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Weighing at 200kg, the tea bags were stained in 10 different shades of brown by steeping each bag in hot water at different lengths of time, then stapled and attached to a wiremesh and then, finally hung on a frame. Says Red, “Locals gather in kopitiams and mamaks, and here they talk about where to buy the best durians, the traffic, politics, weather, soccer… It is a drink that brings people together and I hope that I get to share a bit of my country through this piece!” Watch it for yourself, it’s incredible how she puts the entire piece together.  

he brand embraces clean lines, modern cuts and a minimal aesthetic with a sporty edge– elements that will easily make ForTomorrow Clothing a definite a crowd favourite here. If you’re in taking a closer look, ForTomorrow Clothing is available at Isetan KLCC and Isetan The Gardens.

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We managed to catch a quick word with the lovely Amanda to learn more about her awesome job as a buyer.

What does your job as a menswear buyer for Zalora entail? As a menswear buyer in Zalora, we are basically just like any other buyers as well. We source for brands that we think has a potential to sell in the website, and after the sourcing process we look into a much in depth details in terms of what are the margins and what are the replenishment processes and many more.

What is the best thing about your job? The best thing is being able to select what designs and SKUs [Stock Keeping Unit] to bring in and to have a first-hand view on what are the new arrivals for a certain brand.

What are you working on right now? I’m currently working on some watches and a swimwear selection.

What’s a typical working day for you? A typical working day would be checking my emails, doing Purchasing orders and Replenishment for my brands and checking on the sales and performance of my brands.

How does your job as a menswear buyer impact your own wardrobe/what you wear? It doesn’t really impact my wardrobe or what I wear on a day to day basis though. I feel that I have my own style and that speaks out who I am but after being a menswear buyer I began to develop an interest on men’s fashion and trend.

It’s a brand new year! What do you think are the biggest menswear trends for 2015? For me, I personally think that the sleek and minimalist look will be a thing this year. Less prints, and more on simple, earthy and neutral colours.

What will your personal style be like in 2015? Minimalist and monochrome all the way.

Finally, fashion makes me feel… alive. I feel happy , I feel energized and I feel that it has become part of my life. My passion towards fashion really shocked me at one point because looking at the time that I devote to it, is pretty amazing. You know there’s a saying “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.” Yup, that’s me right there.

zalora.com.my

Available in stores on 26 March 2015, the H&M x Coachella collection, offers men’s and women’s clothing as well as accessories and will retail between RM14.90 to RM149. If you love that music festival aesthetic that you often see in festival style snaps, then the collection’s romantic boho style graphic tops, fringe, lace, rompers, and crop tops for women is right up your alley. It’s a fail safe collection that will appeal to all of us music festival junkies. It’s a shame this collab wasn’t released in time for Laneway this year, but if you are attending Coachella this year, you can check out H&M’s first ever pop-up shop on site where you can buy the collection, take a breather indoors and enjoy some of their interactive games.

hm.com/my

What does Kenzy.is.NOYZ mean? Kenzy is a nickname that my college buddies gave me because they couldn’t pronounce my Chinese name properly. And NOYZ is a tag name I came out with when I started with graffiti back when I was with Drewfunk which is currently based in Australia with SOE. From there, we formed a non-functional crew called Sonique Death Monkeys | SDM. We have gone out to tag electrical boxes and hit walls – sometimes we will end up buffing up the whole container on a lorry. There was a big ass Thundercats stencil cut by SOE which was sprayed all over Klang’s electrical boxes. The tag name NOYZ was picked up from a hip-hop magazine advertisement. It was a rapper’s puppet holding a sign saying “Make Sum Muthafucking Noyz!!!” I was drawn to that word from the moment I saw it and took it to the paper with a pen to flex the tag style so that I am able to tag it fast.

What are your earliest memories as an artist? Not much of a memory, but feeling of not knowing what will happen tomorrow if I wasn’t drawing today. That is why I am still drawing everyday with or without any idea. Just have to get that visual side out of me to get rid of the hyperactive side in me.

How did you come to a decision that you want to do this for a living? Thanks to tele-banking, I realised that I am not suited to work like a zombie in a cube, talk to people who are far away, helping them to make bill payments, transferring funds and purchasing stocks over the phone. I will always end up drawing on everyone’s whiteboard with my non-permanent black marker pen. I even remember drawing a banana stuck to a donut. I thought to myself, what if I no longer have any chemistry with my current job and what will I be doing? My passion for art took off from there and I never looked back. Come to think of it, it has been good solid four years of coming out from the system.

Do you remember some of your earliest projects as an artist? Yes I do, it was a friend restaurant called The Giraffe in Klang. He ordered a bunch of wooden carved giraffe tiki and commissioned Mono Evolve, a collective I formed with my other half Tehmojo was assigned to customise it. We took one week to complete the whole painting on the giraffes. Cannot forget about painting for MC Yogi B’s Manthrahood album launch at the KLPac hall. That is one of the biggest painting I have ever done and it was mad fun to be playing jigsaw puzzle with the canvases as I paint on them.

How would you say your style has progressed over the years? My style has evolved from being very stiff to a more softer and organic flow. From not giving two flying fucks to the society back then, and now minding my words because what is let out usually comes double hitting us back on that self built bubble.

Proudest achievement or work as an artist so far? Working on a GAP video with Tehmojo and KANGBLABLA. I was also featured on a few rap song with Balan Kashmir, Double Call, MCBGCW. Yes, I rap too and I do it in Hokkien and Bahasa Baku Peranakan.

How do you stay inspired? Listening, observing, living life like how it should be, take some time to talk to your loved ones and stay in touch with your friends because who are you without the people that surrounds you. I am inspired by a movement called ‘Moments of Truth’ or better known for exploring the depths of the creative process while encouraging cross-breeding of ideas across mediums, cultures, galaxies and spectrums on a daily basis as an individual. Yes you may have figured it out by now that it is a cult. Check out the ever-evolving and crazy fresh movement on projectmot.com.

What are your thoughts on the current art scene in Kuala Lumpur? It is definitely growing everyday. There are so many things to look. It’s getting interesting when everyone is looking for ways to present art differently and desperately too. It is that time when whatever you say doesn’t matter. It is more on what you are doing now.

Who is your favourite local artist and why? Bibichun #cipan because he has got verse on the style and versatility in presenting art to people. He practices a lot of interactive art that involves emotion. Don’t forget to check out his upcoming pieces.

If your work had a soundtrack, what song would it be? A boom bap rap track titled ‘Pendatang Halal’ on the legal immigrants. It is about how we can be comfortable with the issue presented to us by the Babylonians as we go through our chores daily as a “free man” wherever we are.

What else do you enjoy doing besides art? I like babbling in Bahasa Melayu Baba Peranakan. I like to freestyle and rap alone to improve my delivery and most importantly, to entertain my hyper boring self here.

What do you hope to achieve this year? Draw more each day and share more work on Instagram like a kiasu, get a couple song done and hopefully to push it out to the public. I got to live it up to my ah beng-ness. And most importantly to get a plane ticket out somewhere for a month and get lost.

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