple cashiers this year. Last year, we had a challenge waiting in line for the painting, canvas bag, and magnets that I purchased.

In support of Museum Foundation of the Philippines, I purchased a nice fan from their booth. Keeping it in the car in case I have to wait in a parked car with the windows down.

We also passed by the booths of Vinyl on Vinyl where I looked for paintings of Anjo Bolarda. I was never able to move on from being unable to purchase Anjo Bolarda's Harmony of Change from the Silent Auction in Greenbelt last 2014 - and all because my car broke down on me in EDSA. How hateful. Unfortunately, Vinyl on Vinyl had none of his paintings for the event.

Two stalls down was Cevio's Art Haus, and they had paintings of Keith Paras which were priced rather good. A small painting of his was around PhP 12,000.00++ with 5% discount of the list price. I was particularly interested in a larger piece which was at PhP 19,200.00 without the discount.

I have been wanting to own a Keith Paras painting and I would have purchased the larger piece, had Kim not stopped me. He wanted me to purchase a watch that I have been looking into buying for 3 months already.

He hurriedly dragged me out of the park, and practically pushed me to drive to Glorietta to go to Meridien to purchase the watch.

Swatch's Lucky Monkey

I'm focusing my watch collecting on Swatch commemorative watches for the time being - while I'm still young and its still excusable. Like my mom always tells my sister, don't be afraid to wear color while you're still young.

I also made a Facebook page on Swatch collecting in the Philippines, hoping to touch base with local collectors if there are any. But, as I said prior, for now, I am limiting my Swatch collecting to commemorative watches. Items on my bucket list, to name a few, are the Ateneo Swatch, the Philippine Centennial Swatch designed by Jaime Zobel, the Year of the Horse Swatch (SUOZ169), The Legend of White Snake (SUOZ158), and the Goat's Keeper Watch (SUOZ189).

For Valentine's Day this year, Kim gifted me with Swatch's Lucky Monkey (SUOZ203), their watch commemorating 2016. the year of the Lucky Monkey.

The box is designed with ornamental mandalas made to resemble intricate paper cuttings, which is also continued and incorporated into the design of the watch.

The watch is a New Gent, so expect it to be a bit small for people with somewhat thick wrists like me, then again, its not as if I'll be wearing them - they're kept safely in storage. That doesn't mean, though that it's a ladies' watch. The design is quite unisex, and I've seen pictures in Instagram of men wearing this size also. And if it weren't a collectible as far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't mind wearing it on rotation with my other watches.

As early as the first weekend of January I had the opportunity of buying it already from Swatch in Glorietta, had I not been with my sister. She exclaimed that I was too old to be buying funky watches, so I refrained from purchasing it, and said to myself I'd buy it when I wasn't with her.

On subsequent mall trips, however, whenever I'd visit a Swatch store, they'd always tell me that they were sold out already. Glorietta, Greenbelt, Trinoma, Sta. Lucia, wherever I asked this watch wasn't available. I asked to be put on the waitlist in case more stocks were to be delivered, and I was getting desperate as the Chinese New Year was drawing nearer.

One afternoon, while I was longingly reading up on reviews about the watch, I received a call from the Swatch Trinoma informing me that one Lucky Monkey had arrived, and it had my name on it. I bravely drove with Kim through hellish rush hour traffic that Thursday evening, from Makati to Trinoma! The waiting and drive was well worth it, because, Kim bought it for me as a Valentine's Day gift!

Having purchased it in Trinoma, we also entered a raffle contest. One of the reasons why stocks of the watch easily ran out was because Trinoma purchased 20 watches to raffle off. We didn't win.

Going through my list of online selling sites to check on Swatches for sale, I already saw listings for the Great White Snake, the Goat's Keeper, and the Philippine Centennial Swatch. Refraining from making any purchases now because I just finished some car repairs and am looking into buying a 2nd car. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the sellers won't be able to find people purchasing these models any time soon. With the statistics on my Facebook page, though, I'm quite confident because there does not seem to be much Swatch collectors locally.

Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Save The Black Shop

2015 has been full of nostalgia for me. My youngest brother came home and stayed with us for 2 weeks - he left 3 years ago to study in Australia. My sister is about to graduate college and we're right in the middle of getting ready for her graduation outfits, so I'm getting sentimental because there's a good chance she might take further studies abroad.

In terms of shopping, so many brands I remember from my childhood have started to make their presence felt this year also.

