This December has been a strange month to close the year. The fashion industry here has lost at least three of its notables, all within the very last week of 2022. On Monday, we learned that one of the top models of ’70s Mimi Tan passed away. And then just four days later, we heard that the veteran fashion journalist Cat Ong, who co-penned the book Fashion Most Wanted, departed. Moments after, we learned that Tang Wee Sung, credited for bringing one of Singapore’s oldest department stores CK Tang into the modern age, left too. Even for the strongest among us, such information is not easy to digest. It is truly, for a serious lack of a better phrase, the passing of an era.

We know it is not terribly upbeat to talk about demise in welcoming the New Year, but perhaps the recent confluence of deaths, including, in the UK, that of Vivienne Westwood, does remind us to be grateful for what we have, however wide the extent or small the constituents. This past year has been a strange one, with unequal parts of the good and the bad, and the downright awful. But, we are grateful of the support we have received from the increasingly large number of readers of SOTD. This year, we have achieved the highest number of views since our inception in 2013. From this, we are confident that the long reads that we have been sharing isn’t, as it is commonly thought, disfavoured. A heartfelt thanks to all our readers. And a Happy New Year.

Photo illustration: Jim Sim