Kwok Kar Peng
And folks, we ain’t talking about the $59.95 styles here, the fashion items featured in Jacelyn’s sophomore project Follow Your Dreams are exclusive, exorbitant and extravagant. Isn’t she concerned all that vivid colours, resplendent materials and pricey labels will perpetuate brand-consciousness in our impressionable young audience? She countered, “Basically I think the gist of the show talks not only about the high fashion brands and picks from the next season’s collection. Yes, we do introduce these but there’s one segment in the programme where we interview young entrepreneurs and ask them to share their success formula, their moral values and what trait they have that helped them to achieve what they have today. I think besides being a good inspiration for young people, it also informs them on how to follow their dreams and how to let their heart follow their dreams. “People nowadays do not dare to follow their dreams. If you want more entrepreneurs and creative people, it’s very important that they be daring enough to do that. I think that is the core value of the programme.” Jacelyn can talk - guts aren’t something you can accuse her of not having, not when she quit her tertiary education in National University of Singapore after winning Star Search 1995, refused financial help from family and was declared a bankrupt in 2000 after owing close to $300,000 from stock investments losses (she was discharged in 2004) and then re-inventing herself as MediaCorp’s self-made fashion, beauty and health advisor with a series of books (Feel Good, Look Good; Make-Up for Asian Women; and a third book in the making) and programmes (A New You; Follow Your Dreams).
After two books and one variety programme on health and beauty, MediaCorp’s self-made, from-broke-to-breaking-sales health/beauty guru Jacelyn Tay is gonna model the next season’s threads in her upcoming variety show even before the high fashion collections have hit the stores.
| Her inspiration went all the way back to her second year in Cedar Girls’ School during a morning assembly talk by her principal. “Everyone else was nodding off but I was very attentive because my principal was talking about dreams. ‘A dreamer of today is a winner of tomorrow,’ she said. I think it’s very important that we look not just at how much returns we can get from a particular occupation, but following what you think you can do best at or have a passion in,” Jacelyn explained. “When I was in university and I joined Star Search, my Dean asked me, ‘Do you want your career or do you want your dream?’ I replied, ‘Why can’t my dream be my career? I’m going to follow my dream.’ My heart has always told me to try something new and be challenged, whether in my career, business or writing, and create something that’s new and not in the market,” she added. Work is underway for her third book on health and nutrition, but the 31-year-old let on that it won’t be released within these two years because of the sheer amount of research required. “Dietetics is a very profound subject; every body is different so I’m not going to write just one recipe, I have to write a series, taking into consideration blood types, metabolic type, stress levels and many more,” she said. Dietetics is not just a hobby and money-spinner for Jacelyn, it’s also her degree course in a four-year correspondence course with an American school, which explains her strong stance on health and why she often dots our interviews with useful titbits of health info, like: (health addicts, take note now) - “If you want to absorb calcium, you need Vitamin D; if you need certain nutrients to be absorbed, you need Vitamin C…” - “No matter what supplements you are taking, if you don’t know what combinations of supplements would help in its absorption, the nutrients would either be passed out of the body, or all go to your hair and/or nails. Ultimately, it becomes useless.” |  |
 | Talk about diet pills and she raised her ire: “I’m really angry. Never mind if some slimming pills offer no results, but some are even harmful to the body! A healthy person can become ill because of that; I think it’s something our slimming industry has to reflect on.” Equally as frank but none so agitated was she when we grilled her on who among her showbiz colleagues, are the best dressed and who might need some prodding in the fashion and styling department. On her best dressed list are Fann Wong and Fiona Xie, whom Jacelyn feels have succeeded in matching their style of dressing to their character. “Sometimes when you flip through a magazine and see a star, you can’t recognise who she is because she’s dressed like somebody else. Fiona and Fann follow their individual character: Fiona is very free-willed so her hair is a bit messy, whereas Fann is very clean and neat.” Without providing names (heck, she doesn’t have a death wish!), she continued, “I feel that a number of the female artistes here are similar; there’s no individuality fashion-wise, perhaps they haven’t found the right clothes or their own identity. If the current fashion is this, they’ll all wear the same thing, which shouldn’t be the case. Fashion is about how you apply it to yourself.” For more fashion advice and hints on the latest trends, tune into to Follow Your Dreams every Monday from July 7 at 8pm on Channel U! |
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