Just when you thought fashion couldn’t get much louder — it just did. Michelle Bong explains the hot trend of coloured rocks. Diamonds used to be a girl’s best friend, but now it seems she’s also open to more than one BFF. Asian women are adding other sparkling alternatives to their jewellery pool, and industry players have unanimously hailed these to be coloured gemstones, large rings and warm-hued metals such as rose gold, with jewellery or timepieces featuring intriguing material pairings also making their presence felt. Today’s...

Does it feel like your career path is turning into a dead-end road? Here’s how to keep growing in your chosen vocation. When we embark on our life’s work, we have the best intentions to go the distance and climb to the top of the corporate ladder. But many of us find that five, 10, 20 years down the road we are suddenly looking at our career path and wondering how we ended up on the slip road! Not being complacent about your career — taking time to take stock — will help turn a humdrum work life into an exciting journey. Foo See...

After talking about what was to become Nanz Inc.Com for the past three years with my business partner, Theresa, 18 September finally came and we let it go live. In those three years, we had discussed the endless possibilities of our business: print magazines, self-help booklets… till one year ago, we decided to do this online. Our vision was to create a website to help women live better lives in many ways. We knew we had a great message, and we wanted every woman across Asia to gain access to our site, to share, to learn with us, at a cost as...

Have you been dreaming about starting your business for the last five years? Stop dreaming and get started. Women often find it hard to get started on their business but they can dream about it for years. Penny Chan is one example of this strange phenomenon. “I had an idea when I was in university to start a chain of shops selling different Asian-flavoured pastries,” she said. “I would dream of the flavours, the different ways to bake them. I even tried out some experiments in my kitchen, such as a roasted pork loaf, which received great...

Women are discovering the joys of technology, thanks to the hugely popular social media application, Facebook. Melanie Lee reports. According to statistics from Inside Facebook, female Facebook users greatly outnumber their male counterparts, and for good reasons too. With its easy-to-use platform that allows people to look for friends, post status updates, chat, comment, leave notes, throw a sheep, join networks, send gifts, it’s no wonder that millions of women worldwide log onto this innovative social media tool everyday to connect with their...

Is it impossible to take on two jobs and be good at both? Lawyer Wena Poon is also a respected writer. She tells Melanie Lee how to have your cake and eat it. US-based Singaporean author Wena Poon, 35, has a lot on her plate. Besides being a partner in VLP, a legal firm in California where she does corporate and securities law, she is presently working on multiple book projects — whether it is writing her new novella or promoting her published works. She is the author of three books Lions In Winter (2007), The Proper Care Of Foxes (2009), and...

For many women, “having it all” usually includes family, children and a satisfying job or business, even health makes it onto the list. But too often, Singapore women don’t prioritise a healthy sex life. Michelle Bong says, they should. Married women, here’s how to get your bounce back. Turn off the TV and focus on turning up the heat under the covers, if you know what’s good for you. We lead hectic lives, wearing hats that say “wife”, “partner”, “mother”, “daughter”, “best friend”, “colleague”...

Skyping my kids in a cafe in London (oh, and checking work of course). Nanz Inc.Com, being a web business, presents many perks. 1. We get to utilise our home office. Both Nanz and I have an office space in our own homes. Mine’s right by my bedside – a 0.8m-wide lockable desk. Hers is a large table with big desktop computer on it. Much of our work and correspondence gets done in about 6×6 feet of space, which to me, is terribly effective. 2. We get to be round our kids. I have a good block of 4 hours every weekday morning to get...

The movie The September Issue, a documentary about Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, brings Theresa Tan down memory lane. The first time I saw Anna Wintour in the flesh, it was like spotting a unicorn. She was such a legend in the fashion industry — “the Pope” of fashion magazines, as she is referred to in the film The September Issue — that it seemed hardly real that she was standing two arms’ length away from me, in a cashmere turtleneck, a pencil skirt, and that season’s most desirable fur coat. We were standing outside a glass...

(L-R) Mayor Teo Ser Luck, Lawrence Kim (MD, Ebenezer NDT Service Pte Ltd), Nanz, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean and Ryan Chionh (MD, Far East Flora.Com) Earlier this year Theresa and I found ourselves in the same situation. Here we are, two mothers, three kids each, with our own work, plus this new business we were planning. It seemed like nothing else could fit on our plates. Member of Parliament, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua invited me to serve as one of the new Councillors for Northeast CDC. Over the years I’ve been asked to be chairperson of this...