STP's Far East Feature: What is 'beautiful'?

Japanese model Rinka (37) became the first Asian celebrity to participate for Marc by Marc Jacobs Nude Photo Charity

Yesterday I accompanied someone to a tanning studio. I told a lady behind the counter: “I have never been to a tanning studio before. ” Like many other Far East girls, I would like to be absolutely pale. During the three years I studied in Barcelona, I only went to beach to sunbath once, and I hide under an umbrella!

The models I showed today are all mixed races, and well known in Far East countries. Mix race models are very popular right now, they combine the best features from both East and West. A Japanese magazine called ViVi uses mostly mix races models as their regulars, and their circulation per month is 645,000 copies.

Since whenever, probably after western trends kicked in, girls in Far East want to look like dolls. It means having pale skin, big eyes with long lashes and a tall sculptural nose is the 'standard' of beauty. And no matter how hard some people fight, debate, there is a "mainstream" of beauty is Asia just like everywhere else in the world.

Tsuchiya AnnaFujii LenaHasegawa JunLeah Dizon

Introducing: Bethanie Lunn

Photo: www.stevestensonphotography.com

She is a writer, presenter, stylist and with her first book selling out just three days after launch, Bethanie Lunn's star is certainly on the rise. We sat down with Bethanie to discuss her career, plans and vision for the future.

We have got to know Bethanie during the past year mainly due to our mutual interest in the UK fashion scene and this is certainly an area she has a great deal of experience in. (Bethanie is the resident style and beauty expert for Meadowhall, Sheffield) We have often spoke about the power of blogging and this is something that has helped Bethanie raise her profile online, so much so that she has recently landed a new role as an online presenter for the X-Factor's fashion partner: very.co.uk

Bethanie's Book

Recently Bethanie has been on a whirlwind UK book tour promoting the release of 'A Modern Girl's Guide to Fabulousness' which has already attracted the praise of global fashion icon Elle Macpherson and many others. The book is billed as a 'lifestyle bible of services, places, tips and tricks for modern life'. Bethanie hopes the book is just the first step in taking her ideas and tips global:

"I hope to do as Elle Macpherson says in her testimonial of my book and ‘take my Fabulousness global’, I like the idea of bringing out a Modern Girl’s Guide To Fabulousness in different countries, sharing the best kept secrets and hidden gems in the world to help women everywhere get the best products and services, wherever they are"

The Future

Looking towards the future, Bethanie is determined to make her own luck and create her own opportunities:

"I’m not here to put my nose to the grind stone nor am I here to accept situations – I’m here to create my own situations, make a difference, make an impact, help others if needed and fulfil every day with purpose, intent and fulfilled dreams…and thoroughly enjoy myself while I’m at it!  This is what I remind myself of every day"

We will be collaborating with Bethanie in the near future on new projects and we are sure that together we can develop some really interesting ideas. Some of these ideas will be 'Leeds-centric' with a focus on showcasing some of the great talent and potential we have in the city. Bethanie believes the talent is here:

"The vintage fashion scene in Leeds is particularly strong and, sadly unlike other cities, there are still lots of independent stores and plenty of entrepreneurial spirit.  Initiatives such as Leeds Shopping Week and Leeds in Vancouver, for instance are excellent but I feel what is lacking is the community support to back these independents and move forward to initiatives to really put Leeds on the fashion map, make an impact and reap the rewards the city truly deserves.  Hopefully this is where we’ll come in!"

Having a professional as focused and ambitious as Bethanie providing input onto upcoming projects will definitely be a big advantage to everyone involved. It seems, like many people we talk about on this blog, she is only at the start of her journey and we are really excited to see what will happen with Bethanie in the future.

Check out our previous Introducing posts here: 

Introducing: James Steward

Introducing: Marc Leaf

Introducing: Muireann Carey-Campbell

UK Observing Diary Update

Last month we gave a brief introduction to the UK Observing Diary project featuring our very own Shang Ting Peng. Since our last post a lot has happened with the page including the number of fans swelling to 56,000+ and various television and newspaper appearances for Shang Ting and her UOD partner Clair Liu.

After appearing in a post on The Guardian Leeds site, the media coverage around the project has been quite unbelievable. The Asian media picked up on the story and it spread like wildfire. The story made the front page of Yahoo, was ranked no.1 in the fashion category and no.3 in the arts category. The story appeared in some of the most influencial newspapers in Taiwan including Liberty Times, NOWnews, Apple Daily, Chinese Television System and China Times.

