The Cheo-est It-est & Most Envy-inducing Girl In Singapore

She’s one of Singapore’s most followed people — and she isn’t even a celebrity. Or so she insists. But we know better. Meet ARISSA CHEO — social media superstar, fashion entrepreneur, and one of those people who are just meant to be famous.

- Jonathan Fam

There are many people who don’t live up to the meaning of their names. Kate Moss doesn’t thrive in damp areas (we think), Sharon Stone is clearly not made of stone, and Kevin Bacon is certainly not your favourite breakfast side. Arissa Cheo is not one of those people. ‘Cheo’ (which sounds like ‘chio’ or beautiful in Hokkien) is a surname that would be downright unfortunate, cruel even, for someone who is, um, not aesthetically blessed. But for the 34-year old socialite-turned-social media star-turned fashion entrepreneur, there is simply no other name that would be as fitting.

People turn their heads to gawk at her when she walks into a room. This is by no means an exaggeration. We first meet for lunch at a café in Palais Renaissance, opposite David Gan’s Passion Hair Salon. (The celeb crimper has since become a mentor of sorts to Arissa, and once told us that he thinks she and local fashion influencer Yoyo Cao are the social media generation’s Zoe and Fann.) When Arissa hurries in, dressed in an impossibly-cool oversized jacket and apologising for her tardiness, a group of twenty something women shift their gaze to her. Their slack-jawed expressions convey a curious mix of envy and fascination. We don’t blame them.

In person, Arissa looks like someone had taken the best parts of Jolin Tsai, Christy Chung, Gong Li, and Fiona Xie, who happens to be one of Arissa’s pals, and Photoshopped them into an immaculately flawless package. Like Fiona, Arissa speaks in a lilting, honeyed tone that can be both Disney Princess childlike and Brigitte Bardot-sexy. But unlike the enigmatic Fiona, Arissa doesn’t speak in cryptic sentences — she goes for the jugular each time.