Introducing Our Leggings and The Ladies They Were Named After!

Last Saturday we held a photo shoot which involved 6 active girls, all who were shot while engaging in their favorite sport which were dance, yoga, capoeira and aerial hoops. As the girls have been practicing their preferred sport for a while, we captured them in their element, doing their favorite warmup, drill or pose.

It was a long day of shooting, but a fun one.

In honor of the girls who were so strong, graceful, beautiful and patient, we decided to name our leggings after them. And with that, we are proud to introduce the first collection of SENI by Fit Rebel's hand painted, batik inspired high performance leggings, named after these ladies.

The Zai Leggings

 

 

Our Phoenix themed leggings are named after Zai. Zai is a beauty junky and a bendy yogi who loves beach holidays. She is featured in our shoot doing modern dance poses, which she totally nailed.

A phoenix  is a bird of Greek mythology, which symbolizes rebirth. It embodies the spirit of the brand, which is to keep evolving, growing and trying new things.

The Alya Leggings

Alya is a self proclaimed cat whisperer who also loves dance. She is an avid practitioner of pole dance, aerial hoops and aerial silks. She is featured in our shoot as our lovely and captivating aerial hoop angel.

We named our Japanese koi leggings after Alya. In Japanese, 'koi' (simply meaning 'carp') is derived from a word that means 'affection' or 'love'; koi are therefore symbols of love and friendship in Japan.

The Feiticeira Leggings (Right, in green)

Christine, also known as Feiticeira (meaning 'Sorceress') is a capoeira instructor who runs strict training sessions, especially with her kids class, but doing so with the best of intentions and love. She is the epitome of a strong, independent woman protecting and supporting friends and loved ones.

Our hummingbird themed leggings are named after Christine, nimble and fast creatures that are able to get through life’s obstacles with grace and style. 

The Bonnie Leggings (Left, in white)

Don't mess with Bonnie! This petite lady may look unassumingly harmless but she has years of capoeira and most recently, Brazillian jujitsu training under her belt. Lovely on the outside, Bonnie is also a talented singer who participated in her first open mike session last week.

Our peacock themed leggings are named after Bonnie. Why do we think this is perfect? She embodies the spirit so well, as she, just like a peacock, is confident and beautiful, inside and outside. 

The Selina Leggings

 

Selina is a Malaysian yoga instructor, based in Singapore and part of the YogaMovement team. She has a serious addiction towards arm balances, inversion, and all things crazy which makes her energetic classes super fun to attend. Follow her beautiful & witty yoga journey on instagram @senoritayogini. 

Our dragonfly themed leggings are named after Selina. Dragonflies are powerful and agile fliers, capable of migrating across oceans, moving in any direction, and changing direction suddenly. For Fit Rebel, this represents the modern women, who are strong, adventurous and flexible.

Get these leggings here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/seni-by-fit-rebel-art-inspired-leggings/x/13000759#/

Photography by Jon K.

A Spectacular Display of Traditional Batik Artwork on High Performance Leggings

Imagine if your workout clothes were fun and beautiful pieces of wearable art, featuring hand painted designs by artists.

For the past 8 months, we have been working on a project where we combined beautiful, inspiring, hand painted art onto activewear. 

This whole project started based on a research which shows that having fun and beautiful activewear inspires women to enjoy their workouts and train more often.

 

We wanted to create a line that will continue to encourage women to lead active lifestyles, and that was how we came up with the idea to combine art on activewear. 

After 8 months of design, prototyping and testing, this is what we came up with:

Photo credit: Jon K. Stoutlager

5 nature inspired designs, that were hand painted, using traditional batik painting techniques by artist from South East Asia. 

What is batik?

Batik is an art form of applying liquid wax and fabric dye onto cloth. Below is a step by step process on how our artwork was created.

#1 - First, the wax is melted in a pot, over fire.

 

#2 - Once the wax is melted, it is filled in an instrument called the 'tjanting'.

#3 - Any excess wax is removed to prevent spillage during the drawing process.

#4 - The tjanting is an instrument used to apply the wax onto the cloth to draw the artwork.

#5 -  The wax is used to draw the entire outline of the artwork, and in this instance, it is two dragonflies.