When the Guardian post appeared the page had around 6,500 members and now as of writing this post the number stands at 56,816! The number of views on their posts has gone into the millions every month. It is a quite remarkable story that 2 friends who started a project as a hobby are now well on their way to becoming major published authors back in Asia, as a number of book deals are now in the offing.

Shang Ting has certainly been taken back at the response in her native Taiwan "It was a shock when we found out how many different news outlets had reported this story. Afterwards our UK Observing Diary email address has been full of invites to different things and proposals for new projects. It all happened so fast. We have now even been offered a book deal, and it is just so exciting."

Her partner on the page, Clair recently appeared on a TV show billed as an 'online buzz creator' something that certainly takes some getting used to " This was the first time for me to participate in a TV programe shot in the studio. I was so excited when the TV producer invited us to talk about our recent popularity on the internet. There are many interesting things on the show that I did not expect. I had so much fun there."

Clair continues, "I felt I was just like a little fan when I heard the other two famous bloggers who are going to join the panel. I used to read quite a lot of their articles. I am so glad to have had this opportunity to sit next to them and join their conversation. This was the day I found I was so proud of UK Observing Diary. Our page could be a real media connecting people who are interested in Leeds and London."

The girls are commited to their original vision for the page "We post everyday, and we try to answer fan's questions as much as we can. The relationship with them is very important to us. We don't want to change our style, which is fun and a style that people can easily relate to. We like to talk to fans as they are our friends, and perhaps one day they will become our friends for real!" says Shang Ting.

One really interesting dynamic of this project is the contrast it provides between the North and South of England, namely Leeds and London. While the capital may be high on tourist's and trend hunter's radars usually, Leeds is something of an unknown quantity in Asia. The UK Observing Diary provides an insight into the northern city and this has gone down well with a lot of the fans "Li Man Man said: This is so great~ Because most of the people know more about London, part of them don't have a clear idea about Leeds. So this observing diary is perfect~"

The content of the page is usually photos with a brief description. This could be an off-the-cuff photo of an interesting visual or it could be a photoshoot carried out at a particular event. The girls have also began to add deeper content in the form of interviews and articles which are presented more like a 'blog posts' in the page's 'notes' section.

The idea is to develop the content further with plans for more video content presented by Shang Ting and Clair currently on the agenda. It seems this is just the tip of the iceberg for this project and we should hear of more exciting developments (and 1000s more fans) over the coming months.

1. Jackie Chan 2. Jet Lee... 3. UK Observing DiaryApple Daily

Secuestrados (2010) en el Festival de Cine de Leeds

 

Dirección: Miguel Ángel Vivas 
Interpretación: Fernando Cayo, Manuela Vellés, Ana Wagener, Dritan Biba
Género : Crimen, suspense, horror
País: España
Estrellas: 3/5
Lugar: The Vue (en el centro comercial The Light, Leeds)

Tenía muchas ganas de ir a ver Secuestrados en el Festival de Cine de Leeds 2010 porque después de ver un incontable número de películas españolas durante mis años estudiando en la Universidad ya me interesa mucho el cine español.

Esperaba que la película sería notable porque no hay mucho cine español en Leeds, pero no os puedo mentir entonces sigo con la crítica de Secuestrados.

Una familia, unos ladrones profesionales y una noche inolvidable…

Mientras leía la sinopsis de Secuestrados, creía que nosotros, como espectadores, tendríamos que aguantar unas escenas intensas y difíciles antes de llegar a final, en que momento la familia tendría su vuelta a defenderse de manera brutal. Eso no es un resumen exacto de la película. Es totalmente diferente. No voy a decir más que eso pero la trama, en realidad, no es tan gratificante.

La actuación en la película es mediocre. Es evidente que la película se grabó en solamente doce tomas. Mi personaje favorita de la película es Isa, la hija de la familia, protagonizada por Manuela Vellés. Me gusta la actuación de Manuela tan como su interpretación del personaje de Isa. En cuanto a los ladrones, ellos no me dieron miedo. Solo uno de ellos me asustó a veces. No son ladrones profesionales ni secuestradores a mi juicio.

La película no es mal, es interesante y hay escenas originales; un ladrón se sienta en el sofá entre la hija y la madre de la familia. El come y ve la tele como se fuera un día normal, mientras que las dos mujeres están llorando. Es genial. También hay momentos llenos de suspenso y la película acaba con un giro inesperado que para algunos será un buen final pero yo prefiero que mis películas de horror tengan una formula tradicional para que salga del cine satisfecha.

Introducing: Muireann Carey-Campbell

Today marks the third anniversary of one of our favourite blogs: Bangsandabun.com In the latest of our 'Introducing' features, we talk to the person behind it all: Muireann Carey-Campbell to talk about the early days of her blog, her plans for the future and an update on the post that sent PRs and marketers running for cover last month!

