By Nadine Kam

Fighting Eel sends more photos of star sightings with Lindsay Lohan and Hayden Panettiere wearing their designs. You, too, can get the look, born in Hawaii.

Fighting Eel’s holiday sale will continue Fridays through Christmas, yes that means today through 5 p.m. at its headquarters at 47 N. Hotel St. Call 524-1472 if you have questions.

Details: All Spring and Summer ‘07 will be 30 to 50 percent off.
Selected Fall ‘07 will also be discounted. And there will be bins with $30, $20 and $10 items!

One of the other sales that caught my eye is the offering of RevitaLash for $119 at Fair & White Skin Care, 661 Keeaumoku St. (across from WalMart). This stuff usually sells for $149 or $150, so seems like a good deal, though the sale ends today. Call 946-7023 to see if there’s any left.

I didn’t want to pass on a recommendation before finding out more about what’s in this clear liquid that makes stubby lashes longer and fuller. You’re supposed to give it a couple of months to work, but I tried a similar product, Jan Marini Skin Research’s Age Intervention Eyelash Conditioner, and it started working in 2 to 3 days. I thought it was some kind of moisturizer/conditioner, but it turns out one of the active ingredients is a glaucoma drug. It wouldn’t be the first time a drug has been repurposed because of beneficial side effects. Viagra started as a heart medication. Minoxidil was used as an oral blood pressure medicine before it was deemed to promote hair growth and reverse male pattern baldness.

Like any makeup product, instructions warn you not to get it in your eyes, but being that it’s applied over the lash line, I never once could get it on there without it seeping into and burning my eyes. Eventually, I stopped because I was just too lazy to keep applying it every night. I also find it depressing to think that you have to use this stuff forever because lashes have such a short life span before falling out.

But if you want good short-term, natural results for holidays, this is an option.

You can read a Q&A about it at http://www.revitalash.com/

By Nadine Kam

Nadine Kam videoWhat a treat for Honolulu to be able to view a fashion show staged by Marist College, whose students and faculty traveled all the way from Poughkeepsie, New York, to be with us the evening of Nov. 23.

The show was short but sweet, with segments wrapped around a video presentation geared toward prospectivie students who might be interested in enrolling in the school’s fashion and merchandising program. The show is an abbreviated version of the school’s Silver Needle Fashion Show staged each spring. Because of the school’s proximity to Manhattan, it is a magnet for designers in search of recruits, and Marc Jacobs is said to have attended the school’s last fashion show.

Makes me wish I could design, but I don’t think I’m cut out for that. I can stare at beautiful fabric for hours and not know what to do with it. When it comes to those “Project Runway” design challenges, it would take me 24 hours to come up with an idea. Their sketch for 30 minutes and go shopping rules wouldn’t work for me. Shopping for fabric would be another problem. I’d need 24 hours for that too. I’d do much better as a stylist, pulling together finished pieces.

By Nadine Kam

CBS
Kynt and Vyxsin make a fashion statement on “Amazing Race.” It’s on tonight.

“Amazing Race” is probably one of the last shows you’d be watching for fashion, yet this season there’s more than khaki and mud covering a couple of contestants.

This is my other favorite show because the combination of road trip and couples fighting is amusing. They remind me so much of every trip I’ve ever been on with my boyfriend. In fact, I always tell him we should audition because we are so mismatched temperamentally and bio-clockwise that there is no way the producers would not take us. I’m great at keeping a schedule whereas he can never wake up without creature comforts of a shower and a minimum 5 cups of coffee. I need nothing of the sort, but I also wouldn’t be able to jump, swim or climb to save my life. Neither of us is a great map reader and it is especially hard to figure out directions with his incessant whining in the background. One of many low moments was missing our train from Canada to Oregon because he HAD TO stop for coffee before getting in the taxi. We ended up going by bus. A long, sad journey that is the sort of thing that would be miserable for us, but ratings gold!

Anyway, the couple making a fashion statement on “Amazing Race” is Kynt and Vyxsin, two Goths from Louisville, Ky. They’re so amusing, mostly because Kynt is such a big wuss that Vyxsin has to do the tough stuff. It’s great that they make time to dress up in the heat of competition. I hope they stay in the game a long time. If it were me, rather than carry those giant backpacks everyone has, I’d just wear the same thing everyday, like on “Survivor.”

The couple that gets on my nerves most is the Asian father/daughter pair. The dad is super annoying because he always thinks he’s right and perfect, without lending a hand to help. All he does is talk at the daughter and tell her how things would be so much better if he were in charge, if he had made the decisions, etc. I just want to smack him.

By Nadine Kam

Wish I could say I’ve been having fun but no, haven’t been posting, haven’t been toasting, haven’t been shopping, haven’t been holidaying, just been trying to recover from the flu after catching the bug from too much handshaking last weekend.

I am going to have to start an anti-handshake movement because it is a filthy biohazard of a practice that has no place in the era of the superbug. The handshake is said to have started in medieval Europe as a way for men to show they had no weapons in their hands. You’d think we would have invented a new greeting by now. I think the Japanese have it right, bowing, with no physical contact with potentially diseased people.

