It's not all about Orchard Road: Daven Wu introduces some hot up-and-coming Singaporean designers.
Singapore justly rests on its laurels as a shopper’s paradise.
Orchard Road alone is a mile-long stretch of glossy mega-malls with every imaginable bold-faced couturier in residence. But it pays to stray further afield to sniff out the offerings of young, up-and-coming indie designers.
At
White Room (
37 Haji Lane), the deliciously named
Urica Sin creates edgy street clothes for men. The ever stylish
Jo Soh (
website) is gaining a loyal following for her fun, quirky and slightly retro dresses, while Vik Lim’s
Crux label (
website) transforms ordinary yarn into quirky custom jewellery. And if Shanghai Tang is out of your budget,
Clarissa Choh (
website) is making a name for her modern take on the cheongsam with mandarin collar.
Jonathan Leong’s much sought after t-shirts are inspired riffs on pop culture, including berserk penguins toting machine guns.
Karen Huang (
website) channels shabby-chic Asian style and transforms ordinary items like lampshades, sneakers and notebooks with luxurious swatches of textiles and fabrics.
Asylum (
website) is a retail gallery with unusual items (like books on Cantonese slang) and indie musicians. And if there’s room in your luggage,
Jason Ong (
website) builds hyper-stylised furniture like towering chairs and silvery blobs that double as stools.