Three years ago today Muireann posted her first blog post from her bedroom in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and set off on a journey that would see her talk love, life, race, music, fitness regimes, UGGs, fashion faux pas and even record her very own rap videos. I first got to know Muireann over a shared love of the Swedish hip-hop artist: Adam Tensta (more to come on this guy soon) and we immediately struck up what was initially a tweetship and then an offline friendship and I am always impressed by her passion, drive and global-outlook on things. This can be traced back to her travelling around the globe, working in different roles and generally becoming a citizen of the world:

"I moved to New York when I was 22, after I finished my degree. I lived there for a year and a half. Then I lived in Tokyo for a year and taught English and then moved back to my native Canada for three years (living in Montreal, Toronto and Halifax). I just moved back to England last year. It's just made me much more of a global citizen I think. I tend to look at things differently and don't particularly feel tied to any one place. If I want to go somewhere, I just go. That kind of exploration really opens your eyes to some amazing experiences. I don't miss those Canadian winters though!"

You can see from Muireann's blog and insane Twitter feed that her audience and friends are spread across the globe. After three years of hard work it seems that Muireann is becoming a major player. She was nominated for a Cosmopolitan blog award earlier this year and she is really happy with how everything is progressing:

I wanted to get back into writing for fashion/lifestyle magazines but my portfolio was full of music stuff. I came across blogs while searching the net and thought 'I could do that!' Initially I started it thinking it would be like an online portfolio for me and of course, Vogue would be beating my door down for me to write for them! It didn't quite pan out like that, but it has become a blog I'm very proud of and I'm really pleased with the progress.

Recently Muireann, after much deliberation, took the decision to post up a complaint letter she had sent to a PR agency over a project she had been asked to be part of. The post can be read here. It created quite a stir with many marketing and PR agencies using it as an example of the changing dynamics between brands and bloggers. Muireann was taken back at the response:

"I was approached earlier in the year by a PR company called Mission to do a half marathon and blog about it on behalf of their client Nokia. I was promised a bunch of stuff in return for that. As the months passed and I trained (going from someone who wouldn't even run for a bus to competing in my first half marathon in under four months), none of the things promised to me were delivered. It was just a catalogue of errors really. I wrote a letter of complaint to Mission a few days before I ran the race. They apologised, but I just didn't feel as though it was enough. Just saying 'sorry' after I dedicated four months of my life to something they asked me to do didn't seem right. So, two days after the half marathon, I published my complaint letter on my blog. I thought I'd get a few extra hits that day, but it went absolutely nuts! It spread around the internet like wildfire. I got almost 16,000 hits that day, was interviewed by PR Week and approached by many other PRs. Mission responded extremely well and in fact, next week we're about to have our second meeting about how PRs and bloggers can work better together. So, a lot of positives came out of it"

For her 'day job' Muireann works as features editor for North Leeds Life Magazine, a family run business focused more on her local community. The magazine certainly has a different reader and overall vibe to her bangsandabun blog but it is something Muireann enjoys working on:

"We're local community magazines distributed across North Leeds from Headingley out to Ilkley. Lots of our readers tell us we're a real life blood of the community, carrying area specific information and giving a voice to individuals and groups who might struggle to get their word out otherwise. On a personal level, it definitely differs from my blog work as I have to watch my language a lot more in magazine writing! But also the content is much more localised than I do on my blog. I probably wouldn't know half the things that were going on in my area if I didn't work for the mags, so it's great"

Another project on the agenda is 'Bangs on the run' where a Muireann and some of her Twitter buddies will take on the Paris half marathon. From our point of view at Hebe, we are looking forward to working on upcoming projects with Muireann and one of them is centred around our home city of Leeds, England. Like lots of the people involved in the new project and the city in general, there is a feeling of untapped potential in Leeds and it is something rising stars like Muireann can see and want to do something about

"Before moving back here last year, I hadn't lived here for about 10 years and boy, has it changed! I'll be honest and say I'm a little disappointed that the city centre kind of looks like 'anytown UK' now with the influx of national chain stores, but there's still enough individuality about the city. There's a lot of talent here and I think the potential lies in fusing our city with other international cities, drawing inspiration from there and applying to our city. Leeds in Barcelona was a great example of that. More of that please!"

We will certainly try our best to create more projects like Leeds in Barcelona only this time by collaborating with people like Muireann we can make each project even bigger and better! 

Check out the first two of our 'Introducing' series here: James Steward and Marc Leaf.