Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Spring Fashion 2020: Give Your Wardrobe a Warm Weather Update - Mar 27, 2020 - 12:22:59 PM

Luxury sportswear is the top fashion story for spring and summer and what better way to step up your style game while still emphasizing your toned bodies and athletic lifestyle? After all, who wants to be wrapped up in long sleeve tees and sweatpants once the warmer weather arrives? Trade those joggers for a pair of hot pants to show off your sleek legs or pull on a crochet dress that covers just enough to leave a bit of flirtatious mystery.

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Zip, Sip and Dine: Outdoor Adventures and Dining Delights in Tualatin Valley - Feb 24, 2020 - 11:01:33 AM

During my recent visit to Tualatin Valley, I discovered that the region, with all its outdoor delights, is less than one hour from downtown Portland. As a savvy traveler, I always prefer cruising along quiet back roads during a relaxing weekend getaway so I steered clear of the congested I-5 South highway, the standard route to central Oregon’s wine country.

I recommend you begin your Saturday by enjoying Oregon’s natural setting with hiking, biking or zip-lining...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Holiday fashion trends offer a touch of extravagance - Dec 9, 2019 - 1:25:42 AM

For many of us, the holiday season is an opportunity to be more glamorous and alluring with our personal style.

In recent years, the rise of street style and Instagram influencers have pushed luxury fashion houses to adopt a more flexible approach to holiday fashions, allowing consumers to express their personal style using designer pieces.

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Escape to Canada's Pacific Coast Rainforest to discover Tofino’s finest tables - Oct 6, 2019 - 6:39:38 PM

With its extensive network of hiking trails through stunning old growth forest, Tofino is one of the greatest wilderness vacation spots in British Columbia, Canada. But there’s more to this gem of a coastal retreat than outdoor adventures. Aside from its wild and adrenaline-fueled surfing excursions and intimate lover’s strolls along deserted white sand beaches, you can now add exceptional dining and outstanding lodgings to your list of reasons to visit Tofino. For those desiring a more luxurious experience after a day exploring this vast outdoor playground, Tofino is coming into its own.

For my last travel assignment to Tofino, I visited in fall to write about storm watch season for a women’s magazine, but for this late spring visit we arrived to sunny skies...

Columns
Tri-Valley Wine Region: California Wine at a Slower Pace - Jul 10, 2019 - 10:00:57 AM

To the delight of many of the region’s vintners and restaurateurs, Northern California’s wine country is world famous. Unfortunately, with that fame comes two-lane rural roads congested with tour bus traffic and wine tasting venues crowded with Instagram-crazed tourists scrambling to snap the perfect picture.

For those looking to escape the throngs of tourists, a more luxurious vacation experience can be had in the Tri-Valley wine region. There, you can visit historic wineries, meet the owners of family vineyards, sip boutique wines, savor stellar dining choices and indulge in designer fashion shopping...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade - Aug 12, 2017 - 9:33:46 AM

Impressionist painter Edgar Degas is well known for his late 19th century paintings of Parisian dancers and racehorses. What he is perhaps less known for is his fascination with the quotidian details of modern life in the French capital, including high fashion hats and the women who crafted them.

Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade, currently on show at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, explores this infatuation which inspired a visually compelling body of work that subtly documents the effect that hat-making had on turn of the century Parisians, from working women to high society men and everyone in between...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
The Beret Story - Apr 21, 2017 - 2:29:44 PM

The French beret long associated with artist Pablo Picasso living in Paris during the early 1900’s, revolutionaries and made stylish by actress and fashion model Brigitte Bardot in the 50’s has returned as one of the hottest luxury fashion looks for spring.

Now with its rebel history and look, it has recently appeared in the runway designer collections of Yves Saint Laurent, Isabel Marant, and Dior. Given a makeover with bright colored textured wools to all black leather with colored stones, the best beret looks on the fashion models were with their hair up...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
The 80’s Fashion Trends Love Affair for 2017 Has Begun - Feb 8, 2017 - 9:16:24 PM

If you lived through it, you’ll probably remember the 80’s as a decade when fashion was larger-than-life. The 80’s fashion trends introduced us to bold female silhouettes defined by colorful oversize blazers with shoulder pads, big permed hair with heavy makeup and risqué low cut sequin dresses with thigh-high slits. Needless to say, it was one of the more influential style periods in recent memory.