#6 - Once the drawing is complete, fabric dye is used as the preferred choice of paint. 

#7 - The artist repeats this process several times, applying 4 - 6 layers of paint on the artwork, giving it more depth and character each time.

#8 - Here is a view of the artwork just before it's final layer of paint.

 

#9 - Once the artwork is complete, it is then immersed into boiling water to remove the wax. The finished piece is where you can see a white outline, which are the places where the wax used to be. The paints were unable to be absorbed into the cloth since it was covered with the wax outline - giving you our unique batik artwork via the traditional tjanting drawing method. 

We then reproduced this artwork onto Lycra (Spandex) to bring you our gorgeous leggings. Sneak preview available below!

Get these leggings here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/seni-by-fit-rebel-art-inspired-leggings/x/13000759#/

Back!!!

It's been a while since I last wrote.

There have been some changes, the most major one being that I have made the decision to expand & carry more brands instead of just Liquido.

We have added Gylder Apparel to the list brands that we carry. Glyder Apparel is a brand from the USA which produces beautiful active wear for women, of great quality at a very competitive price. We are also negotiating with several other brands from the USA, Japan & Singapore and even talking to a very interesting company that produces under garments specifically for the active women!

Another significant change is that I decided to do a rebranding exercise and move from liquido.com.my to a new domain, which is fitrebel.com. It didn't make sense to bring in new brands and offer them under the old site (liquido.com.my), so this migration to a new online storefront under a new name (fitrebel.com) happened very naturally.

Sales have been affected somewhat (because my customers can't find the new site!) so I'll have to keep on pushing the message that we are expanding and have moved.

This news been featured on several publications. Here's a decent piece that was published by The Malay Mail Online, one of Malaysia's leading online news portals: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/features/article/fit-rebel-daring-funky-fitness-wear-to-energise-your-workouts

So, here's to new heights & challenges!

Thanks for reading. xoxo!

Freebies. Free Shipping. No Kidding =)

We are rewarding the loyal customers of www.liquido.com.my (who are subscribed to our mailing list) by sending them freebies.

Free Stuff. Free Shipping. No Kidding.

We have been doing this in stages and have gotten EXCELLENT feedback from customers.

Beth Albright, emailed and remarked, "This is brilliant! Nobody does this!"

Well, nobody but us, I suppose :)

First thought that probably comes to your mind is - "Why are you doing this?"

Simple answer - We are nothing without you :)

It's really not thaaat difficult to find a budget to reward loyal customers. And if there's something that we have learnt along the way, we get a lot more when we give, compared to when we receive.

So enjoy your goodies, people!

If you are one of our loyal customers, but haven't received your freebie or an email notification regarding this, it's probably because you're not subscribed to our mailing list. So hurry and get to it!!!

You can subscribe by visiting our website here: http://www.liquido.com.my

Insert your email address in the space titled 'Subscribe for latest Liquido updates' located at the bottom right of the page.

We may or may not do this again. However, something we will do is give out coupon codes for discount on our website, exclusively through our mailing list - so there is benefit to sign up.

Thank you for your support, which allows us to keep doing what we do - to make sure that you look fabulous while pursuing an active lifestyle!

Much love! XOXO

Fun team pic #1

Fun team pic #2

Own Your Body

My bikini stocks were one big mess after #Ohhsome Fest and the Christmas Promotion, where shoppers get one FREE bikini with every purchase of 2 leggings from my website. After #Ohhsome Fest, I pretty much dumped all my stocks into a corner & was procrastinating sorting them out.. until yesterday. 

So as I was sorting out the bikinis by model and size, one thing was very apparent to me. I am almost out of all Small & Medium sizes for all models, but the Large sizes are barely moving. And that got me irritated. REALLY IRRITATED.

Did I miss a memo where voluptuous women have been BANNED from wearing bikinis? Is the Asian sense of beauty and what is acceptable so WARPED that only skinny women are allowed to show off their bodies? OR, are women so self conscious and lack the self confidence to believe that they have an awesome body and to wear a bikini proudly, regardless of their shape and size?

Whatever, it is, it's pretty darn irritating. And sad.

Let's put things into perspective, shall we.