Entrenched as it is, it’s hard to avoid the handshake. I mean, what are you going to say? “I’m sorry, no touching please.”

I think Michael Jackson is onto something when he covers up with gloves and a kerchief over his nose and mouth. He’s no doubt learned something from a lifetime of proximity to masses.

I dug out a pair of polka-dot gloves I bought but never wore. Maybe now I can make use of them; I just have to get a dozen more pairs.

The only possibly good thing that came out of spending Turkey Day ill was avoiding the turkey weight gain that comes with the holiday. I could only nibble a few pieces of turkey, mash p, and slice of yam. Didn’t even get to have a piece of pumpkin pie.

This little setback also pushed me behind the holiday shopping curve. It’s just as well I stay home. Drivers are crazy this time of year.

By Nadine Kam

Don’t forget to tune into “Project Runway” tonight. Last week’s premiere was the highest-rated season premiere ever in Bravo’s history, for both adults 18 to 49 and total viewers.

According to a Multichannel News report, the series drew 2.89 million viewers, up 20 percent from season three’s premiere.

At http://bloggingprojectrunway.blogspot.com/ obsessives will find links to the designers’ Web sites.

And at http://projectrunway.auction.seenon.com, you can measure the designers’ success in terms of how much people are willing to pay for their creations at auction. Last time I checked, last week’s winner Rami’s gown was going for $382 followed by Chris March’s gown at $355, and Jack’s dress is up to $315. Meanwhile Victorya’s dress is a steal at $155. And at the bottom is Elisa’s strange blue “pooing fabric” frock, going for $90.

If you want to bid, you’d better be a size 2.

At the same site, you can also buy the designers’ T-shirts, at $24.95. Here’s Sweet P’s:

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By Nadine Kam

Backing up a bit, here are a couple of videos from tokidoki designer Simone Legno’s appearances here in Honolulu Friday night and Saturday morning. On Friday he talked about the holiday inspiration for his Vacanze collection for LeSportsac, full of illustrations depicting a colorful Winter Wonderland, sort of like he emptied his head of every happy thought he ever had about Christmas, winter and snow. Pure joy to see!

If you want to know how tokidoki got started, check out my interview from earlier this year, at http://starbulletin.com/2007/01/11/features/story02.html

Nadine Kam videoI said before he is a super nice guy and was very accommodating as I video’d his body to show all the tokidoki gear he was wearing. He gets to wear all the prototypes, so it’s like getting ahead a year. He also wore tokidoki jeans available in Europe, but not here, with belt loops bearing his illustrations, among other details. I didn’t put this in the video though.In the second video, he signs for fans who waited in line all day Saturday, Nov. 17, for one-on-one time with the Italian design star, who never rushes the process, giving each person and item they brought in to personalize, his full attention. He loves Hawaii and is hoping there will be a free-standing tokidoki store here one day so he can visit more often. A lot of people are probably hoping for the same.

By Nadine Kam

Nadine Kam photos
There’s more to holiday color than red and green. C.S. Wo and Neiman Marcus’ “Blue Table.”

Without the big change in seasons, we have to rely on other external cues to help us find the holiday spirit when outside, for the most part, it still feels like summer.

With the Red Party now a ghost of Christmases past, the other big party is the C.S. Wo and Neiman Marcus annual “At Home for the Holidays” celebration that took place Saturday night, Nov. 17, showcasing holiday table settings as imagined by N.M.’s visual merchandising team. The table arrangements will continue to be on display during showroom hours at C.S. Wo, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. to Friday, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the 25th, the last day.

Guests on party night were able to enjoy cuisine prepared by students of Windward Community College’s Employment Training Center for Culinary Arts, plus desserts by Kelvin Ro of Diamond Head Market & Grill. Among the desserts were mini red velvet cake cupcakes — OK, CW, I ate not only 1 but 2 cupcakes, but they were tiny … tiny … and moist and delicious … are you happy now?

Models showed a mix of Dolce & Gabbana, Diane Von Furstenberg, Elie Tahari and other designers in gleaming silver.

There was holiday caroling with the children of Diamond Head Theatre’s Shooting Stars, and a mini show of holiday fashion presented by N.M.

Of course everyone needs an excuse to dress up, and dress up they did:

The first couple of fashion in Hawaii, N.M.’s Al Tomonori and Joyce Tomonori.

The always dapper Patrick Gey and Marissa Gey: Since he left Fendi, she has free reign to wear other designers, here, pairing a Gucci dress with a Fendi fur.

Valerie Ragaza-Miao and Joseph Miao were there to “represent” her boutique, Valerie Joseph.

A manikin wore a paper dress created by N.M.’s Doug Jago and fashioned from shopping bags.

By Nadine Kam

Photos by Nadine Kam
The scene at about 8:15 a.m. at the Sandal Tree Cheap Shoe Sale.

Whew! Finally at home at 2 p.m. after a morning of crowds and lines, starting with Sandal Tree’s 8 a.m. “Cheap Shoe Sale.”

