One, a couture wearer, met with an unimaginably brutal death. The other, an influencer/bar hostess, behaved so badly to security personnel and nursing staff that she was fined and jailed, and deported. This year, both women aroused immense interest in their different lives and different fates

Back to normal was supposed to be how 2023 would largely turn out in a year when “quiet luxury” (but not necessarily worn or adopted quietly) had reigned. With many—way too many, some say—travelling again, shopping and buying are, as a consequence, back. There are almost no empty spaces in malls (Raffles City and Wisma Atria have even undergone refurbishments), as it was during the pandemic years. Brands are, in fact, looking for even more square metres than what were offered to them. Nike, soon to open their first street-fronting flagship on Orchard Road, could be the most visible exemplar of the big-is-better tenant. So clement the retail climate has been that some brands that left us, have returned, such as Marimekko and Benetton. But, whether we would be bombarded with just merchandise in the malls remains to be seen.

Whatever was happening on the retail—or trend—front, those who visited our site seemed to prefer reading about the people behind some of the headline news of the year, whether they have a large part to play in fashion, or not. Many SOTD readers were keen to know who the murdered Hong Kong socialite and couture customer Abby Choi (蔡天凤, Cai Tianfeng) was and who the mainland Chinese influencer Han Feizi (韩霏紫) is after she foolishly shared a video of her run-in with an investigating officer following her reprehensible behaviour at Singapore General Hospital. At first, the post on Ms Choi was attracting the views. The Making Of Abby Choi stayed at the top of the most-read for seven months until we published the post Outbreak In A Hospital: Who is Han Feizi? in mid-October. The viewership for the latter quickly shot up. In ten days, it reached the fifth most read. By the end of that month, it scaled the very top. And at the end of the year, it enjoys 275% more views than the previous No. 1. In fact, at second place is also another piece on Ms Han: Hostess Han Feizi. That is followed by the murdered model post and then Abby Choi’s Husband Opened Up, Slightly. In the fifth place, a story about someone connected with the Abby Choi case: Influencer Implicated.

One reader wrote to berate us about that most-read; the personage described it as a “gossipy post”

But not everyone enjoyed reading our posts on the two women and the people connected to them, or considered what we shared suitable for—or germane to—SOTD. One irate reader wrote to berate us about that most-read; the personage described it as a “gossipy post”. In fact, he/she instructed us: “keep a tighter rein on the topics you cover”, and criticised that “it’s all over the place”. What is? We are not so clear, and less so since we do not answer to a higher command. To us, fashion is more than just the clothes that folks buy or the trends that fashionistas lap up. It is also about the business, the media, and the community, and the people who consume fashion, whether as a wealthy individual or an influencer who moonlights as a bar hostess. In fact, one of the popular reads till today since its publication three years ago is about a person: Atypical Asian Pick At Burberry. Was The New York Times, we wonder, gossiping when they reported in October on the scandalous backstory of Kanye West’s partnership with Adidas that eventually, and spectacularly, failed?

It was supposed to be a year that we could be proud of a Singaporean-made-good overseas. Never have we had a retrospective of a Singaporean designer staged in a major museum on our shores. In May, the Asian Civilisations Museum put together Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World. We have never covered Mr Gn before and we thought that we should, since he has brought glory to our island nation, where fashion is really not considered big of a deal or to have far-reaching benefits. So, we ran four posts on the event. Curiously, they were the least read, and the total views of all four did not come close to the total of the top of the year. It was suggested to us that perhaps very few people know of Andrew Gn (even when ACM has ardently called him “one of Singapore’s most successful exports”). If that is true, his recent “bidding au revoir” just five months after the expensive retrospective may mean that not many more would.

In August, we celebrated the tenth year of SOTD. And it has been the best year since our quiet inception in 2013: The site has enjoyed an encouraging 35% increase in total views over the last year. The continued boost in readership goes on to show us that there is an appetite for what we cover, especially in the long form. We hope you’ll not cease to enjoy reading our posts, even if they’re “gossipy”, as much as we have in bringing them to you, wherever in the fraught or fashionable world you might be.