I'm a size Large when it comes to Liquido Bikinis. Yes, really.

Above is one of my favourite photos of myself in a bikini, taken by photographer extraordinaire, Andy Kho. On some level, I do believe that I am beautiful and I am not self conscious in a bikini. Because of how I feel about myself and the confidence that I exude, other people believe it too :)

Let's look at some of the biggest stars in showbiz. 

Beyonce is big and beautiful and has been voted as the celebrity with the best body by the women in UK. 

I'm not a big fan of Kim Kardashian, but you're lying if you can take one look at that photo and tell me that she is not gorgeous. Kim is not a size zero. And she oozes sex appeal in that photo.

Let's look at some of the Instagram superstars. Recently, I started following Jen Selter on Instagram.

Jen Selter is not a size zero. She is fit, she has curves at all the right places and she has 5 million instagram followers. 5 MILLION.

Get with the times, people!!! Do you still think you need to be skinny to wear a bikini? It's not about being skinny, it's how you feel about your own body and how you OWN THAT BIKINI!

Sorting out the bikinis and getting annoyed reminded me why I got into this in the first place - to push a message that all women should be proud of their bodies, regardless of your shape and size. Because at the end of the day, what matters most is how you feel about yourself. And if you believe that you are beautiful, that confidence will radiate and you will shine.

I guess since I'm preaching this stuff, I should be the first person out there, confidently wearing the tiniest Brazilian bikini that I carry. And I'll do just that. Haha! 

Can one person change a culture? The warped perception that being beautiful is all about being slim and fair and if you are anything but that, you shouldn't be in a bikini because you don't fit the stereotypical cookie cutter perception of Asian beauty?

Beauty is in everything and everyone. You just need to believe and own it.

Time to round up the PR crew for a brainstorm. It's time to change things up :)

Share Love And Light This Christmas With Liquido Leggings

From the fashion district of Sao Paulo, Brazil comes Liquido, inspired by the bold and colourful beach and fitness culture in Brazil. 

This Christmas, Liquido is releasing 2 new leggings, which prints are influenced by the love & sharing of the season. The prints are inspired by the beautiful patterns and colours formed when light enters a kaleidoscope.  

  

As Christmas is the season for giving and sharing, why not pick up a pair of these beautiful leggings for your sisters, mother or friends to share the beauty and joy of the season. This will also incentivise them to maintain a healthy lifestyle for the upcoming year!

Ranked Top 5 By ESPN, Liquido has been reviewed as being “A Brazillian Company known for its funky patterns. Each print is limited. Their leggings and capris are durable, comfortable, supportive and stylish.”

Available in hues of pink, blue, green and grey, these leggings will be a sure hit with your fashionably fit mates. 

At RM250.00 (USD75.00) per pair, leggings are available for sale through www.liquido.com.my.

The website ships internationally at discounted shipping rates of just USD3.00 per piece worldwide. Free shipping for orders within Malaysia for all payment made with Maybank2u. 

Spontaneous Travel On A Discount

Woot!
I just booked a flight to Krabi, Thailand for January 2015.
Looking forward to enjoy 4 days of rock climbing and lazing on the beach.

For this trip, I will be booking my hotel via a new mobile app called HotelQuickly. This mobile app gives it's users an average of 28% discount on hotel bookings. The catch is that you are only allowed to book your hotel a day in advance!

In a study done by HotelQuickly, the average occupancy rate of a hotel is 63%. Meaning that 37% of rooms are unused every night. In an attempt to create opportunity, HotelQuickly connects hoteliers to last minute travellers, offering discounts of 28% off room rates (average - can be more, can be less).

All hotels are hand-picked by the HotelQuickly team and the best-rated 3, 4, and 5 star hotels are listed on this app. Only the top 10 best deals will be shown to users on their chosen night, based on hotel ratings and highest discount rates, saving you the time of scrolling through hundreds of hotels.

I'm typically NOT your average tech savvy geek chic, but the possibility of travelling and staying at decent hotels on super discounted rates excite me, hence I'm sharing this mobile app with you guys here.

Download this app and get RM70 hotel credits on your first booking using my promo code below! :)

The only slight drawback to this mobile app is that it is only available in Asia Pacific (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Macau, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Australia and New Zealand). And you have to be comfortable in booking your hotel one day before your actual trip.

