Wearing: Zara navy faux fur jacket  |  Levis's jeans  |  Timberland boots

Baby this is what you came for 🇰🇷 (also: Baby came for the shopping)

A post shared by Liyana Aris (@theliyanaaris) on Mar 21, 2018 at 6:25pm PDT

You know, an outfit post like this one makes me think about my purpose for blogging. Unlike other style/fashion bloggers — who share beautiful magazine-worth images, or share the latest goss in style & fashion, or educate others about the fashion industry, or so many other things, really — mine is really simple enough: to share the outfits I wear, which are comprised of affordable things and are modest, and which I hope could serve as an inspiration to whomever they could inspire.

So if that's the case, does it matter if the quality of the photos I've shot isn't up to par, or at least up to my own personal usual standards? (Which isn't all that high, but it's still pretty up there, I think.)

Or is the outfit the only thing that should matter?

Take this outfit, for example. Nope, this isn't my best outfit ever but guysss I absolutely adore this zebra-print cardigan, which was last worn in Tokyo (and can be seen plenty of times in this blog, really). And those floral embroidered boots, oh mah God, I practically fell in love with them at first sight. It would make sense for me to share photos of me wearing them, especially when I wear them together, right?

Except it took me a while to decide if I should because I took these photos at night with terrible artificial lighting and I got frustrated trying to edit them to my liking. I consider binning them all together but in the end I couldn't bring myself to do so, as I had waited so long to travel to a place where I could re-wear my zebra-print cardi (it's hot and humid where I live, remember?) and also those boots — which, may I add, are the same floral boots I wore with my staticky Ines de la Fressange scarf, in an outfit post that I almost didn't want to publish, too.

So should the outfit comes first when it comes to publishing a post on my blog, or should the quality of the photos matter a lot too? I actually have no answer to my own question, so all I know is I'm just going to go with my gut with every single outfit I shoot!

But what do you think? Would you expect your favourite bloggers to put style first or the photos' quality first in their outfit posts? Let me know what's important to you in the comment section down below!

In hindsight, as cute as this floral suit is (well, I think so anyway), it really wasn't the most practical thing to wear during winter in Milan because remember I said how incredibly staticky of a person I am? Which means materials that tend to easily carry static charge reeeally aren't the best things to have in my winter wardrobe?

The 97%-polyester-3%-elastane floral pants were annoyingly clinging on to my legs — or to my HeatTech, more precisely — and bunching up unattractively. Perhaps some of you are thinking how obvious it is to not wear polyester in winter when the air is drier but in my defence(s):

1. Malaysia is hot and humid which means I never had to worry about static charges so you've got to forgive yo tropical girl for forgetting about them when packing for her winter trip!
2. I didn't realise my suit was made of polyester. Even if I had known, I didn't know polyester attracts static charges more than most materials — until I Googled it after my trip!
(Also, I found out polyester is not the coolest of materials, so food for thought on that one...)

So there you go. Probably not the best defences ever but even after all my winter trips, you have to understand that not growing up in the season (after season after season after season...) means I have so much to learn about dressing for it still!

I'm still looking forward to wearing the suit in Malaysia though so I hope you guys wouldn't mind seeing this suit again, static-free (well, hopefully) and without the coat! I'm not going to go with sneakers next time so I'm already excited thinking about the footwear options for it.
PS: Opinions welcomed!


I took these photos near the entrance of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan which makes such a pretty background for my outfit shoot, don't you think? Ideally I would love to do an outfit shoot during the day but since my photographer works a 9-5 job, and it would be near impossible to take photos without having a crowd behind me at this location (which you can see in my two-toned jeans + new winter jacket post), that just wasn't happening.


This static-related incident actually jogged my memory of reading a post by the fab Samantha of Fake Fabulous about static charges on her clothes a long while ago, so I searched her blog for this post; I wish I learned early on (and remembered) about the static effects of polyester from it! However I did learn plenty about sneaky layerings in winter-dressing from Samantha who lives in Scotland, so if you've never visited her blog you should check out Fake Fabulous for colourful outfit inspirations!

Wearing: Ciaopanic duster coat  |  Zara top  |  Levi's jeans  |  Adidas Stan Smith  |  Zara striped bag

I've been wanting to go to Nami Island ever since my first trip to Seoul but with Shah's work schedule, time just never seemed to permit it — until my third time visiting the city, that is (finally!). Nami Island is technically not in Seoul but it is near enough for a day trip; a 50-minute train trip + a short 5-minute ferry ride were needed to get to the beautiful island.

Wearing: Sense of Place varsity coat (worn on Snowy Day)  |  Zara top & pants  |  Topshop boots  |  PlayNoMore bag  |  H&M cat-ears beanie  |  Uniqlo x Ines de la Fressange scarf  |  Shades from Shibuya 109