THE NONNATIVE

I remember the days when I was new here. I lived in Discovery Bay, Central was frightening, I almost had a panic attack in Tsing Yi, and Mango was still just called Mango. Now Mango is the store formerly known as Mango and often called MNG. WTF? IDK.

“Mango Fashion for the young, urban woman” I gotta say, Mango is a godsend in this city for people who are intimidated by or don’t want to visit the street markets. I can’t blame you, I was in denial about my culture shock for a long time… I think I admitted I had culture shock over a bowl of beef brisket soup noodles. I still have a place in my heart for Mango, while I prefer to shop for cute little dresses in the markets, I always find something I like in that store.

In Hong Kong alone Mango has expanded to ten different locations. They are located in major shopping malls (Festival Walk, IFC, SOGO, The Landmark, Times Square, Harbor City, Pacific Place, New Town, City Plaza) as well as one at Hong Kong International Airport. They have over 1,000 stores worldwide and appear to be expanding at a steady rate.

Since 2007 Mango has been using Penelope Cruise as their spokesmodel, and it was recently announce for their Fall/Winter collection they will be featuring a new starlet for the line. Scarlett Johansson is the new face of Mango, and while some of her promotional images have already been released more will be coming out this Fall.

I really think that Scarlett is a huge improvement from Penelope Cruise… But I really have to say I don’t understand the reason behind choosing either one of these two women to be the face of Mango. Both of them are beautiful women, there’s really no question about that – but I never thought of either one as particularly fashionable. I understand when H&M has a guest designer, or Kate Moss did a line for TopShop. But I have never thought to myself that Scarlett Johansson or Penelope Cruise was someone with exceptional style. When they get dolled up for the red carpet I think they’re enlisting the help of a stylist, and day to day wear has never been particularly yay or nay. Just boring.

So whatever, crucify me. It’s like fashion magazines, I don’t want to hear about Jennifer Aniston whining about her love life on the cover of Vogue. I read Perez Hilton, I don’t want to see gossip on the cover of my fashion magazine. Occasionally there is a celebrity who is incredibly stylish (I’m thinking Chloe Sevigny) but for the most part they’re celebrities, they pay someone to dress them and make them look nice. I want to either see a model on my cover or a stylist, designer, fashionable good-looking person. There, that’s it. No more. I don’t care if you’re Jon & Kate Plus 8, you should not be on any sort of a magazine except a tabloid magazine.

Aside from that, what I can find online from Mango’s F/W 09 looks are pretty good. Mango definitely uses a lot of other designers for inspiration, I see a Louis Vuitton “paper chain collar” (http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu155/theglamourai/louisvuitton_S09accessoriesweb.jpg), Balmain’s long sleeved mini dress (http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/1277/lsm.tif) – but whatever. Mango is not trying to sail uncharted waters, they make a nice range of different styles, casual to high fashion for an affordable price.