EDITOR’S NOTE

7 years: The span of time that we’ve been working together (we were the first magazine to rope him in as a contributor); ditto friends.

10th anniversary: What he’s celebrating as Singapore’s most influential bag blogger this year – and what made us decide to work together in such a big way.

2nd tie-up: The first time that he was guest creative director of our Accessories Issue was in April 2017, when we helped him kick-start his anniversary celebrations.

40 pages:

Of our collaboration this time.

26 days: To coordinate, design, shoot, write, edit and complete the above-mentioned 40 pages with BB (all while juggling the rest of the book, which is equally exciting – from our feature on the cool hipsterfication of Johor Bahru, pg 112, to our madcap visuals that include one smooch-covered Leonardo DiCaprio poster, pg 54). 8 “extras”: Who played background roles in our pictures, including the staff at Arab Street fabric store Bamadhaj Brothers, one professional model, and too many of us from the team who shall remain unnamed here.

116 bags: The grand total featured, if you include the five that we got printed on our surprise cake for BB.

100 retro wafer flowers: Procured to decorate said cake. Apparently no one really makes these now, but we managed to score the second last box at the go-to place for baking supplies Phoon Huat.

1 time: That I made BB tear while interviewing him. He was expounding on the pros of nylon bags (pg 97); I shared how one had failed me as a child; and – with perfect comic timing – The Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You came on the radio.

0 chance: That you’ll find what we’ve created together for this issue anywhere else. Promise.