[My Weekender] with Megan Fischer

Megan welcomes you to the good life - May 23, 08

Megan is the designer for her fashion label matsu.

The great thing about Shanghai is that no weekend can ever be described as typical – you never know what kind of trouble you will get into or just when a particular evening will end, if at all. Most weekends do have several things in common: one too many parties, one too many cocktails, and one too many random stories to tell (that is if you can remember what happened the night before).

I usually like to prepare for the weekend ahead by making sure I am at my most fabulous – which means a Friday mani/pedi at either Helen Nail Spa on Nanchang Lu or Fiori Nails at the Portman (if I can get there before the 6pm taxi crunch that can leave you stranded until way past 8pm). If I'm feeling slightly lazy afterwards I'll head to Lily Salon on Hengshan Lu to get my hair done (because if I can pay someone 50 RMB to do my hair rather than do it myself, why not!). Next up is outfit selection and since I design clothes, I used to just swing by my studio to pick out something to wear from the sample racks. However, I recently moved and have all of my samples in my apartment, so getting ready means walking into my spare bedroom, recently rechristened "the sample room", which makes things so much easier!

After the nails, hair, and outfit selection, its usually off to someone's house for 'dinner', and I use that term loosely because dinner isn't really for eating, more of drinking wine and getting the evening started. If my dear friend, the fabulous Kiko, is feeling a little Martha Stewart, then we'll have a dinner at his place (which happens to be in my building – oh so convenient). Or, since I recently acquired furniture in my own apartment, if I'm feeling up to it, I may decide to play hostess for some friends.

After dins, Fridays usually entail a trip to Xintiandi, to meet up with the usual suspects where a few too many cocktails are consumed and some dancing on tables must occur before heading to Lounge 18 for more socializing and champagne. Hopefully the night ends there, but in Shanghai, you never know.

Normally Saturdays will include a few hours of sketching new designs and ideas and making sure I get myself to the gym (the new California Fitness in Times Square) to atone for the sins of the night before. I also normally hit up Ming Massage on Wulumuqi Lu for a 90 minute foot massage – otherwise there's no way I'd be able to squeeze my poor feet into another pair of ridiculous yet amazing shoes for another evening out on the town (my motto is fashion before function – so if the shoes look good and I have to get my feet massaged just to be able to walk again, so be it!)

If someone had a dinner at their house on Friday, then Saturday we'll probably head out somewhere, my new favorite being Issimo at JIA. Amazig food but makes the whole premise of going to dinner but not really eating anything extremely difficult. After dinner drinks and the rest of the evening depend on where the party's at, which normally include Lounge 18, Volar, MAO, or dare I even suggest, Dragon.


Sundays are meant for Brunch, a trip to Taikang Lu (including a stop off at Oscars and/or Hollywood to stock up on DVD's) and more pampering in the form of a massage. This is, of course, assuming that I have risen before 3pm and can actually motivate myself off the couch to be social with friends. The alternative is that Sundays are meant for catching up on my beauty sleep and preparing for yet another insane week of work and parties in the non-stop city of Shanghai.

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