Having said that, they do have pretty decent 3 - 5 star hotels listed on their app, so I wouldn't be too worried about not getting a decent hotel.

Happy travelling everyone!

And as usual, if you are looking for an awesome bikini for your next beach vacation, look no further than here: www.liquido.com.my

XOXO

On Love and Loss

It's been ages since I did a blog post!

Shame on me!

It's almost the end of year and it's that time of the year where I'm starting to look back and reflect on this past year's achievements.

The business is growing. Sales have been very healthy & I can foresee that we will continue to grow through 2015.

On an emotional level, 2014 has been challenging. I was suppose to get married to my Brazilian ex-fiance in October, but fate intervened and the wedding never happened.

In June 2014 I made a trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil to see him, and things were good. Things continued to be good all through July but issues cropped up in August.

To make a long story short, we didn't get married in the end. Of course I was upset, hence I kept a low profile (which included not updating this blog!!!). I took a vacation in September to clear my head and threw myself into work in October.

I'm at a point where I can reflect and realize that fate has been kind and that things worked out for the best. They say that perspective is everything and I also realize that I shouldn't remain sad because there are so many things (and people) in my life that make me happy.

I will find love again and I will be engaged and probably married at some point. But for now, I will be happy and contented with what I have and continue to focus and grow the business.

By the way, we have new stocks that just got in. That's a photo of me goofing around in one of our new prints. Wholesale orders have been coming in and they are selling out fast.

To view our latest collection, do visit this page here! http://www.liquido.com.my/funky-fitness-pants-1.html

Thanks for reading. Love you all! xoxo

Instagram Contest!

#POETRYOFMOVEMENT Photo Contest on Instagram!

WANT TO WIN USD500, 2 PAIRS OF LEGGINGS FROM LIQUIDO AND A FREE PHOTOSHOOT FROM BRIAN CRAWFORD? Keep on reading!

CONTEST RULES

1. Follow @My_Liquido and @BrianCrawfordPhotography on Instagram
2. Post an original photo of yourself/your friend/ you and your friends in your best active pose
3. Check @BrianCrawfordPhotography for inspiration
4. Brownie points may be awarded to contestants who wear Liquido Leggings in their photos, but you can wear anything you want
5. The description of your photo must include this: #PoetryOfMovement @BrianCrawfordPhotography @My_Liquido
6. Contest will start on 20 July -  20 September 2014
7. Brian Crawford will choose his TOP 10 favourite photos and they will be reposted on @My_Liquido and @BrianCrawfordPhotography for voting
8. Voting starts 21 until 27 September 2014 at 12:00pm (U.S.A - California, GMT - 7)
9. Number of votes on both @My_Liquido and @BrianCrawfordPhotography will be summed up to find the winner!
10. Winner will be announced on 28 September 2014   

PRIZES

• USD500 - This amount will be transferred to you via paypal. 
• 2 Liquido leggings - view the range here: http://www.liquido.com.my/funky-fitness-pants-1.html (We will ship worldwide to you at no extra cost!)
• Free photoshoot by Brian Crawford (based in Laguna Beach, California) - If a photoshoot cannot be arranged due to geographical distance, Brian Crawford will give you a photography workshop over Skype instead.

JUDGING

• The TOP 10 photos will be selected by Brian Crawford based on quality of image, composition and if it has some attributes of Brian Crawford Photography.
• The TOP 10 photos will then be re-posted on the Instagram accounts of both @My_Liquido and @BrianCrawfordPhotograhy and the winner will be the photo with the most number of votes (total sum of votes from both accounts).

CONTEST CONDITIONS

• Open to EVERYONE from EVERYWHERE!
• This contest will run on Instagram only
• Public accounts only. No private/ghost/giveaway accounts
• Unlimited entries, however, each post must be different. 
• Posts must stay up the entire competition
• Liquido and Brian Crawford Photography will have the rights to use any photos that have been submitted for any future promotional activities. 

Weekly 'Friends Of Liquido' post!

Time for our weekly dose of 'Friends of Liquido' from all around the world!

