Asia's True Top Models

A diversity report on the fall/winter 2020 runway season by the fashion spot – drawn from 194 shows that took place in the four major fashion week cities – found that 40.6 per cent of models cast were people of colour. In contrast, when the popular online portal started tallying diversity reports five years ago with the spring/summer 2015 season, that figure was 17 per cent. It’s commendable change, some might say – one that reflects the fashion industry’s growing interest in and recognition of the importance of representing a wide range of faces and ethnicities. Based in different parts of asia, the three modelling agencies featured here aren’t just vital players in this revolution; they’re expanding the conversation by championing specifically models from home. Gordon NG finds out how they’re changing the look and perceptions of Asian beauty.

Tiger tiger, burning bright

FELIPE OLIVEIRA BAPTISTA IS REMAKING KENZO FOR A MODERN AGE, TAPPING AS MUCH INTO THE ARCHIVES AS ITS FOUNDING JAPANESE DESIGNER’S ETHOS OF CULTURAL CURIOSITY FOR HIS DEBUT THIS SEASON. GORDON NG REPORTS ON HOW HE’S CONTINUING KENZO TAKADA’S LEGACY.

Home team

LOCAL LABEL BEYOND THE VINES HAS COME A LONG WAY SINCE ITS TO MENTION STORES IN FIVE COUNTRIES), IT’S THE ARCHETYPE OF A, ’ INCEPTION FIVE YEARS AGO. WITH AN EXTENSIVE REBRANDING IN SINGAPORE FASHION LABEL MADE GOOD. SO WHO BETTER TO DISCUSS. PROCESS AND A NEWLY OPENED CONCEPT SPACE AT NGEE ANN CITY (NOT THE STATE OF SINGAPORE FASHION RETAIL TODAY? BY KENG YANG SHUEN

On the up

FROM AN IRANIAN MILLINER CRAFTING FANTASTICAL HATS THAT RESEMBLE SCULPTURE TO A GENDER-FLUID HONG KONG LABEL CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL NOTIONS OF MASCULINITY, THE SEVEN EMERGING BRANDS FEATURED HERE SHARE ONE THING IN COMMON: FOUNDERS WITH ROOTS IN ASIA – AND BOLD IDEAS THAT THE WORLD SHOULD KNOW ABOUT. KENG YANG SHUEN REPORTS.

Bringing Clothes To Life Into An Art Form

From models swanning about elegantly – number tag in hand, mere inches from guests in packed-out stores and salons – in the ’50s to christy, naomi, cindy and linda strutting with their arms linked down the versace runway to the tune of george michael’s freedom in 1991, the way one moves when wearing a garment has always been a significant, if underrated, part of fashion presentation. Now, a new league of choreography has risen, and creatives are increasingly elevating the task of bringing clothes to life into an art form. Gordon ng reports.

Are Virtual Models And Influencers Really The Next Frontier In Fashion?

Virtual models and influencers – 3-d creations that exist only in images and software – have begun to obscure the lines of fiction and reality. Gordon Ng reports on what is quite possibly fashion’s next frontier.

Singapore 's Animation Industry Is Small, But Thriving. Here, Seven Artists To Know

If the world of fashion – and content creation in general – is finally waking up to the limitless potential of animation, well here are seven names to know: based in Singapore, they work across a diverse range of styles – 2-d, 3-d, motion graphics and more. By Keng Yang Shuen.

A Whole New World?

The realms of film, music and entertainment have long embraced the diverse medium that is animation and – going by its recent rash of CGI-led content and forays into gaming (yes, gaming) – fashion is raising its stakes in the scene too. The million (make that billion) dollar question: is this simply a trend or will it lead to new horizons? And what does it mean for all of us? Keng yang shuen reports.

The Aesthete Treatment

As we spend more time at home, how beautiful one’s makeup and skincare products look on the vanity table matters as much as how beautiful they make one look. Aileen lalor gets into the aesthetics business of a different sort.

Harajuku Girlsi (And Boy)

Cosplay and fashion may not appear, at first glance, to be natural bedfellows. At their core, however, they share a love for fantasy and good style, both revelling in the metamorphic powers of dressing up. So, in conjunction with this edition’s animation theme, who better to model some of fall/winter 2020’s key runway looks than some of singapore’s most avid fans of the performance art form?

The Doctor Is In

They might not have the same glossy life, stylish instagram content and rabid following as the likes of michelle phan and huda kattan, but a band of myth-busting, info-wielding scientists are fast raking up the “hearts” on social media particularly during these troubling times. Aileen lalor explores the rise of these alternative beauty influencers – and what it could mean for the industry.

Maisie Williams Is Coming

For Eight Years, The British Actress Was One Of Television's Most Beloved Sword-wielding, Baddie-slaying Teenage Anti-heroines. Her Next Big Act: Mutant, Producer, Champion For Up-and-coming Creatives And Possibly The Next Most Powerful Woman In Entertainment And The Arts. Keng Yang Shuen Gets An Exclusive Close-up.

Why Does Community Matter?

