Last week, I wrote a piece about the age thing in my blog, showed the original post to my parents, and they suggested that I revise it. Apparently, I was too critical of the whole age thing and that it won't look good on me because I'm of Chinese descent!

While I love some of the bigger brand stores, I also try to buy from up-and-coming designers, especially if they are petite-focused! Go niche market!

@nobutseriouslyclare: As if magazines WILL pick up the challenge. I challenged them last year to profile niche market designers, but the closest any mag got was Glamour's special on petites in January 2008.

@Moosicle: The old Household Science building at the University of Toronto was sold and is now a Club Monaco.

@thatonegirlsays: Yeah, but even if you blend in, the locals know you're not local, even if you don't speak. As I said in an earlier post, people in Hong Kong never think I'm from there...they don't think my mom's from there either (and she lived in Hong Kong until she was 22)!

I should also note that since China is an emerging country with a growing middle class, consumerism is big, big, big. According to a magazine article I once read, women there use over some 20 beauty products a day (this includes cleansers moisturizers and hair products, I think). Not surprised that they're so…

@interpretedworld: That and the fact that lots of Asian women have smaller frames, which lowers the height:weight ratio.

I should write a book called Hollow Bamboo: Traveling in Asia for Western Born Asians - seriously, you may think you look like everyone else in the ancestral homeland, but they KNOW you're not from there. Even my immigrant mom gets "I think you're foreign" looks.

I took "Family Studies" the one year I was in a public middle school. My high school abolished what they called "household arts" some time in the late 70s or early 80s, I think, so I spent my remaining middle school years not taking anything home ec related. To my understanding, they now have a cooking club because…

Do these girls go to school at all before they "retire"? If not, how are they expected to catch up, if everyone else their age is in high school, and they barely read at all?

Hubby Brad? Ummm...they aren't married. Get your facts straight, Rosanne!

@indprod: So are you saying that the women who model for niche market brands aren't "models," because they don't look like coat hangers?

@braak: there's something called e-mail. Of course, it doesn't stop them from deleting it. I once sent an e-mail to two editors at a well-known women's mag regarding an interview I did with a niche-market designer. Thanks to the read-receipt option, I know that at least one of these women deleted the e-mail without…

@braak: lots of letter writing asking them to promote designers who DON'T use size zero models?

Dear Mainstream Fashion Industry:

@marie123: You know, I've spoken to ("mainstream") designers and magazine editors about "non-niche" sizes, only to get dirty looks from them. One guy stopped talking to me at a party because I brought that up!

You know, I don't understand the issue with "Miss" either. There is a male equivalent, Master, which applies to boys under a certain age (I have heard anywhere between 12 and 16). Personally, I prefer Miss for formal social correspondence (i.e. wedding invitations, info from high school and university, etc) and Ms.…

I don't understand the issue with "lady/ladies" if we have a male equivalent - gentlemen.

@PetiteGal: I should add that most Old Girls are quite content with the term. It makes us stand out - I can only think of a handful of other schools (at least in Canada) who use this term (and I'm pretty sure that most of them were founded prior to 1900). They asked us recently which we prefered, alumna/alumnae or…

Alumnae at my high school are called Old Girls...whether she's a new grad at age 18 or 100+. It's apparently modelled after some British schools who also use Old Girl (or Old Boy if it's a guys' school).