In this weekly posts, I share photos of friends and customers who have posted beautiful photos of themselves, in active poses in their Liquido gear.

This week, I discovered photographer Brian Crawford who produces art out of active photoshoots.  Check out some of his beautiful work below:

Breath taking, isn't it?

How does she do it?!?

Timing is everything in this photo. Brian must have taken a TON of photos before he managed to get this perfect shot, of the toes of both yogis, touching the sun. Simply beautiful.

Legging on the right can be found *here*

Our friends from Singapore say hello in this photo below :)

Leggings on the left can be found *here*

Leggings on the right can be found *here*

Our new print, the 'Alchemist' makes it's debut in our blog in this photo below :)

Leggings below can be found *here*

And below, our sisters in Australia greet us with their love, light and happiness :)

Butterfly leggings available *here*

Marble Aqua leggings available *here*

And finally, I end this post with an awesome quote by the beloved Cookie Monster

Back in the Liquido Headquarters

Among others, one of the purposes of my trip to Brazil was to pay a visit to the boss of Liquido and to check out their new collection.

So here I am finding myself back in the office that I have visited so many times in the past 2 years. (Wow. Has it really been 2 years already?!!)

Liquido wall which contains some of their magazine covers from 2001

Liquido Hall of fame. Fotos of the celebrities that they have worked with

Their warehouse which I have spent HOURS AND HOURS shopping and wondering which stocks to bring back to be introduced in Malaysia & Singapore. Most people have no clue of the amount of work that goes behind the scenes of running an online clothing store.

More shelves of their worldwide popular funky leggings

Of course all work and no play makes Nadia a really dull girl. Below are some photos which shows me at play :)

Did you know that Brazil is full of Italian immigrants? As a result, they have some really fantastic Italian restaurants and some of the best pizza outside Italy. Some Brazilians even swear that pizza in Sao Paulo is better than pizza in Italy. It's hard to refute - pizza in Sao Paulo is PRETTY FRIGGIN GOOD. The photo above was taken at a really chic Italian Restaurant, close to the centre of Sao Paulo. 

Biking at Ibirapuare Park on a sunny Sunday morning. Ibirapuara Park is beautiful. And biking through Sao Paulo on Sundays is delightful. 

Sunday afternoon BBQ!

Nom nom nom

Finally. Just wanted to share this photo because I thought it was ironic. This photo was taken the weekend before the World Cup 2014 started. The host cities were all busy preparing, which includes placing relevant signs to the football stadiums at the Metro (subway) stations. 

The poster above is a map of how to get to the football stadium by metro (subway). In the middle of this poster, you can see a small red sticker (obviously placed by a protestor) which reads 'Nao via ter Copa'. Translated from Portuguese to English, it means "There won't be a world cup".

Unless you have been living in a cave that has no internet access and you do not have access to cable tv or radio, you must be (at the very, very least) vaguely aware that a majority of the Brazilian population was against Brazil hosting the World Cup. 

This has been the most expensive World Cup ever, due to the fact that 12 cities are hosting this event. 12 different stadiums had to be either refurbished or totally built from scratch. 2 out of the 12 cities do not even have a local football team and the stadium will become a giant white elephant once the World Cup is over. All this when Brazil is lacking the basic necessities such as public schools, adequate public transportation and hospitals. 

Riots were going on until the DAY OF the World Cup.

Even though I never ran into any of the riots personally while I was there, you can sense the lack of excitement with most Brazilians. 

Well, this was during the first week of the World Cup. I flew back to Malaysia within the first week. Now that Brazilian football team has made it into the quarter finals, seems like Brazilians have forgotten that they were against the World Cup in the first place. 

Altho the Brazilian football team's performance has been fairly unimpressive, I am rooting for them. Most of us don't think that Brazil will win the World Cup this year, but there has been a lot of surprises, so you never know. 

I think the funniest comment to come out from the World Cup to date is "You are more likely to be bitten by Suarez than to be bitten by a shark". LOL ! According to this article published in The Metro, this is proven to be statistically true: http://metro.co.uk/2014/06/26/its-official-youre-more-likely-to-be-bitten-by-luis-suarez-than-a-shark-4776523/

DOUBLE LOL! 

And that's all for today folks! <3