Many fashion designers look to the past for inspiration and their love affair with 80’s fashion trends is everywhere for spring 2017. Watch for the following 80s style influences, some which we may soon see on our city streets...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Simon Barth Couture: Dark Seduction 2016 - Dec 9, 2016 - 12:35:01 AM

When he showcased his first collect at Berlin Fashion Week nearly ten years ago, Simon Barth realized he didn’t quite fit in with the minimalist aesthetic of the German fashion scene. The fact is Barth lives for creating intricate embroidered haute couture dresses and, in 2013, the German-born designer moved to Vienna, Austria where today he is handcrafting exquisite floor-length evening dresses for the women of the Viennese ball.

Steeped with aristocratic tradition and home to the most extravagant and romantic balls you will find anywhere in the world, Vienna is one of Europe’s oldest capital cities. During ball season, which begins each winter and runs until Ash Wednesday...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style - Nov 11, 2016 - 10:26:50 AM

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM)’s exhibition Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style offers a unique retrospective of the work of one of the most influential French haute couture designers of our era.

The exhibition takes visitors through Saint Laurent’s legendary career and reveals both his artistic genius and his creative process as an haute couture designer. On display at SAM is an exemplary collection of 110 ensembles, many of which have never been shown in public before, showcasing the tremendous achievements of his 44-years in the fashion industry...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
International Looks for Spring / Summer 2017 - Oct 30, 2016 - 12:09:31 PM

For RozeMerie, designing was a predestination. A photograph of her late mother sitting behind a sewing machine inspired her to create pieces for herself throughout her teenage years in Vancouver. RozeMerie enrolled at ESMOD and moved to Paris to study design and pattern making.

With passion, focus, determination and skill, she returned to Vancouver in 1986 and developed Jacqueline Conoir, a line of women’s power suiting and evening wear.

JAC identifies as accessible luxury: unique design, playful clean lines, versatile and easy to wear with rich fabrics at a moderate price...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Eymeric Francois: Midnight in Paris - Jun 24, 2016 - 9:51:14 AM

Photo: Simon Lau

Mixing classic couture looks with daring lingerie details, fashion designer Eymeric Francois is reimaging French couture. His Autumn/Winter 2016 collection, entitled Midnight in Paris, combines elegant long evening dresses with tight corsets and transparent lace body suits to give us a sizzling sensuality not normally expected in luxury fashion.

During Vancouver Fashion Week I had the pleasure of interviewing this young designer to learn more about his vision of French elegance for today’s woman.Trained under couture designer Thierry Mugler, Francois produced his first luxury collection in 2000 in Paris and has not looked back since. Today, at 35 years of age,he brings to the timeless elegance of French style a sensualism that features bareskin, transparent lace, strong sexual undertones and more than a hint of fetishism...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Armani: Designing for Women in a Digital Age - Mar 17, 2016 - 2:37:28 AM

Melding his signature clean lines with colourful digital designs, Giorgio Armani unveiled “New Pop”, his Emporio Armani Autumn/Winter 2016-17 collection, at Milan Fashion Week. In pursuit of a younger Italian woman, the collection was an homage to the high tech era, offering splashes of fluorescent colour and emoji-like prints on funky fabrics.

“New Pop” proved that “King Giorgio”, as he is known to his colleagues, is equally at home designing youthful, trendy pieces as he is producing elegant gowns for the red carpet. Armani, now 81, embraced the new digital generation, showing black fabrics printed with geometrical motifs made up of squares, triangles and circles in bubble gum pink, lime green and citrus yellow.

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Eye-Catching Colourful Stripes Take Us Into Spring - Feb 17, 2016 - 7:42:32 PM

Keep an eye open over the next few months and you’ll notice a playful new twist on a spring fashion classic. With the onset of the warmer weather, women will be immersed in the graphic lines, zigzagging patterns and dynamic colour combinations of bold, bright stripes.
 
