Samsung style icon Cecile Zamora-Van Straten makes and breaks trends

MANILA, Philippines - In the world of style tastemakers, there are those who champion trends and then there are those who challenge the status quo. Cecile Zamora-Van Straten, more popularly known as fashion blogger Chuvaness (www.chuvaness.com), is among the latter.

An innovator whose personal approach to fashion is distinctive, Cecile is a Parsons-trained fashion veteran whose extensive career as a designer, entrepreneur and writer introduced Filipinos to a more individual way of dressing. Of her many retail ventures, which includes D-Fect, Store for all Seasons and Grocery, Cecile believes these have “definitely opened them [Filipinos] up to something out of the ordinary.”

Honored at the Samsung Ultra Touch Style Icon People’s Choice Awards held at Embassy Superclub, Cecile set herself apart in an outfit by top avant-garde labels, including a Yohji Yamamoto jacket, Comme des Garçons top, cropped Christopher Nemeth jeans, and a 10 Corso Como top hat. Even the Chanel bag she chose featured a quirky, shopping bag-inspired design.

“Her style is very individual and not tied down with trends,” says Vicky Montenegro, managing editor of Preview magazine. For its nominees to the Style Icon Awards, Preview chose Cecile, together with Daphne Oseña-Paez and Ingrid Chua-Go. The winner was determined through online voting at the Samsung Ultra Touch website. “The unifying factor for this group is that they are all fashion lovers in addition to being journalists and entrepreneurs,” Montenegro says.

As for Cecile, Montenegro credits her status as a respected fashion blogger as one of her key strengths. “We can’t deny that fashion bloggers have a strong influence,” she says, referring to the Fashion 2.0 phenomenon, an explosion of style-savvy sites that include the widely followed Chuvaness blog. Cecile also is the creative director of The Philippine STAR’s “On The Radar” Sunday section and maintains another blog, Manila Style (mnlstyl.blogspot.com).

“I believe it’s the way I write — like a friend talking to you. I also like to take good pictures — pictures say a lot,” Cecile says of her work, which explores all facets of pop culture: current issues, food, film, TV and celebrities.

In her offline life, Cecile manages the restaurant Pepper Lunch with her husband, chef Jeroen Van Straten, and is mom to their two kids. While she still manages to dress distinctively, she exercises a more relaxed fashion aesthetic. “No more bold prints,” she says, adding that nowadays, she veers more towards muted, neutral pieces punctuated with standout accessories, which include “a nice bag, a nice jacket and a hat.” The one thing that she can’t throw away, though, is an original Margiela item she got in the 1990s.

Like Cecile, the new Samsung Ultra Touch S8300 sets the trend in mobile. It boasts innovative features packaged in a sleek duralumin frame: a 2.8” full touch screen, eight-megapixel camera, geo-tagging via GPS, HSDPA up to 7.2Mbps and an upgraded Touchwiz UI. The phone also allows users to get real-time updates from their favorite websites through an online widget feature.

Visit www.samsungultratouch.com.ph and find out more about this ultra-stylish mobile phone.