Archive for January, 2010

It’s been a while since I last write any post. Been busy at work and personal life, resulting in extreme exhaustion. Anyway I’m back, and in this particular short post, I would like to bring your attention to a gentlemen watch.

Watch for men, is like jewelry  for women. It decorates you in a subtle and purposeful way. Having said that, there are plenty ways for things to go wrong when you picking a wrong watch. A case in example, Al Gore with his calculator watch, and 20 something guy wearing gold plated Rolex.

Surely, name like Tag Heuer, Rolex, and Omega are guarantee for quality time piece. Not only that it has excellent quality, it also compliment your appearance and most importantly reflect character that you can (or want) to associate with. The draw back ? Well these brands can cost you thousand of dollar a piece, hardly fits everyone.

So what if you want something that has a character, but an affordable. Its arguable, but for me character  can only be found in  a watch that produced by watchmaker. And if European watchmaker are out of reach, the Japanese come into equation.  The brand in mention is of course Casio and Seiko.

Being the king of digital watch, Casio no doubt has its loyal segmentation and fans. The indefatigable G-Shock has been ruling the digital watch for more then a decade now, and I have not known someone who doesn’t know the all time famous solar powered Casio and its calculator equipped variant.  But the gem of the brand is of course its Edifice Series.

The Edifice EF-521 series in white dial.Courtesy of www.casio-intl.com

Mostly build as chronograph, Edifice series are designed as sports-formal fusion. Comes in stainless steel case, its suits most men, and give the youngish appearance that sports watch lent to its bearer. It also comes in various dial material, with most advance are the carbon fiber which gives  the sporty and accuracy image to the watch. With a price tag rounding around USD100-USD200 the only think that I dislike from any Casio watch, is its dependency to power source, meaning every few years or so, you will need to replace the battery.

Which brings me to Seiko, especially the Five series. Bearing from the same country of origin as Casio, Seiko is nowhere near its brother. Whilst Casio always keen to explore the digital side and brave in exploring new area, Seiko is much more conservative. And despite it has delivered an excellent range of modern looking wrist watch,  those who adores Seiko will cherished its Five series more than any others.

Seiko 5 Black Automatic.Courtesy of www.longislandwatch.com

Designed as sports watch the sign “5″ refers to the 5 essential features of the series, namely shock resistant, water resistant, automatic and day and date display. In quick look, the design has some kind connection with Rolex Oyster series. The dial is protected with crystal glass which make its scratch free. But what makes it prized, is its mechanical auto winding mechanism, which means you will never ever need to replace the battery (because it doesn’t have one). With a prize start as low as USD100, its hard not to love this watch. The drawback ? Well you’ll need to always wear it.

Understandably, for most men, acquiring watch not only a matter of choosing the watch that will suit your skin tone, and makes you feel good. But in  a away it also provide some kind of boosting to self confidence and upgrade to your style. Hence for some people who only thing about the later, will usually find himself in an odd combination of gold wrist watch, gold necklace and white shoes

That said, your style is your responsibility. For me, USD150 Seiko will bring quite the same level of handsomeness as an USD3,000 Rolex does.

The terminology of Shopaholic doesn’t seem to apply to most men, and so I will understand your surprise in finding the word “shopaholic” on the title above.

But afraid not, I’m not about to start rumbling about psychological analysis on men spending nature, but instead introduce to you to an online shop and a newly setup blog that run and managed by my dear friend Mira and Cynthia.

It would be a classic for me to introduce the girls’ blog and shop by telling you the story and the nitty gritty  behind their venture, but of course I won’t give you the satisfaction of proving you right (since you can read about it anyway on their “about” section), nor that I would make you happy by pretending that I know things about women’s fashion.

So what I would recommend you to do is simply visit their blog (www.shopaholicjakarta.com) and their online store (www.shopaholic.us.com) and find your self what they have to offer. Enjoy and happy shopping !!!

p.s. Girls, you’ll be better judge than I do. Boys, you can make your girls significantly happier by acquiring some of the items on their shop

Just a very quick update on my MTO (made to order) shoes (you can read previous post in this series here).

It almost a month since I’ve got my feet measured for pattern. Just last Thursday, I was invited to the fitting. Handiman the owner of Mario Minardi has finished making a rough finished left side of the pair for me to try.  And whilst it was nice to wear, I felt there is something off with the shape and curve of the shoes, and so I request some adjustment.

Anyway, along the way, in between the measurements and fitting. Handiman sent me a couple of pictures that some sort of explain the early stage of the production process.