This represents a fascinating evolution from a look that dominated women’s wear just a few seasons ago when European luxury designers presented more traditional patterns such as houndstooth and pinstripes...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Sleepwear Becomes Day-Wear in Spring Fashions - Jan 12, 2016 - 10:49:43 PM

There is an underlying sensual fever with the new spring fashions. Lingerie-inspired looks of embroidered silk and lace, soft flowing ruffles and sexy bare shoulders have emerged from the luxury designer collections of Michael Kors, Oscar de la Renta and Givenchy. Sleepwear, it appears, has transformed into day-wear.

Creative director Peter Copping, of Oscar de la Renta, has taken his inspiration from the culturally rich flamingo dance of Spain and delivered a vibrant red-hued ruffle ensemble that was a runway showstopper. His use of a sexy black Chantilly lace tank top under a poppy jacquard capelet, paired with a matching pencil skirt, is an exquisite example of the new sexual chic ...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
The Making of a Perfume: Go Big or Go Home - Dec 15, 2015 - 11:00:20 PM

It’s the day before Mother’s Day in the year 2000, and Norwegian Geir Ness was about to make his grand entrance at the Nordstrom Beverly Hills store to launch his first fragrance Laila. Just a few weeks prior, he was haggling at a garage sale for a five-dollar suit that he was wearing and a small piece of red carpet to stand on. A colleague, a man named John, was playing the role of paparazzi, but could not even afford film for his camera. On cue, two young female friends were ready to scream hysterically as Ness made his appearance on the floor.

That was then...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Pantone Color of the Year brings us two pastel hues - Dec 9, 2015 - 9:20:25 PM

The Pantone Color of the Year announcement is closely observed by the fashion and design industry as their decision can have influences on consumers for many years.

For the first time ever, the Pantone Color of the Year is a pair of inviting shades, Rose Quartz a pale pink, and Serenity a baby blue hue for 2016.

What first comes to mind with these two pastel colours is that it’s all about babies, but Pantone denies that. More so, it’s probably the turmoil we face in our world today that has Pantone selecting a harmonious pairing of colors for warmth and tranquility as we enter the New Year...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Green Embassy: Glamorous fusion of couture and nature - Oct 27, 2015 - 11:51:37 PM

Green Embassy celebrates the earth’s mystical rain forests and the treasures that they hold with a new haute couture collection for spring 2016 filled with dazzling romantic dresses in a lush palette of crimson, cream, purple and yellow.

It has been a year since I last interviewed Australian fashion designer artist, Zuhal Kuvan-Mills at Vancouver Fashion Week, where I first discovered her exquisite couture collection that is both luxurious and earth friendly.

Titled, Silent Rainforest this collection is visually stunning. Several of the outfits have high collars taking us back to the classic Victorian era...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
The renaissance of the luxury jewelry brand, John Rubel - Oct 9, 2015 - 7:11:04 AM

The legacy of John Rubel began 100 years ago when two brothers, Jean and Robert Rubel arrived from Budapest to open their first atelier a few doors from the Place Vendome, Paris. Skilled jewelers, their talents were quickly recognized and in demand by luxury retailers such as Van Cleef & Arpels and Boucheron.

The brothers were legendary as their famous “Roses” bracelet made for Van Cleef & Arpels displayed at the Exposition of Modern and Decorative Arts in Paris won a Grand Prize in 1924.

In 1939, the Rubel brothers followed Van Cleef & Arpels to America where they were trusted to manufacture their jewelry...

Columns : Style Drama - Edward Quan
Versace Couture: Romantic and Oh So Sexy - Aug 28, 2015 - 12:29:01 AM

For many years, Versace couture was about the hard rock party girl. This fall she’s more romantic with soft feminine chiffon layers, pastel colors and sparkling jewels. And yes, she’s still very sexy.

As discussed in previous columns, there has been a move over the past two years towards a softer look with the luxury fashion designers such as Louis Vuitton and Armani.

Donatella Versace has always crafted garments that enhanced a woman’s figure. It was always more than just revealing a hint of leg or cleavage; there was sense of toughness combined with sizzling sexiness that has made the brand successful over the past several decades...