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Yay! Let’s all be armchair fashion critics now.

As part of The Great Singapore Sale 2009 (which started yesterday), Nuffnang is hosting a fun blogging contest. Write a blog entry on the topic “Do Singaporeans dress badly?” for a chance to win attractive cash prizes!

Details of the contest here.

You know, I would love to say that Singaporeans dress badly. (I think humans are instinctively more critical towards people closer to them.)

But I thought about it objectively and came to the startling conclusion that Singaporeans don’t dress worse than people of other nationalities.

Every country has its fair share of good and bad dressers.

And, even then, dressing is very subjective. There are times when I stare at a very ugly piece of work (for example a pair of shoes or a blouse that someone is wearing) and I’m horrified that such an ugly thing could even exist. I want to shoot the designer.

What in tarnations is this monstrosity?

But who am I to say that something is ugly? The very existence of it proves that there are people who don’t think it’s ugly. At the very least, the designer and the person wearing it both like it, and they are entitled to their opinions even if I feel like shooting them.

I’ll say one thing about Singaporeans and fashion, though. We prefer to be safe than sorry. So we wear safe clothes that allow us to disappear in a crowd. We don’t like to stand out.

There are, of course, exceptions. And then there are people like me who want to play safe and stand out at the same time. So I’m always veering between wearing boring clothes and wearing crazy clothes.

Two years ago, I started a fashion diary to chronicle my more adventurous fashion moments, also as an excuse to start dressing more boldly. It was a lot of fun.

But I don’t dress adventurously as much these days because it’s really hard to find interesting pieces in Singapore and I don’t have time to go travel-shopping, plus it’s very time-consuming to mix and match clothes perfectly.

But I think Singaporeans should all attempt it. There will be people who like what you throw together and people who hate it, but at least it’ll make our streets more vibrant and exciting.

I was at Bugis Junction a few days ago and spent 10 minutes taking photos of people walking past me. Bugis is a great place to collect data on fashion because of the wide demographics of people found there (executives, funky teenagers, auntie types, arty students).

From my 10-minute sampling, I concluded that Singaporeans don’t necessarily dress badly. They just dress safe.

Of course, I can’t say with certainty that the people I saw were all Singaporeans, since we have a huge proportion of foreign talents on our shores. (Which makes it even harder to judge whether Singaporeans dress badly).

But I already had a thought about this many years ago, when we didn’t have that many foreign talents yet.

While waiting for a date at Raffles City Shopping Centre during peak hour one day, I was people watching. In half an hour (yes, my date was that late), I only saw about two people wearing something bold and exciting.

People-watching in Singapore is pretty boring.

Of course, one problem, as I’ve mentioned, is that it’s hard to find interesting clothing items in Singapore. Everywhere you go, you see shops selling basically the same thing. And Singaporeans are busy people. We don’t have time to go around hunting for interesting stuff to wear.

And because all the shops are selling the same things, we end up all being clones (which, I suppose, contributes to the feeling of safety that Singaporeans instinctively desire).

Worse than the clone problem is the fact that people are now increasingly shopping online at blogshops that all sell the same things. With online shopping, you don’t get to try on clothes, which means that people are now also wearing ill-fitting clothes.

It’s quite a worrying trend.

Perhaps we should start thinking out the box. How about wearing pajamas out?

Pajamas have become a lot more fashionably delightful. I was looking around in La Senza the other day and saw many sleepwear items I would actually wear out.

I love pajamas and always have a large collection at home.

Of course, I wouldn’t wear this out unless it’s for a pajama party. But pajamas are getting more un-pajama like so, one day, you might really see me going out in the streets in my PJs!

Generally, I think Singaporeans are alright in dressing. We just need to be more adventurous and stop following trends blindly because not all trends look good on everyone!

And I hope more shops will bring in more exciting choices!