It might be one of the words most overused in recent fashion history to help sell a brand or product. But if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that shared beliefs and a sense of belonging can make an impact (and warm the cockles of the heart). Launched in the middle of the excess-loving ’80s, Cartier’s pasha de Cartier was a striking interpretation of the aggressively masculine sporty watches that were taking off at the time. Its case was sumptuously round when most designs on the market were geometric and its can’t-miss-it crown came with an idiosyncratic chain-link cap. This month, it returns to stores – available in 35mm and 41mm in handsome gold or cool steel. And to mark the occasion, the french maison has assembled an unlikely tribe of discipline-spanning celebrity ambassadors whose common denominators are their youth, success and non-conformist streak. Here, an exclusive look at – and message from – this radical pack.

You Say You Want A Revolution?

As with nearly everything else, the fashion industry is undergoing a reckoning and plenty of self-questioning at the moment. How are we going to arrive at answers? No one quite knows, but we thought probing the minds of some of Singapore’s most lucid alternative – and in some cases little-heard – voices on the scene here might help. Keng Yang Shuen reports.

What To Make Of Creative Directors Today?

When tie-ups and three-year-long creative director stints have become the norm in fashion, moncler bucks the trend by hiring the jil sander/phoebe philo-trained veronica leoni (opposite) as the women’s creative director of its 2 moncler 1952 line. (one of only two ranges under the brand’s moncler genius project that’s not by a guest collaborator, it had been designed by the in-house team until her appointment last year.) ahead of the launch of her third collection this month, gordon ng gets an exclusive with this understated ‘insider’b on why a role like hers remains pivotal.

What's The Right Way To Wear Makeup Now?

Fresh out of lockdown, Lucia Pica – global creative makeup and color designer of Chanel – gives noelle loh the exclusive on what now (and next) for cosmetics

Can We Do Without The Hype?

Yoon Ahn is something of a generational definer with a firm place in both the intensely masculine world of streetwear as co-founder of the label ambush and the historically bourgeois realm of high fashion as jewellery director at dior homme. Now, she’s teamed up with bvlgari on a reinterpretation of its signature serpenti forever handbag. Gordon ng probes this extremely in-demand creative’s mind on the future of collaborations and building a business on hype.

What Do People Really Want From Luxury Fashion?

Singapore-based blogger Bagaholicboy, who’s been educating people on how to shop and chronicling “our never-ending quest” for the best designer bags and “life’s little luxuries” on his eponymous website since 2007, gives his take.

Confessions Of A Young Fashion Designer

With an artful eye, a penchant for sculptural silhouettes and an unapologetic flamboyance, recent fashion graduate samuel xun has been lauded as being among the most promising names in his cohort. Here’s what the 25-year-old wants those aspiring to join the business – or who simply want to understand the Singapore fashion scene – to know.

Should One Even Consider Fashion School?

As a founding member of the Singapore art-meets-streetwear label mash-up, co-host of the fashion-focused podcast ‘in the vitrine’, researcher, curator and fashion lecturer at lasalle college of the arts Daniela monasterios tan offers some wise words.

Face Time

Has work-from-home culture taken the magic out of women’s makeup routines (and the cosmetics industry in general)? Beauty buff Aileen Lalor zooms in on what covid has meant for the lipstick effect.

Bedtime Story

It’s the little brown bottle of a serum that was reportedly the first created to repair skin as one snoozes in bed at night. Several cutting-edge, best-selling reformulations after, its latest update taps onto epigenetics to supposedly make one look even more youthful upon waking. Aileen lalor delves into the science of estee lauder’s advanced night repair and its promise of beauty sleep.

Understanding Breast Cancer

Cancer is a condition where abnormal cells divide uncontrollably and destroy body tissue.

Citizens Of The World

According to reports, there are 217,200 singaporeans living abroad. The five individuals from the creative industries featured here are among them and span the berlin-based global sales director of one of fashion’s most successful cult luxury labels to an up-and-coming stylist in shanghai. All of them have remained overseas despite the pandemic. Here, excerpts from their interviews about how they’ve put the “home” into their adopted homelands.

What Is Home, Truly?

Three Singapore female artists show us their interpretation.

Breast Cancer: Landscape and Perceptions of Younger Women

Young women may think that they are too young to get cancer. They are likely to be busy with their career, marriage or setting up a new family. Cancer awareness remains low on their list of priorities. So when it hits, the blow might come even harder.

La Vie En Rouge

“Red is intense, vulnerable, sexual and eternal. There is strength and emotion, warmth and disruption in red. It is a colour that has both a sense of the real and the radical,” says Lucia Pica, global creative makeup and colour designer of Chanel.

What The Female Team Is Into Now

What The Female Team Is Into Now

l.A. Confidential

The buzzy pop culture-influenced, candy colour-loving multimedia artist alex israel has made his hometown of los angeles both his muse and subject. Last year, he got to apply his dreamy vision to fragrance packaging when louis vuitton introduced cologne perfumes, a triptych of evocative scents inspired by America’s golden state. As the brand continues the tie-up with a fourth scent, california dream, revealed this month, keng yang shuen gets the exclusive from israel on his perennial love affair with la – and evolving one with perfumes and collaborations.

Notions Of Intimacy

One’s the young danish designer charming industry insider types with her pretty, artisanally made dresses that fuse the child-like with the conceptual. The other is the Singapore footwear label that’s gone from fast-fashion favourite to global titan in just over two decades. Who would have thought that cecilie bahnsen would be Charles & Keith’s first designer collaborator? Yet as she and emmanuelle macedriskill – the shoe brand’s executive director of planning & product strategy – tell keng yang shuen, this recently launched coupling could just be the way forward with its rewriting of femininty and environmentally conscious ethos.