This year, you may have noticed a change in aere's collections. At least in the name of the collections. People close to me say that when I do something, I do it wholeheartedly and put all my focus and heart into it. I think I channelled my feelings and emotions a little more than usual this year. Hence, FEEL, HOPE and LOVE came to fruition this year.

In truth, it reflects some of the phases of my own life. This is what I personally wrote on aere HOPE's thank you note that was printed out for the first few hundred customers who grabbed aere's HOPE pieces from the KLFW 2016 collection. :

"In life, we may find ourselves in the middle of a frightening storm. Or find ourselves falling into a seemingly bottomless pit. We might find ourselves broken and shattered and discovering that we are in pitch darkness. We will find ourselves trapped underneath a mountain of despair. Come face-to-face with insurmountable challenges, be it seen or unseen.

Yet day after day, whatever the weather or circumstances we find ourselves in, the sun always rises. With it, springs HOPE. That the coming day will be better. That in the coming day we will be better. That beacon called HOPE is the anchor. HOPE is the compass. HOPE gets you through the darkest night. Where there is HOPE, there is always light. HOPE is a steadfast rope that gives you the courage to pull yourself back up. To stand and rise again despite being broken.

Through this HOPE 2016 collection, aere aims to share a little bit of HOPE and lots of love. aere is a little bit bolder and inching stronger and stronger. I intended for the structured designs, the braver cuts and the overall fit and feel of this collection to depart from last year's soft and ethereal Essence of Grace collection. To symbolize a more courageous approach to face the unknown and the unimaginable. aere's journey so far has been nothing but an amazing and wondrous voyage. A fantastic adventure.

At the end of the day, every single one of us grasps at least a little piece of HOPE in our hands. A HOPE for our heart's desires. A HOPE for a better future. And it is this spirit of HOPE that is imbued in each piece of this collection so that it is never lost, and it is never out of reach."

aere's LEVANA Jacquard Puffy Top 

dUCkscarves

One of the things I really love about London is that there are so many parks all over. Even in the midst of all the low rise muted coloured buildings, you can find just a tiny pocket of a park like this one just beside the hotel we stayed in when I was there recently for Pure London in July this year. 

It was quiet, peaceful, private, blooming with beautiful flowers and had plenty of benches for us to sit. At the time we were there, there were only a few people around. Some were playing with their dogs, some were just walking and some were having some meaningful conversations with each other. 

Just being in the park, and taking time to enjoy the scenery and blend with nature is a much needed reset to the system. From the day I arrived, things were just very, very hectic not just for me but for Khubayb as well as I only had him to help me around with aere over there. There was no time for us to relax and after Pure London was wrapped up and done, I just felt like I needed a breather. Just to pause for a few minutes and breathe the London air for a bit. When it gets too overwhelming, I really just need to always remind myself to just breathe.

The day Khubayb was about to leave London to go back to KL we decided to go for a quick stroll at a park just to enjoy the cool weather and just relax for a bit. We slept in just a little while longer that day, and we decided to skip breakfast and go straight to the park (I know, such a rebel right?) before we had our lunch. Of course, he took some photos while we were at the park. I had a meeting later that afternoon, while Khubayb had to go back to Malaysia that evening because he had trials. Before we parted ways in London, we just wanted some time for ourselves.

I just love the greenery, the flowers, the carefree dogs running around and the people just chilling. Wish we had more parks in Malaysia. Wish we had the cool weather too, hehe. The grass is always greener on the other side when in fact, I can't even stand the cold weather nowadays. :D And it was summer then, so it wasn't cold anyways, except for night time! But it was cool enough for us to walk wherever we go  especially from the hotel to Pure London or the tube stations.

While I was doing this post, I was looking and browsing through some old photos when I was younger and found this photo of me of me feeding the pigeons at a park in London taken by my father. 

My parents stayed there for over 10 years when my dad studied law and my mother did her degree in physics.  I was born in London and they continued to stay there when they got me. 

London was home to my parents for a long while and was my home for the first few years of my life. My parents brought me back there again twice once when I was in primary school, and the second time I stayed there for about a month in 2009 helping my dad with work for an art exhibition. Oh, I went there again in 2012 to represent a client when I was a lawyer and here I was there again this year but for a totally different reason: my other love, aere.

As soon as I came back from the trip, I felt the urge to just look back at their old photos when they were in London.  So I went to my parents' place and digged in the photos after both my parents took them out from me. My dad was an avid photographer and used to take a lot of my OOTDs (before the term OOTD even existed). So, I found this photo above taken by my dad when I was probably around 2 years old in London. 

I blogged about some of my earlier lookbooks when I was learning how to stand and walk in London in my post "Parental Love" in 2011.

