Photo @uuanjie/ The Authority
Pop quiz: Name five Singapore menswear labels. Now, name three local menswear designers. Are you familiar with Kane Tan and Sven Tan of In Good Company? How about Kenny and Andrew of local streetwear label, Depression? Wykidd Song? Our unfamiliarity with these brands and their designers are why Singapore menswear designers are not earning big bucks, and there is more to this.
Singapore men dress according to our four seasons of summer: moderately hot, hot, very hot, and scorching. As a result, our wardrobe repertoire is limited to T-shirts, linen shirts, shorts, and jeans. Stating the obvious, local men always opt for function over fashion, stocking their closets with “uniforms” (pairing different permutations of basic tees in various hues of the rainbow with jeans counts as a type of dressing up), thus rendering fashion trends irrelevant. The blatant disregard of any silhouette outside these “standard-issue” pieces creates a limitation for Singapore’s menswear designers, despite the burgeoning demand for menswear.
Even when the invitation card reads “formal” or “black tie”, and men are required to dress up, they often leave local designers out of their consideration. They tend to swing between the two extremes of buying an off-the-rack suit from mass retailers or go for a made-to-order suit. To the function-over-fashion man, the former is an attractive proposition as he feels he will probably wear the suit only once. The latter also appeals to the same cerebral cortex because a suit made to perfection can be worn to all formal events for the rest of his life. Has he ever considered having a suit made by a local tailor to provide variety and style in a sea of black suits? What happened to the peacock mentality of Singapore men?
Apart from their choices in fashion, many men also think that local designers do not need any support from the general population due to the fog of glamour shrouding fashion – celebrity and socialite clientèle, overflowing champagne glasses, and endless media attention. Local designers are seen as being rich and have rich friends supporting their labels anyway. However, this is far from reality for many humble designers, who outnumber their wealthy peers.
Read the full article in Men’s Folio August, The Heroes Issue.
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