Creative Calling

Jaime Lee turned a stationery brand into a lifestyle phenomenon. The entrepreneur details how The Paper Bunny became a household name over a decade of hard work

- Nafeesa Saini

On any given day, you are likely to come across at least one person toting a bag from The Paper Bunny. The brand’s Puffer series, famed for inciting six-hour-long queues outside its stores, have become synonymous with the “Singapore girl”—at least that is the running sentiment on TikTok. But the phenomenon is not limited to Singapore either. Personal shoppers from Indonesia and Malaysia alike snap up popular new drops in-store for customers on buying frenzies.

Once a stationery brand, The Paper Bunny has reinvented itself dramatically. Mirroring the journey of its co-founder Jaime Lee, it has grown exponentially from its modest beginnings to a fixture in the lifestyle domain.

It has been a decade since Lee left a cushy law career—with limited design experience then—to launch her stationery brand. But she had harboured a creative streak since she was a child. “I’ve always loved creating things for others and making things look good. I used to hand-make elaborate cards for my loved ones, but I would get bored of folding and sticking over and over again,” she recalls.

Despite this, her passion was unyielding. In 2010, this creative urge eventually reared its head when a friend asked her to design a wedding invite. “I didn’t know what graphic design was at all. She got her friend to teach me how to use basic software.” Lee thoroughly enjoyed the process and was amazed by the benefits of graphic design. “I could design something that was still my own work, and it could reach many more people,” she says.

Lee went on to designing her own invitations for her wedding.