Behind The Scene / Mundane

Happy Monday! Would like to share with you all my most recent collaboration with DUMA – definitely one of Indonesian labels that you are familiar with. For their newest collection called MUNDANE, I picked my favorite pieces, styled it ala me, and stroll around in Jakarta most oldest area, Kota Tua. Here I'm sharing with you Behind The Scene pics from that Sunday....

outfit from DUMA // bag from KEROKOO

Saturday Space / ARA

Finally on Wednesday I got the chance to visit ARA – a curated boutique in Kemang featuring Indonesia's most promising labels. I can say, if you in need of clothes for casual smart or even wedding events... This is the perfect place to shop! They have their own webstore, but it's better to visit and try on the clothes right? Besides.. their space is absolutely beautiful. I say, it's worth the trip to go all the way to Kemang.

Located on the 5th floor in COLONY (just right accross Kemchick) – the bright space gives you the right amount of natural lights. So many big windows and mirrors (which I totally love). On this special occasion, Alvin T collaborated by featuring some of his furniture pieces to decorate ARA

Career / The Dream Trip / Part 5

Back to career post with me again...! How's your week so far? I bet it's been awesome right? For me, My mood starts picking up.. I've been feeling a bit under with retrograde is shadowing my sun and moon. But I realized, I should always be grateful and not finding tiny details that I don't like. So stay positive, chin up, and seize the day!

Let's start..

At the end of 2015 – another opportunity arose. I was offered to move to another marketing team in MAP. Was I interested? Most definitely. Why? After working a year with my dream brand (ZARA).. I need a new challenge, a new dream to reach. So my decision was to keep an eye on luxury brands. I know after managing fast fashion– I would want to move to Luxury brands. During those months I had couple interviews, and I had no luck yet. So yes, I did fail on my interviews and it's okay!

Beside having a new dream, my other reason that got me interested to move to the other team is the brands that I was going to handle. I mean, LOEWE? That's one good reason why I should migrate to the other team. Jonathan Anderson debuted his first collection for LOEWE – SS15. The brand was changing, they're revamping the store, basically changing the whole Loewe DNA. I thought "THIS can be my stepping stone, a learning curve to my next career step" so then I took it. 

Of course it wasn't the only brand I was handling. I had 7 more (MaxMara, Max&Co, Weekend MaxMara, Swarovski, DKNY, Nautica, and Thomas Pink) but Loewe was the reason why. 

   

Independence Day Dive

Happy Independence Day Indonesia!! On the occasion, yesterday I spent the day diving at Pulau Seribu. Not the first time diving there (already my third time!), however it's the perfect location if you want to do a one day trip dive with no hassle (because it's only 1 hour boat ride away)

Anyways, our main objective for the dive trip was to plant corals. The island for this particular activity is located at Pulau Sepa. It's one of the famous island in Pulau Seribu. They have a decent resort with wide varieties of water sports. After a bumpy and sleepy ride to the island, we geared up and ready to dive!

For a day trip dive, usually you can do a maximum of 3 dives. So yesterday, the plan was dive 1-2 to plant corals, and save the last dive to explore the other dive sites.

Right on the first dive me and Rhein managed to plant the corals, well more like tie the corals with wire to the biorock. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the whole experience. I thought we're going to receive the whole education about corals itself and the 'coral planting' idea in my mind is that we going to cut some corals and place it on the reefs. Apparently it's being done on a bio rock, looks like a steel framework of pyramid or tunnel shape that are being flown and the corals will grow faster. Using the technology, the corals can grow faster by 6-8times. It takes a very long time for corals to grow. So dive carefully!!

Inspiration Tuesday / Links I Love

Happy Tuesday!! We're back to Inspiration Tuesday posts.. Here I will be sharing with you things that have inspired me and in this post, I will share with you all the links where I usually got my fashion / lifestyle news from!

Let's go!!

1. Business of Fashion | @bof

Why? It's one of the two websites that I always rely on. They post legit news (some sites just speculates like a tabloid), they write reviews in a very simple and understandable english. They have lots of sections that you can browse on – even to runways collections! BOF gives you an easy, understandable, relatable access to fashion. I read BOF daily

Career / The Dream and The Flower / Part 4

Back here on #sergeantkerodotcom – and we're on part 4 of my career journey. Thank you again everyone for reading this, please do not hesitate to email or DM me, if you have questions :)

Rewind to few months back before I got accepted at MAP Fashion 1, it was in end of August / early September.. Sherly just introduced me to Ren, and we were just talking of how boring Jakara life is. 

In 2014, my weekends were filled with endless partying and going out. When you go out with your single friends – parties happened. It was not ideal at all, working in retail means your salary is not that high, you get discounts that means you'll ended shopping more (salary goes back to the company), going out every weekend means by now you have no savings. 

Basically me and Sherly wanted something new, a fun activity to fill our weekend, and I found it on instagram – Fleuri's Flower Arrangement Workshop. We decided that we're going to do this and I even asked my mom to join us, because I know how she loves flowers. 

That weekend I finally met Natasha (Nat) from Atelier Fleuri – she is my inspiration. Nat is the most hardworking florist I know, so creative, she really pours her heart out to her designs. You can totally see her passion through her creation. I just love love love love her.

She inspires so much I ended up loving this new thing I just learned and I thought to myself.. This is fun.. Why don't we make a flower shop? Back then, there weren't many players in the online florist business. so I would say, we were so lucky to start the business at the right time. You know what they say.. Timing is a bitch. Thank God, time wasn't a bitch to us then :)

I think it's very crucial when you want to start a new business. First step that you need to do is to do a research first, who are your competitors in the industry, what can you do to make your business different, what is your product, how to market it, who is your market, and so on. In my opinion, when you have the money maybe you can just start any business you want.. But, without the right knowledge and execution, your business can either go big or go home.

Post Card From / +65 Recap

Happy Monday everyone! Lucky me, I just got back from Singapore for my friend's wedding and today I have to call in sick because I'm right now on my bed writing...er with a very bad flu.

Flew to Singapore on Saturday morning – arrived at the hotel around 2:30PM local time. I've been mesmerised with this beautiful hotel when I visited Singapore last year, it's the Park Royal at Pickering Hotel. The hotel has this amazing vertical garden that decorates the building which I think becomes one of Singapore's 'IT' accommodation location. 

Career / The Retail Industry / Part 3

So.. Before I start talking about what's the next step in my career...

I'm going to share you with you a bit of what I know about the retail industry. I'll try my best to break it down, but please keep in mind that I've only worked in retail for.l 5 years, my knowledge might be still limited (Lol didn't realized I've been working for 5 years!).. every company is different, so this is based only from what I know or heard along the years...

Let's begin!

image from: flackstudio.com.au

Some of you are quite concerned whether if you're not a fashion graduate, can you still work in fashion? The answer is: Absolutely. Even when you don't have any background in retail, can you still apply? Definitely – however, please note: please read the 'requirement' section on every job vacancy ads that you see, the HR (human resources dept) definitely will put the "check list". But hey, just try to apply even when you cannot tick everything on the check list, at least you know you tried, right?