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Travel

Loliday in Cambodia

A quick recap of Khmer chic.

Whilst out in Cambodia for the country's inaugural Fashion Week (which you can watch here), we got a bit caught up in the whole Burgeoning Glitz 'n' Glamour versus Depraved Industrial Exploitation of Children play-off. On our return, we took stock of Cambodia's fashion sensibilities.

Anaïs Nin once wrote, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." This might be true, it might not. But it is justification enough to devote another blog to Cambodia's premiere aesthetic treatshere's our highlight reel of Khmer style (photos by Rhys James and Will Fairman).

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These 18-year-old twins have been working illegally in a garment factory for six days a week and $2 a day since they were 14, to help support their family. Srey, on the right, hasn’t heard of Berlin Fashion Week, Fashion Week, Fashion, or Berlin. Her sister on the left, however, probably has.

Unlike their British counterparts, Cambodia's population of strutting street kids have no qualms about making you feel as nervous as possible.

This is a wicker-based depiction of a rice worker carrying a giant bottle of wine to his or her masters, probably over several miles of swampland. We found it in an otherwise very politically correct and relaxing shoe garden at Sophy & Sina fashion emporium in Phnom Penh.

Here I am clad in a carbon-fibre sheath, getting into the vibe for Remy Hou's show, "Heist". The espionage-themed collection may or may not have been fashioned from the back seats of bulletproof Maybachs.

There are three distinct go-to street styles in Cambodia. The first is nonsensical English slogan tees. The second is garments emblazoned with Angry Birds, which are popular despite the fact no one actually has the means to play the game.

Everyone else just wears their pyjamas in public.

The internet has made Western styles more accessible to fashion-hungry Cambodians, and we saw their influence in full effect at all social levels, from market place wears-and-tears right through to the upper echelons of fashion. For example, they piggy backed our leopard print phase, and ran with it.

However, the elite, in-the-know few are still able to satisfy their lust for haute couture. Fashion smarts, not purse-string pains ;)

For our coverage of Cambodia Fashion Week, Fashion Week Internationale: Cambodia, click here, or watch in the player below.