The first picture below is the original last. You see, after my precise measurement was obtained, Handiman then look for a last ( a shoe frame, very much resembling shoe tree) that closest resembling my feet shape. The results is last number 11292 as you see below. If you look closer you can see the last size is 42, which is consistent my current wear size.

The original shoes last. Number 11292 size 42

However, as one may predicted, the last required some amendment, hence Handiman send the last to be adjusted as observed on the below picture. The adjustment shown in dark gray materials appears to increase the height of the upper part. This adjustment was done for both side accordingly.

Adjusted shoe last, notice the black material attached to the original last ?

Next process is making the pattern. This is shown by drawing the shoe pattern across the last on the above picture. The drawing will then be used as a guidance when cutting the leather material.

The pattern drawn on the last

From this point, the process will decidedly be varied and becoming more and more complex. It will be interesting process nonetheless, and I will report the detail process accordingly when I received by shoes safe and sound. Until then, I bid you good night and good luck.

This is continuation of my previous post.

Now the reason why I started the project is because of the necessity. You see, as you grew older you might, as I experience caught in the situation where you spent your weekend attending your friends wedding invitation.

And traditionally  any such attendance will be follow with an envelope that contains some money and off course wishes for the newly wed. For sometimes I underestimated the wishes part and focus only on the money part. Until on one occasion I notice an amount of effort that my Mom spent when writing a wishes for the bride and groom. When I enquired about this she answered, “You see son, money will just go to their bank account and get mixed with others, wishes however will get into an album, and in time will be reopened and cherished.

I was once, was one of those people who write wished at the back of my name card. Now I regretted every moment I did that. It’s  improper, impersonal, clumsy and yes very lazy.

So I started to change. At first I bough  a pack of simple empty fancy cards and enveloped that cost IDR50k for 10. And when its run out. I’m exploring other possibilities.

My first priority of course is a customized letter head, greeting cards on cotton paper. One inquiry to one shop that offers this product in Jakarta left me speechless. A set of customized letter head (100 sets) will cost approx IDR15mio, and a set of ready designed card set can cost as much as IDR600k (for 20).

While the quality might merit the price, I am not yet on that league. Hence this post.

Now this post series will ultimately  logging my journey in producing these packages. The end result that I have in mind are the following:

• Custom card and envelope for personal use (congratulatory note, thank you note)
• Letterhead (in case I need to write long ), business and personal alike .
• These items needs to be personalized , unique and needles to say pretty to look , deluxe at touch and nice to smell
• These items needs to come at an affordable prized
• If you can follow suit this experiments and happy with the results, it’s a bonus.

To achieve these results, here are the component that I need to look

• Writing paper that can be used with fountain pen, have a good and unique fiver and pattern, nice to touch and comfy to read
• Envelope Paper that will suits the color and fit to accompany the paper
• Type of printing method that is scalable, cheap and resulting in a good quality

For now, this should be enough to start considering options. Naturally off course, I will accept any suggestion, and your advice is most welcome.

In the age of digital art and electronic communications, the tradition of long and narrative letter writing is slowly dying and with it goes along the art of handwriting, or more specifically cursive writing.

I can no longer recount how many people that I know especially those of my generation (let alone those who are younger than me) who still writes in cursive style, and those still does are no longer following the ever strict rule of cursive letter, me included.

As you can see on the pic below, which is a photograph of one my arbitrary note in my Moleskine ( yes, I still write in a notebook), despite majority of cursive and italic style letter, I still occasionally use block as well, which in away, kind of disrupt the flow of the cursive it self.

My poor handwriting

Another poor handwriting, same style from different notes

It’s a pity actually, for cursive style are far more beautiful and stylish then a block letter. Yes, it may be less efficient, and in a way more difficult that the block letter and then there is also a chance that it will not be readable to some people, but there is no doubt that it has more character and identity. In a such that it is very much a mirror of your own characteristic and unique personal identity. Those who master the science of handwriting analysis can very much tell you how handwriting can reveal its writer personality.

It is to this trait that even today, it is strongly recommended that when you write greetings card, thank you note, or any personal note, it’s better you handwrite it, better still if you do it in cursive  and using fountain pen (the stroke difference between fountain pen and modern ball/roller pen is prized by the fountain pen fans). Not only that its is more personalized and intimate, it also shows that you care about the person you write for, and you mean every words in it, because you make an effort to write every single letter in it. Same thing can not be said about electronic letter.

Which brings us to the underlying reason, on why I started this post. This post is intended as start of series of post that will follow another of my project of developing letter head, cards and envelope) that I will use for greetings, thank you and congratulation notes. More explanation on this will be discussed in the next post. For now, let me ask you just one question, do you still write in cursive ?