Emperor for a Day

Let’s play dress up! Sometimes, I enjoy taking a break from being me and assume a different identity. Don’t worry, I’m not suffering from bipolar or multiple personality disorder. I just think it’s really cool to get out of our own skin occasionally and imagine what’s it like to be someone else. It may be ironic, but I do feel a sense of freedom hiding behind a character.

So when I got the chance to let Halloween happen for me in July, I jumped at it even though time and energy are luxuries for me at the moment. As part of the grand plans to make this year’s Singapore Blog Awards more fun, the organiser, Omy.sg is pegging the theme to history gets social. The annual Singapore Blog Awards is THE event of the year for bloggers and a great platform to spur visibility and development of the blogging aspect of social media in Singapore. I have the honour of making it as one of the 10 finalists under the Best Travel Blog category with my site, explorelah.blogspot.com.

Okay, enough of self promotion. Let’s get on with the transformation that some of us bloggers who had the opportunity to ‘make history’!

Met fellow Kit Kat finalist, Nabil, during the shoot and we decided to do a "What happens if history got hold of Kit Kat?" pose. Yeah, the ancient rulers would get their mouths filled with this delicious chocolate wafer snack!

For the shoot, 5 bloggers were dressed up as historic figures to show what happens if they can Blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The characters are Sang Nila Utama (Nabil), Sir Stamford Raffles (Pete), Adolf Hitler (Eric), Cleopatra (Christine), and me as Emperor Kangxi. Christine had her photos taken earlier so it’s just the kings and dictators during this session. The photos will be used in souvenir collaterals and for some fun elements during the ceremony.

Our transformation began with a fitting at Masquerade Costume and Mascot shop at 294A Lavender Street. The shop has hundreds of costumes for rental to create any character you want to be. The costumes can be rented for 3 days with prices starting from about S$50.00.

According to Smith from Waddup, the event company hemming the blog awards, Masquerade is his preferred costuming shop because of the extensive range of outfits and great service level. The shop has 2 floors of racks upon racks of costumes and there are even mascot disguises! It’s colossal. 

After our fitting, we popped over to Studiospace at Geylang for the shoot. I had my make-up done first because it’s either they put more time into trying to make me look good, or bring in the plastic surgeon. 

The fitting, make-up cum shoot lasted from 12 – 6 pm on a Sunday afternoon and the makeover was pretty amazing! We weren’t smiling much because we’re supposed to be stern and commanding. For the life of me, I don’t know how to appear or look wise! Anyway, these are all test shots that I sneaked while we were getting into character for some serious voguing.

Some pretty crazy stuff went on during the photo session and I’ll put up more pics if I can get hold of those image files. Meanwhile, here are the characters…

I was told that a skit featuring the characters will be enacted during the blog awards ceremony. So if you’re free on 23 Jul 2011 (Saturday), come on down to the retro sumptuous Shanghai Dolly at Clarke Quay to join all the bloggers for lots of fun!

I know Chinese New Year is way past and seventh month is not here yet, but here’s Kangxi wishing you great health and bountiful blessings infinitely, perpetually! To add spice to life, why not take a break from being you and adopt a different persona for a change? 🙂