It was all very leisurely for me because I can’t fit normal shoes, being a Cinderella size 3, so I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to buy anything. Very sad, but in a way a good thing, because if I spent on shoes what I spend on handbags, it would be disastrous.

It was even more leisurely because I forgot I had reset my alarm clock from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., so I was lying around thinking I had lots of time to get there.

Of course when I got there the rush was on, and yes, there was plenty of stock available, from sizes 5 to 11, with some casual children’s footwear and men’s shoes too. My guess is that there were more than 300 shoppers and plenty of shoes for all.

Comments overheard at the event:”I woke up so early, at 3 o’clock.”
“I wish there were more smaller sizes.”
“I got plenty of Christmas presents.”I saw a small-looking pair of bronze shoes in a box labeled “Mismatched,” but as I was about to reach for it a woman snapped, “That’s mine! I guess I better take off the sign.”

Shopping pros grab first, sort later.

The pros carried big shopping bags to stash their finds before sorting. Others carried armloads of sandals, valued from about $75 to $800 retail, all from a year old to current styles. Each pair went for $10.

No word as to whether there will be another sale like it next year. While it’s great for bargain hunters, the store’s aim, of course, is to bring in such tempting wares that shoppers will be willing to pay full price!

The aftermath: Purses and beach bags went first.

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By Nadine Kam

Nadine Kam photos
The new Sephora Pearlridge store is in Uptown, Level Two, next to Cinnamon Girl in the center of the mall.

Early morning shoppers at the newly open Sephora Pearlridge were treated to breakfast of scones, mini muffins, mini bagels and lox, fresh fruit and more following a blessing at 9 a.m. this morning.

Inside were all the brands those familiar with the Ala Moana store already know and love, with BeneFit, Laura Mercier, Fresh, Bare Escentuals, Laura Gellar and Smashbox up front. The color cosmetics really popped against white displays.

The opening comes at a great time, while people are in holiday shopping mode. So many people I know who live from Pearl City to Wahiawa to Ewa have told me they’ve been waiting for the store to come to them, even if they work in town and can head to Ala Moana after work.

Sephora Pearlridge store director Arleen Tamashiro, center, greeted Sistah Sherry, left, and makeup artist E’Jay to the new store on Nov. 16.

Krater 96’s Sistah Sherry was there for the opening, having switched work hours to be there. “It’s like a candy shop,” she said, while browsing the aisles in search of the perfect face powder.

Makeup artist E’Jay was also back in town after having worked both the New York and Paris Fashion Weeks, including working on “Project Runway” season 3 alum Laura Bennett’s first post-Runway solo show.

Body & Soul’s Tao Miller and Sephora Ala Moana store director Jeannie Higa.

Also checking out the new store — and no doubt his own product placement — was Tao Miller, founder of Body & Soul, one of the many brands carried by Sephora. I haven’t seen him for awhile because he’s been busy with his latest project, a new accessories store, Ash and Diamonds, set to arrive with spring in the new Nordstrom building at Ala Moana Center.

Pretty in pink, Logan Rabago.

No doubt the youngest shopper was 4-year-old Logan Rabago, who was drawn to the pretty pink Sephora Girls display. To her mom Reena’s dismay, Logan was placing little lip gloss kits in her shopping basket. Reena, who didn’t start wearing makeup until her teens, said Logan could keep one item. “She’s such a girly girl. She loves it.”

I have to admit it’s hard for any woman to resist trying the different colors, which is what makes Sephora’s experimental, experiential vibe so great.

Julie Ann Aragaki, producer of Hawaii InStyle TV, shows one of the season’s best gift items, Marc Jacobs’ Daisy solid scent in a ring, $30. Below, cookies made for the occasion from Hokulani Bakeshop.

By Nadine Kam

On “Project Runway,” what do you think? I think eight people could go home right now and we would not miss anything at all. Given the trouble they take to weed out designers, you have to wonder how so many of them got through.

*****

Disney
Rachel Weisz is Snow White in a photo by Annie Leibovitz.

Disney’s so pervasive. A while back I did a story on Disney wedding gowns for that fairy-tale wedding. In today’s paper is my interview with Mona May, who created the costumes for the fluffy family film “Enchanted,” that opens the day before Thanksgiving.

Now, I’m reading at Radaronline.com that Disneyland Paris has signed up Vivienne Westwood, Azzedine Alaia, and Luella Bartley, among others, to create updated dresses for the Disney princesses to celebrate the park’s 15th anniversary. Dresses will be auctioned off later this month to benefit UNICEF.

It’s so unbelievable to think how much power those fairy tales and their happy endings have shaped our world view as mostly positive-thinking Americans. At times I think those repeated happy endings do a disservice to children, setting them up for disappointment in life when they realize things happy endings are not written in the stars. Some of my friends still totally buy into the Prince Charming myth.

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The other fluffy family/girly film debuting the same day is “August Rush.” The premise is just as hokey as that of “Enchanted,” but “August Rush” is nicely told, and it doesn’t hurt that Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is perfectly good eye candy. It’s great that he can speak with his own Irish accent in the film. Thanks to the film, I have a new screen saver: