Graduation - Bangkok Style

First and foremost, I cannot deny that I am bummed out not to be in Paris at this exact moment in time and especially not to have been there this week - I love couture week . . . it's beautiful, decadent yet small and just so very nice. . .so yes, missed Dior in the  intimate showroom and Givenchy and all those PARTIES . . .but the one thing I did not miss which is important to me as it is to her was N'Meow (Tari Nimman)'s graduation at Chulalongkorn University yesterday.  I missed Ed's last year as was in Paris for work, but to miss a graduation, a Thai style one anyway, is to miss someone's rite of passage to the real world, (made it up to Eddie I think).  

Me, Meow and Ed

A Thai graduation is as far flung from reality as one can imagine - decadent and archaic, all the whilst fantastical, jubilant and just loads of fun . .  . ignoring of course the traffic jam which it causes and every other inconvenience around town  . . it is a huge and happy affair, there are live projections throughout the campus as it is a large and also a royal affair.  Members of our royal family pass the diplomas to the students, thus it is regal and sacred in a way.

This is the first graduation at Chula I have been to since my Mum's MBA, but I kid you not, the spectacle of the Fine Arts department shadows that of an MBA, especially in a year where there is a princess graduating.  Bouquets, Thai dances, ballerinas . . .oh and of course each student has his/her own photographer and needs a helper for all those bouquets!  

Shrek was there too!

YES . .   a big big party in robes and uniforms without the champagne! 

Meow

I am so proud of N'Meow, who looked so pretty, she does the whole skater girl fake dirty thing but beneath it she is like a porcelain doll, very pretty, very gentle but of course cooler than thou and with a talent which is rare.  Extremely so, as she is able to manipulate many mediums although graphics and illustration would be her birth rite. . . fit for the New Yorker I would say those little illustrations are . . .and of course the long legged ingenue Ed in all the  pics, my ex-assistant and another great talent but more on Eddie later . . .

CONGRATS N'Meow - love you lots.