The sole Duck store in Singapore at Haji Lane quietly exited the market two months ago

The now-closed Duck store in Haji Lane. File photo: Awang Sulung for SOTD

Vivy Yusof’s head-scarf brand, Duck, was an online business when it launched in 2014. Not long after, their products shipped to Singapore, to the delight of many of Ms Yusof’s fans, many of whom have followed her when she started as a blogger in 2010 while she was furthering her studies in London. Her blog page was known as Proudduck. But Ms Yusof had bigger plans for her brand: She wanted to expand it overseas. Just four years later, she opened the label’s first Singapore store in Haji Lane, as a sort of springboard for her international expansion. Now, 11 years later, the store is closed. There is no longer physical presence of Duck on our island.

Butik Duck opened in Haji Lane in 2018. At that time, the Malay media reported that Ms Yusof chose the unit because of the architecture of the street. Haji Lane, rejuvenated in the early 2000s, is not what it used to be. Back in 2005, one little pop-up store kicked off the coolness of the relatively narrow street: the Comme des Garçons Guerrilla Store. Although that was just a one-year affair, Haji Lane soon became the hipsters’ go-to hub for fashion without the same price tag as the Japanese brand. One of the most popular stores at the time was the anything-goes Soon Lee, purveyor of vintage-y clothes and and kindred “lifestyle products” for those into “finds”. But that “happening” reputation of Haji Lane soon dissipated.

The interior of Duck that customers found to be “classy”. File photo: Awang Sulung for SOTD

Despite its curiously kampung name, Duck was deemed to be the most high-end in Haji Lane, which by then, was increasingly catering to a clientele that once crowded the street in the ’60s and the ’70s. Historically, the shop houses here were also rumah tumpangans (boarding houses) for Muslim pilgrims gathering to head for the haj (pilgrimage) in Mecca. Today, it’s a fascinating enclave of Muslim businesses, from feysen to F&B. Although hers was not the only store that served the fashion needs of Muslim women, Duck was instantly recognizable and encouraged considerable delight, as evidenced by the many who stopped in front of the shop to capture a selfie. However, not as numerous, from our own observation, entered the kedai (shop).

Duck in Haji Lane was, in fact, in two sites. When it first opened, it occupied a unit that was, in 2021, repurposed for the “affordable” sister brand Lilit. The restless waterfowl moved to a bigger, two-level unit in the same year, diagonally across the original, closer to North Bridge Road. The new space was, according to Ms Yusof, twice the size of the previous. While the first was clearly set up with a small budget, the second attempted to emanate the atas vibe that the brand was associated with. It was awash with the patina of its corporate colour: purple. This time, Duck offered a wider merchandise mix. Apart from the brand’s famous head scarves (and the Scarf Library), there were apparel, halal makeup, and home ware too. Sibling Lilit, however, did not last very long. We have no information regarding its fate.

The former Duck store today. Photo: Chin Boh Kay

A staffer in the current shop next door helpfully told us that Duck surreptitiously closed about two months ago. She was not able to say why, but told us that if we wanted to get tudungs (head scarves) to try other stores nearby, such as Tudung People, on the parallel Arab Street. Are they any good? “They are similar to Duck,” she told us, as if they was an assurance we needed. On the day we were at Haji Lane, three weeks back, we could hear some shoppers reacting: “Huh, sudah tutup? (Closed already)?” We asked a woman no more than thirty why she was surprised, and she replied: “Their things are nice, but too expensive for me.” Could that be a reason why they shuttered? “I think they have business problems. They are not doing well in Malaysia. I read, lah!”

Ms Yusof, who counts Love, Bonito’s co-founder Rachel Lim her “fav Singaporean”, thought our city would be a gateway to something bigger for her. She told CNA in 2023, two years after the new Duck store opened: “The vision for Duck is to become a leading premium modest fashion brand globally, since there isn’t one currently.” She was confident that what she had conceived would work. “We came at the right time, and we hit the right spot.” That was until what she and her husband/business partner Fadzarudin Anuar called a “failure”—both were charged with criminal breach of trust involving RM8 million from investment funds, furnished by Khazanah Nasional Berhad and Permodalan Nasional Berhad, into their initial business FashionValet (it sold Duck and Lilit products too). Duck did not appear to be able to survive the scandal. Here, it clearly did not.