Crafting a Dynamic Singapore Fashion Identity

CRAFTING A
DYNAMIC SINGAPORE
FASHION IDENTITY

In attempts to define the Singapore fashion identity, we sometimes ask if there is one to speak of. While “non-Western” fashion has often been considered static or derivative, the decolonial turn in academic research gives space for us to question this throwaway conclusion.

LECTURER, FASHION

LASALLE COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

SECTION 06

NADYA
WANG

#SGFASHIONNOW aims to give a response by focusing on the role of craft in Singapore fashion. Craft is at its simplest definition is “to make objects, especially in a skilled way”,1 and in the exhibition, we see dresses from Lai Chan, Ong Shunmugam, Time Taken to Make a Dress, Studio HHFZ, Andrew Gn, Stylemart, Carol Chen and Baëlf Design showcasing some of the best work that the Singapore fashion community has to offer today.

Singapore fashion designers are adept at using crafts from Southeast Asia in the work they put out. This can be understood through Motti Regev’s (2007) idea of “aesthetic cosmopolitanism”, which is “the condition in which the representation and performance of ethno-national cultural uniqueness are largely based on art forms that are created by contemporary technologies of expression, and whose expressive forms include stylistic elements knowingly drawn from sources exterior to indigenous traditions”.2 I argue that Singapore fashion designers cut, arrange and paste creatively from an array of disparate sources from Singapore and the wider Southeast Asian region, including techniques, textiles and silhouettes to create original, sophisticated products of cultural hybridity.

#SGFASHIONNOW aims to give a
response by focusing on the role of craft
in Singapore fashion

This has been the modus operandi for local fashion designers for decades, as we can see in pieces by Vicki Dutton in the 1960s, Roland Chow in the 1960s and 1970s, and Tan Yoong in the 1980s, to name but a few examples. They have led the way in selecting elements from the region to craft unique pieces that celebrate the rich heritage of fashion in the region. Dutton created hybrid outfits, putting the mandarin collar of the qipao with the skirt of a sarong kebaya, for instance, or adding in elements from the region, such as the balloon-like sleeves of the Filipino terno dress.3 Chow employed the same mix-and-match methodology while making sure his creations were in line with the latest from the fashion cities, such as using the qipao silhouette and adding French lace.4

LEFT: “Fashion Fling,” Her World, July, 1961, 10
RIGHT: “Wearable Art,” Her World Annual 1987, 53.

They also bring to life ideas from fields other than fashion. Tan was particularly adept at creating interesting surfaces, such as a skilfully pleated silk organza blouse hand-painted in a delicate gradient of pastel blue and purple.5 This was made after the Singapore artist Eng Tow’s textile relief Four Winds (1982), which he had seen at the Asian Contemporary Art Exhibition in 1986. Dutton, Chow and Tan, among other Singapore designers, were actively searching for and crafting their individual brand identities, and in doing so, contributed to a collective Singapore fashion identity which was based on an informed and inspired collage approach. This was a skill which enabled them to create fashionable outfits that balanced the traditional and the modern, winning them admiring – and oftentimes loyal – customers.

We are seeing a return to craft in fashion design in recent years as an antidote to fast fashion. Tara Mayer situated the emergence of the luxury fashion industry in India against the social and cultural history of colonial rule, the aesthetic and industrial legacies of the independence movement, and the revival of various Indian craft traditions.6 But this is not relegated to India alone. Orsola Castro, Co-Founder of Fashion Craft Revolution wrote about the global move: “Reclaiming traditions and skills, and respecting people and processes, is the perfect antidote to today’s accelerated rhythms, and many of us have our own familial or community heritage craft hand-print to inspire us: it’s about unravelling this thread,
looking back and moving forward.7 We can observe
this trend in Singapore as well through the exhibits in #SGFASHIONNOW. Lai Chan’s ethereal qipao is carefully and patiently conceptualised and realised as a confection of pearls, appliques, sequins, beads, threads and tulle applied by hand on a netting fabric. The result is a highly detailed qipao that well represents a craftsman’s dedication to the qipao form over a long, illustrious career.

