“Rachel Chu — I’m taking you shopping!”
“Peik Lin,” Rachel protested, “I don’t want to be running around some mall right now at the last minute.”
“A mall?” Peik Lin gave her a look of disdain. “Who said anything about a mall?” She whipped out her cell phone and speed-dialed a number. “Patric, can you please slot me in? It’s an emergency. We need to do an intervention.”
Patric’s atelier was a former shop house on Ann Siang Hill that had been transformed into an aggressively modern loft, and it was here that Rachel soon found herself standing on a glowing circular platform in nothing but her underwear, a three-way mirror behind her and an Ingo Maurer dome light hovering above, bathing her in warm, flattering light. Sigur Rós played in the background, and Patric (just Patric), wearing a white lab coat over a dramatically high-collared shirt and tie, scrutinized her intently, his arms crossed with one index finger on his pursed lips. “You’re very long-waisted,” he pronounced.
“Is that bad?” Rachel asked, realizing for the first time how contestants must feel during the swimsuit competition of a beauty pageant.
“Not at all! I know women who would kill for your torso. This means we can put you in some of the designers that normally wouldn’t fit on very petite frames.” Patric turned to his assistant, a young man in a gray jumpsuit with meticulously combed hair, and declared, “Chuaaaaan! Pull the plum Balenciaga, the naked peach Chloé, the Giambattista Valli that just came in from Paris, all the Marchesas, the vintage Givenchy, and that Jason Wu with the deconstructed ruffles on the bodice.”
Soon half a dozen or so assistants, all dressed in tight black T-shirts and black denim, buzzed around the space with the urgency of bomb defusers, filling it up with rolling racks crammed with the most exquisite dresses Rachel had ever seen. “I suppose this is how all super-wealthy Singaporeans shop?” she asked.
“Patric’s clients come from everywhere — all the Mainland Chinese, Mongolian, and Indonesian fashionistas who want the latest looks, and many of the privacy-obsessed Brunei princesses. Patric gets access to the dresses hours after they’ve walked the runways,” Peik Lin informed her. Rachel gazed around in wonder as the assistants began hanging the dresses on a titanium rod that was suspended seven feet into the air, encircling the platform like a giant halo. “They’re bringing in way too many dresses,” she remarked.
“This is how Patric works. He needs to see different styles and colors around you first, then he edits. Don’t worry, Patric has the most impeccable taste — he studied fashion at Central Saint Martins, you know. You can be sure that the dresses he picks out won’t be seen on anyone else at the wedding.”
“That’s not my worry, Peik Lin. Look, no price tags anywhere — that’s always a dangerous sign,” Rachel whispered.
“Don’t worry about price tags, Rachel. Your job is to try on the dresses.”
“What do you mean? Peik Lin, I’m not letting you buy me a dress!”
“Shush! Let’s not argue about this,” Peik Lin said as she held up a translucent lace blouse to the light.
“Peik Lin, I mean it. None of your funny business here,” Rachel warned as she thumbed through another rack. A dress that was hand-painted with watery blue-and-silver flowers caught her eye. “Now this is to die for. Why don’t I try this one on?” she asked.
Patric reentered the room and noticed the dress Rachel was holding. “Wait, wait, wait. How did that Dries Van Noten get in here? Chuaaaan!” he yelled for his long-suffering aide-de-camp. “The Dries is reserved for Mandy Ling, who’s on the way right now. Her mother will kau peh kau bu[76] if I let someone else have it.” He turned back to Rachel and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, that Dries is already spoken for. Now, for starters let’s see you in this oyster-pink number with the pretty bustle skirt.”
Rachel soon found herself twirling around in one stunning dress after another and having more fun than she ever thought possible. Peik Lin would simply ooh and ahh over everything she put on, while reading aloud from the latest issue of Singapore Tattle:
Expect private-jet gridlock at Changi Airport and road closures all over the CBD this weekend as Singapore witnesses its own royal wedding. Araminta Lee weds Colin Khoo at First Methodist Church on Saturday at high noon, with a private reception to follow at an undisclosed location. (Mother-of-the-bride Annabel Lee is said to have planned every last detail, blowing northward of forty million on the occasion.) Although the crème de la crème guest list has been more closely guarded than North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, don’t be surprised to see royalty, heads of state, and celebrities such as Tony Leung, Gong Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Yue-Sai Kan, Rain, Fan BingBing, and Zhang Ziyi in attendance. It’s rumored that one of Asia’s biggest pop divas will perform, and bookies are taking bets on who designed Araminta’s bridal gown. Be on the lookout for Asia’s most glittering to come out in full force, like the Shaws, the Tais, the Mittals, the Meggahartos, the Hong Kong AND Singapore Ngs, assorted Ambanis, the David Tangs, the L’Orient Lims, the Taipei Plastics Chus, and many others too fabulous to mention.
Meanwhile, Patric would dash in and out of the dressing room making definitive pronouncements:
“That slit is too high — you’ll give all the choirboys erections wearing that one!”
“Gorgeous! You were genetically engineered to wear Alaïa!”
“NEVER, EVER wear green chiffon unless you want to look like bok choy that got gang-raped.”
“Now that looks stunning. That flared skirt would look even better if you were arriving on horseback.”
Every outfit Patric selected seemed to fit Rachel more beautifully than the last. They found the perfect cocktail dress for the rehearsal dinner and an outfit that could work for the wedding. Just when Rachel finally decided that, what the hell, she would splurge on one great designer ball gown for the first time in her life, Peik Lin summoned for a whole rack of dresses to be wrapped up.
“Are you taking all those for yourself?” Rachel asked in astonishment.
“No, these are the ones that looked best, so I’m getting them for you,” Peik Lin answered as she attempted to hand her American Express black card to one of Patric’s assistants.
“Oh no you’re not! Put that AMEX card down!” Rachel said sternly, grasping Peik Lin’s wrist. “Come on, I only need one formal gown for the wedding ball. I can still wear my black-and-white dress to the wedding ceremony.”
“First of all, Rachel Chu, you cannot wear a black-and-white dress to a wedding — those are mourning colors. Are you sure you’re really Chinese? How could you not know that? Second, when was the last time I saw you? How often do I get to treat one of my best friends in the whole world? You can’t deprive me of this pleasure.”
Rachel laughed at the preposterous charm of her statement. “Peik Lin, I appreciate your generosity, but you just can’t go around spending thousands of dollars on me. Now, I have money saved up for this trip, and I will gladly pay for my own—”
“Fantastic. Go buy some souvenirs when you’re in Phuket.”
76
Hokkien for “bitch me out” (or slang that translates to “cry to the father and cry to the mother”).