Inspired by the breezy wind and hints of falling leaves, I wanted to go for an all white look with hints of gold. Wore one of my fav pair of golden shoes, a white bag with gold buckles and of course aere's gold zippers. I put on my pearl bracelet which I got from one of the islands in Phuket. I'm also wearing aere's CELIA Waterfall Peplum Top from the FEEL eid collection paired with a pair of pants I bought in London. Topped the look off with a white instant semi-instant shawl with subtle hints of loral in watercolour. I used to wear a lot of floral in uni but recently I haven't really worn a lot of florals. I wear it very rarely but if it's something that I really like, I would wear it like this one :)

The CELIA has been one of my favourite tops this year because it is soooo versatile and I've worn it in different colours for different occasions. I've worn it for events, I wore it backstage during the fashion show itself, for Raya, for work and sometimes for casual outings too. Love that I can style it in different ways to create different looks. It was sold out so fast online when it was first launched. aere don't usually restock but this time around I decided to restock because so many people were asking for it and even I myself have been wearing it numerous times (though of course I didn't share all the OOTDs anywhere). So, today it's restocked online and I added a new colour too! One of my favourite shades of yellow. So, go check it out!

I shared here earlier about my recent trip to London this year,  right after my family trip to Phuket and just before KLFW and my trip to Jakarta in my post 'Runway in London'. The photos in that posts were taken on the same day as the ones in this post.

I'll always have a special love for London. I'll be back there soon, God willing.

aere's CELIA Waterfall Top

Sugarscarf

My Baby Photo by my father Raja Ahmad Aminullah

PEACE & LOVE!

Hi guys, this year has been so hectic and I've just realised that it's already approaching the end of the year. I also realise that I haven't finished blogging about most of the happenings and important events that has happened this year. Alhamdulillah, I've been travelling to a number of unexpected places this year, either for work, for aere, blogging jobs or with the family. 

The year started off with a trip to Langkawi ('That Special Dinner on the First' and 'Sands of Gold') with the hubster for new year's and our 10th Anniversary. Then in March this year, I went to Shenzhen and Shanghai, China for an unplanned adventure! In fact, most of my travels this year were unplanned or really impromptu.

I heard at quite the last minute from Vivy that Asma' was going to a textile fair on 16th - 17th March 2016 in Shanghai. So I thought of going together with her to look for Raya and KLFW fabrics as I was working on both collections for aere at the time. However, a few months before that I had already committed myself and agreed with TV3 to give a talk on the 17th of March 2016. So, I was initially 50-50 about going to China because of the talk that I had to give. But, at the same time I dint want to miss it!

Anyways, since the idea of going to a textile fair was really enticing, I also wanted to make  sure that the trip to China was worthwhile so I quickly planned meetings with different factories, old and new, that were primarily in Shenzen. I figured I could manage to squeeze it in before the textile fair in China. 

So, I whatsapped Asma' and we planned our places to stay and our tickets so that we can go together. We had less than 5 days to prepare for the trip. FIVE DAYS! The meetings with the factories were mostly for the Raya collection and the fabric search was for KLFW.

After I've bought the flight tickets and booked the hotel, I realised something. I didnt have my physical passport. Searched for it everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. I was super duper nervous because tickets have already been bought and plus, I needed to apply for a Visa! I could only apply for the Visa after I had to re-do a new passport. And side time was so short, I wasn't sure whether I'd be granted a visa in time. It was really nerve wrecking and I almost didnt get the passport in time. Finally, I managed to meet a very helpful officer who really pushed my passport application very fast. Finally! The rest didn't allow it initially. And I was super relieved when I got my Chinese Visa in time. Phew. The people at the Immigration counters were really helpful and made it work. May God bless their souls and reward them for their kindness.

My trip to Shenzhen and Shanghai was  productive, quite eventful and quite fun. Managed to bond a bit more with Asma' too as it was our first time travelling together. I'll share more on my next post. But before that, here's the outfit that I wore for my flight from KL to Shenzhen. Needed something comfy for travelling so I chose the LELIA Top and KYRA Skants from aere's Essence of Grace collection. Realised that I wore the LELIA Top in 'Flying with the Wind" where I blogged about my airport look from KL to Langkawi. Oh well maybe the sleeves gives me the flying vibe so subconsciously I chose to wear this while travelling.

Anyways, I really hope I can share more about my travels this year. I think I have almost if not more than 100,000 photos taken from my camera in my hard disk this year alone. Looking at my phone, I have about more than 30,000 photos. When I took those photos, most of them were meant to be shared here in the blog but of course some of it I've shared on Instagram.

Actually wanted to take these shots at the airport, but we were both waiting for Deepa at the time and she was late for more than an hour! LOL! So, since we were waiting by the road at KL Sentral, we decided to take the shots here (very very quickly) instead. 

More on the next post!

aere's LELIA Tulip Sleeve Top

aere's KYRA SKANTS

Sugarscarf

Photo by Khubayb aka @kneok

PEACE & LOVE!