Around April of this year, my baby sister asked if we could go shopping for a couple of corporate attire outfits for her org's miting de avance. She was 3rd year at the time, and she was running for her college org's president. Most of her clothes are (ahem, ahem) party wear, save for a couple of Mango and Zara cocktail dresses that were subdued but very short. I decided to bring her to the Black Shop in Glorietta so that we can get her first office-wear outfit. She ended up purchasing a sky blue shirt dress and a pink shift dress with a black sheer neckline cover. She wore the pink dress to her miting de avance. She was the only one who took the dress code seriously.

A couple of days ago, she called me aside and asked me to purchase more corporate outfits for her, because she volunteered to become a lounge attendant at the airport for the VIP lounge in NAIA for the APEC 2015 delegates. She's actually to be paid for the 4 days that she will be in the airport next week. Her problem was that she didn't have enough corporate outfits - and that was the prescribed dress code. We ran off to The Black Shop again to get her more outfits. I was chiding her that the cost of her outfits were more than what she was going to be paid - of course, she was doing this really so that she could put it in her resume.

We almost went to The Black Shop in Trinoma, had I not been informed that it had closed already. I started interviewing the people in The Black Shop in Glorietta and they told me that there were only two branches left - the Glorietta and Megamall branches. They were shifting away from mall retail locations and transferring to showrooms in Quezon City, Ortigas, and Makati. Apparently, rent in the malls were starting to become steep for them.

I was kinda worried that this might herald their closing, I was assured though that they would still be around. In the early 90s, I often remember my mom dragging me to shopping marathons in Makati - The Black Shop was one of the stores where I would patiently wait for her to fit her pantsuits. I started to get sentimental and started taking pictures of the shop.

All items were on sale - my mom who insisted to be brought to The Black Shop also after dinner actually thought that it was already their closing out sale. My sister was able to purchase her first pantsuit, a blue dress (which she planned on using also for her Ateneo Med School interview) and 2 crisp long-sleeved shirts.

This is her taking a selfie with the blue dress trying to pair it with the blazer from the pantsuit.

While they're still there, please pass by and visit The Black Shop. I'm sure a lot of mothers have at one point experienced buying something there to wear to the office, they have been around since 1990. People my age and the millenials probably shop for their office wear in Zara, Mango, H&M, and Marks and Spencer (especially when they're on sale - GUILTY) but nothing beats local! (Wow, did I really just say that?)

Save The Black Shop!

P.S.: If you were to buy a dress, pants, or blazer from The Black Shop, the kind ladies there will be the ones to assist you having it altered to fit. How cool is that? I'll be driving back to Makati in a couple of days to pick up my sister and mom's altered garments.

The Black Shop

Ground Floor, Glorietta 4, Makati

tel. no.: 02.8468025

Guess Eyeglasses from The Optical Shop Premier

Kim bought me a new pair of eyeglasses from The Optical Shop Premier in the new Glorietta 2.

Always quite a challenge for me to look for a new pair of eyeglasses, and I make it a point to get a new pair every year. My grade hasn't changed for quite some time already, so I am pretty much able to maintain having multiple pairs of eyeglasses. 

And there's a caste system to the eyeglasses. I always leave a pair in the office - this pair is meant to be my showcase eyeglasses. I leave a pair at home - this one should be the most comfortable pair. Lastly, there's always my go-to pair - the frame that can take a rough beating when I'm out of the house or office, moving about. 

The office pair, a pair of titanium eyeglasses I purchased on sale from Ideal Vision is to be retired for home use, and this new pair from The Optical Shop Premier is to be my showcase eyeglasses. 

I would have wanted to get a pair of Prada, Burberry, Ted Baker, or Ferragamo eyeglasses, however, my face is quite wide, and at the minimum, I require glasses that are size 54 up, depending on the frame. My go-to pair, black plastic-rimmed Zoo York glasses, are 56. The titanium set, although a smaller size, is very flexible, thin and light, and doesn't pinch my temples. 

This pair of Guess eyeglasses are quite comfortable also, and have the right allowance for my temples. My eye condition makes me prone to migraines, so having a comfortable pair that ensures that no other possible cause of strain on the eye, nose bridge, or temple is very important. 

The model number is Guess GU 1813, its a nice bronze color, and the box is quite cute with the indented dots on it. 

The staff in The Optical Shop were quite helpful. Their optometrist had good bedside manners.  They have more models, so if you're in the market to be buying a pair of eyeglasses, why not pay them a visit. Better yet, be like Kim, and give the gift of clear sight to your loved one!

The Optical Shop Premier

2/F, The New Glorietta 2, Glorietta Complex

Makati