[My Weekender] with Grace Sun

Grace Sun is a New York-based fashion designer. She's in Shanghai this weekender taking part in the Fashion portion of the two-day Frexh showcase.

This is my ninth time in Shanghai. My career as a fashion designer of my own line, Grace Sun, brings me to Shanghai every season. Grace Sun is the women’s contemporarily line that I started 5 years ago. We sell at Barneys, Neiman Marcus Cusp, Shopbop, and many other boutiques around the world.

Though I live and run my business in New York, I do everything else in Shanghai. Along with my normal checklist of must sees and dos, I find that each time I come back, there is always something new and exciting waiting for me in Shanghai.

I arrive from New York and head straight to Emerald, my business partner's beautiful house located in Gubei. It's nice to stay in a house when you are working from another country. So easy to come back to Emerald's driver, nanny, and her warm family who all live in a 3-block radius from each other and not have to stay in an impersonal hotel.

Business is always the first order of business. First thing I do on Friday morning is check-in with my sample room. I am always so excited to go there to see what they have done so far. Since my sample room is located 45 minutes outside of Shanghai, I go first thing in the morning and check out the fabrics, review their work, and work on revisions until 12:30 -- just in time for my lunch hour. We break by hopping over to Acqua for lunch and order the bento box filled with delicious goodies. Next up, the trim market.

Both the trim and fabric markets are my favorite places to visit in Shanghai. I love finding treasures and novelty beads to incorporate to my collection. I visit my buckle lady who makes all my belt buckles and check out prototypes for two metal necklaces that I am doing for SS2011.

After the markets, it is back to Cantina Agave in the French Concession to meet with Angie, who's helping with the Frexh fashion show. She arrives with her friend on a yellow moped. I am too chicken to ride, but I’m still jealous that I don't own one. So dolce vita! We order lemonades and sit outside and discuss shoes and make-up for the models.

Next, we’re off to Hamilton House where we're casting models for the show. After casting, we meet everyone at Guyi. We had made this reservation a week ago. We are sardined into a tiny dining room and start ordering away. Cumin-crusted spare ribs, frog legs, spare ribs, fish, and fried chicken with mounds of Chile peppers. We each have at least five bowls spread in front of us. After Guyi, we head to M1NT to work off the food. Edison Chen is supposed to be there. Supposedly, this guy taped himself having sex with numerous women, including some famous actresses. I am not here to see the creep, I just want to dance off the calories I consumed.

Saturday morning, I drag myself to the factory again. China never shuts down, and you can work hard and play hard --even on the weekend. This would be unheard of in New York. Afterwards, I treat myself with a mani, pedi, and the best eyelash perm this side of the Pacific at Baby Face. I’m feeling like I won’t need to curl my lashes for at least 3 months and my eyes look twice as big as before, at least to myself.

The beautification process give me enough energy and courage to tackle Shanghai Expo. I don’t have a VIP pass, but I am not diehard. I just want to go and walk it, and experience it like a true local. Maybe because it is after six, it's pretty calm. I see traces of the craziness that happened earlier in the day, but it is surprisingly pleasant. In a few hours, I see five pavilions including UK, Italy, and Spain. Dinner is ice cream and Belgian fries. Salty and sweet is delicious.

Sunday is a big family dim sum day at Crystal Jade. The Ku family has had a standing reservation on Sunday morning for at least as long as I’ve been coming to Shanghai (about 5 years). It’s the best dim sum I have ever tasted. Everything is of the highest quality and served piping hot. They have the mind dropping variety of dim sum desserts. Mango pudding and sesame balls are slices of heaven. Post dim-sum, I go shopping on Nanjing Lu. After an hour of power shopping, I head home for a massage at the Dragonfly. Priceless.