The same can be said for the other qipaos in the exhibition from Letitia Phay and Jade Swee of Time Taken to Make a Dress, Priscilla Shunmugam from Ong Shunmugam and Hu Ruixian at Studio HHFZ. Far from being repetitive of each other, we see the possibilities that the timeless silhouette offers through the craftsmanship of each designer. This ranges from the use of tassels and dye with the Time Taken to Make a Dress custom-made qipao to the unexpected cape pairing with the Ong Shunmugam bespoke qipao to the digital print based off an illustration by Ly Yeow to craft into a qipao with a positive message from Studio HHFZ’s More Than That collection.

#SGFASHIONNOW gives a definitive perspective on what the Singapore fashion identity could be.

Singapore fashion does not necessarily reside within the geographical confines of the island-city, but a dedication to craft remains at the centre of the practices of Andrew Gn, who has been based in Paris since the 1990s, Kavita Thulasidas at Stylemart, a family business with its roots in India, Carol Chen who has a Taiwanese-American background but now works in Singapore, and Jamela Law and Lionel Wong of Baëlf Design, whose studio is based in Hong Kong.

The elegant simplicity of Gn’s dress from the Spring/Summer 2021 May There be Light collection reflects the precise execution of his ideas. And in Thulasidas and Chen’s dresses, we see eclectic mixes of techniques that put the old and the new together. Thulasidas has used Parsi Gara embroidery for the Eternal Weaves (2019) sarong kebaya-sari hybrid, hand-sewn in India and put together by the designer in her atelier in Singapore. Similarly, Chen has employed traditional Zardozi embroidery together with trendier methods such as the use of recycled fabric and laser-cutting for her take on hybridity in her debut collection Neoterica (2020), which won her the Singapore Stories competition organised by the Textile and Fashion Federation of Singapore (TaFF). And Law and Wong have synthesised ideas taken from Jing costumes in Chinese opera through 3-D generative design in a tradition-meets-the-future creation from their Anthropology of Cultural Dementia collection.

#SGFASHIONNOW exhibition gives a definitive perspective on what the Singapore fashion identity could be. It is not static but dynamic, and never derivative, but reflective of the Singapore fashion designers’ savvy in crafting unique pieces that represents the cultural hybridity of Singapore fashion.

1 See definition of “craft” in the Cambridge Dictionary.

2 See Motti Regev’s explanation in"Cultural Uniqueness and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism", especially on 126.

3 An example can be seen in “Fashion Fling,” Her World, July, 1961, 10.

4 An example can be seen in Fashion Fling,” Her World, January, 1963, 9.

5 An example can be seen in “Wearable Art,” Her World Annual 1987, 53.

6 See Tara Mayer’s essay "From Craft to Couture: Contemporary Indian Fashion in Historical Perspective” on the role of craft in contemporary Indian fashion.

7 Read Orsola Castro essay “Crafts in the Age of the Anthropocene”, which sheds light on the role of craft in global contemporary fashion.

REFERENCES

Castro, Orsola. de. 2019. “Crafts in the Age of the Anthropocene.” Fashion Craft Revolution. https://www.fashionrevolution.org/buy-fanzine-004-fashion-craft-revolution/. Accessed Apr 18, 2021.

Mayer, Tara. "From Craft to Couture: Contemporary Indian Fashion in Historical Perspective." South Asian Popular Culture 16.2-3 (2018): 183-198.

Regev, Motti. "Cultural Uniqueness and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism." European Journal of Social Theory 10.1 (2007): 123-138.

Further Reading

Wang, Nadya. "Country Review: Singapore." Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: South Asia and Southeast Asia. Ed. Jasleen Dhamija. Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. Bloomsbury Fashion Central.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781847888532.EDch41811. Accessed Apr 18, 2021.

Wang, Nadya. "Snapshot: Priscilla Shunmugam." Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: South Asia and Southeast Asia. Ed. Jasleen Dhamija. Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. Bloomsbury Fashion Central.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781847888532.EDch41813. Accessed Apr 18, 2021.