ZERO+

Okay so i figured it out. The famous girl from the caffe with the leopard sneakers is called Haze Chen 若穎 and is in a Taiwanese "Mandopop" (Mandarin Popular Music) group called ZERO+.

They are performing at a lingerie fashion show tomorrow in Taipei so maybe ill go check it out!

LINK

Wufenpu market 五分埔

The amount of small boutiques and market stalls on every single street corner selling "korean" and "japanese" fashion is quite overwhelming, at least in Taipei. At first it's fun to look because its different and cheap compared to back home but when you start noticing the same t-shirt popping up everywhere it gets a bit boring. Another problem is sizing....its almost always "one size" or "Free size" (?) which is what they call it over here and shoe sizes are usually at its biggest a size 38. Me being a size 40, there usually isn't even any point in asking.

So the other day I went to a wholesale garment market, Wufenpu in the Xinyi District, which is where most of these small boutiques go and buy their goodies. I was hoping they would have a wider selection, even cheaper prices and maybe some bigger sizes! I was definitely not disappointed because this area is huge and easy to get lost in and just wonder around for hours. It requires patience to find the good places because like any other market there is a lot of crap. First of all the market is not actually a market....they have nicely decorated little stores but with numbered bags filled with clothes covering the floor. In most cases I think these bags are orders waiting to be picked up by the boutiques. And since this is in fact a wholesale market some stores strictly only sell in bulk but I didn't actually come across this problem. As iv mentioned before, the taiwanese aren't pushy and that even applies here. They don't bother you until you ask for help and if your not interested in buying anything they don't care.

Some of my finds from the Wufenpu market.

One Piece Asian-style

A girl I saw while visiting Macao a couple of weeks ago. So this is what the asian one piece looks like and in combination with some Rayban aviators and LV bag its pretty stylish looking!

La leone cafe 里昂尼咖啡

I have found the perfect café here in Taipei. It has a really clean look with concrete floors, white walls with charcoal paintings and large windows facing the street outside.
Its a really inspiring atmosphere to just relax in and read one of the many asian fashion magazines available, do some people watching or even to get some studying done.

Reading backwards in Japanese :)

The Swedish Princess in Japanese Vogue

From my point of view it seems to be quite a "trendy" place judging by many of the customers. When i was there the other day I took a picture of a girl dressed in a leopard themed outfit. From my understanding she was "a famous artist here in Taiwan" and her name was Haze... or something similar. So if anyone knows who she is, tell me because I haven´t been able to find anything on her!

Adidas leopard sneakers

& Other Stories

The latest addition to the H&M family is going to be a high end "luxury" brand with better quality and in an even higher price class than COS. At the moment the H&M group owns five different store concepts; H&M, COS, Cheap Monday, Weekday and Monki, meaning that this is going to be a complement to these. There are supposedly going to be stores opening all over Europe already next year for the new concept.

H&M Spring Summer 2012 Swimwear Advertising Campaign

At the moment there are no official H&M stores here in Taiwan. I have however come across an outlet store where I found some random pieces which was unexpected. After speaking to quite a few Taiwanese people, most of them seem to know about H&M and you can also tell it is quite saught after. Some have gone to China/Hong Kong to buy it or have managed to buy something online through someone they know in another country. I guess it not existing here makes it in itself very attractive fore-mostly to the younger fashion forward crowd but I'm sure it would become very successful if it would open here just like many of its other European competitors like Zara.

Billy Jeans by IKEA

IKEA is releasing a jeans collection! 

or not :)

Just had to share this funny April fools joke from IKEA Haha 

IKEA Billy Jeans

Source: IKEA

Modern Toilet?

Yes, there is a restaurant with a toilet theme here in Taiwan. There seems to be theme restaurants and cafées for everything here like Hello Kitty, Manga, Hospital, Flight-theme. But i was not expecting to come across a toilet themed one!

I had dinner at the Ximen one the other night and i think ill let the pictures speak for themselves.

The seats are made out of toilets and the table out of a bathtub

You can buy souvenirs to bring home. Why not a toilet-shaped mug? 

Ice cream shaped as.... mmmm and lets not forget the shape of the mug.

Recommendation? Maybe fun to visit it just for the fun of it but i wouldn't do it for the food.

However im really excited to try some of the other themed restaurants! I found this article for inspiration.