Shopping Online

Gone Quietly

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Elaine Heng’s digital-native Ilo the Label is shut, just a year after she started it

Click on the New In tab, and “0 products” is shown

It left as discreetly as it arrived. Ilo the Label—influencer Elaine Heng’s rookie hand at fashion retail—has stopped trading. The eponymous website is now only a landing page, with a still banner offering a “10% off when you purchase Tasha Twist Front Top & Tina Mermaid Midi Skirt as a set!” No Tasha or companion Tina is available. Oddly, a video from her last season—“Citrus Summer: 07.07.2020” remains. We noticed this non-activity at least four months ago at the eponymous website, but we thought it was going through some maintenance or renewal exercise. But it seems that isn’t quite the case. At the end of January, Ilo the Label shared on Facebook what was their “third and final Chinese New Year collection”. Their concluding post on Instagram was a photo of an off-shoulder romper on 7 February. Ms Heng’s last post with the hashtag #lovebyilo was 12 days later. The last of the #happyilogirls to share on IG (also in February) did so to announce that she was selling an Ilo the Label jumpsuit. Since March, we also noticed a rise in viewership on our post of the birth of Ilo the Label, resulting from searches on Ms Heng’s clothing business. Shoppers or the simply-curious could be wondering what happened to the “fashion brand that cares about your feelings”, according to the label’s self-description.

Back in March this year, Elaine Heng (aka Elaine Jasmine or Elaine Ruimin [瑞敏], depending on the stage of the influencer’s digital life; on YouTube she’s also known as Elaineypoop) posted on IG a photograph of herself and a rack of three dresses (followed by four more snaps in that one post, showing her work space being cleared out), with an accompanying farewell message: “Bidding goodbye to my first ever office space.” In the rather lengthy post, she also wrote: “Such a bittersweet feeling because there’s been so much memories and emotions experienced in this humble space.” That spot of humility was in Kallang Place, in the Four Star Building, owned by the people behind Four Star Mattress. (Strangely, she thanked the company that renovated her office when she was closing it!). Spaceportal describes what could be seen from the building as such: “…the stunning view of the Kallang Stadium along Kallang river is spectacular and well appreciated by our tenants, some call it a ‘fireworks view’”.

If Elaine Heng fashioned Ilo the Label after her own cheery personal style, she might not have realised that, some time down the road, the jelak factor would just as happily set in

Launched on 18 March last year after two years of gestation, Ilo the Label was met with less fanfare: no fireworks. Essentially an online brand, the collections were available through their own website shortly before last year’s Circuit Breaker was implemented. They were heavily touted on the brand’s IG pages, as well as on Ms Heng’s own IG account, where she continually posted photos of herself, looking vivacious, in her own label, as well as of her friends wearing the same, such as fellow influencer Melissa Jane Ferosha (何青燕 or He Qingyan). As we understood it, Ms Heng did not design the collections: she had what was described as “a team of designers”. One fashion buyer we spoke to said that the brand did not seem to be “conceived to last. It is really hard to sell very similar things, season after season. How many rompers and jumpsuits do you really need?” If Elaine Heng fashioned Ilo the Label after her own cheery personal style, as it appeared, she might not have considered that, some time down the road, the jelak factor would just as happily set in.

Another victim of the pandemic? It is hard to say. Ilo the Label is available only online—and just that one point of sale. It has no physical store. According to Globaldata figures published last year, Singapore’s online sales were set to hit S$9.5 billion, despite the pandemic. Singstat data showed that by the time we came to last November, we reached “an estimated total retail sales value” of “about $3.6 billion. Of these, online retail sales made up an estimated 14.3%, higher than the 10.5% recorded in October 2020”. It would appear to be relatively encouraging then for those brands who were available online. In that March IG post to announce that she was clearing out of her Kallang Place office, Elaine Heng wrote: “now that the one year (sic) lease has ended, it’s time to move on to a new space & look forward to better things ahead”. That did not sound like Ilo the Label would be totally folded. But just a month later, she posted (also on IG) about “trying to juggle between my new full time job & night grooming course”. Ilo the Label’s bland positioning might have been eternal-blooms-in-solar-radiance but, alas, like many flowers, is monocarpic—bloom, seed, and then die. Quite the contrary to their early upbeat belief that “the flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days.”

Screen grab: ilothelabel.com

Opens With A Sale

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Robinsons Online’s much-awaited launch starts with platform-wide mark down. The opening “sale worth waiting for”?

They were supposed to go online at 3pm this afternoon; they were two minutes early—off to a good start. Robinsons is back, and, not just with merchandise that presumably many desire, but with considerable discounting: “up to 60%”, according to the very large, very prominent, very dark banner image cum headline on its homepage. Everyone loves a bargain, we have often been told, but by re-emerging with a sale, is Robinsons positioning itself as a regular discounter? Or is this what managing director Jordan Prainito calls, in a media release, “compelling value curation strategy”? The business of e-tailing is often said to be price sensitive. Robinsons appears ready to go down with their prices to stay up. Despite a reminder that the store was “established in 1858” at the start, alongside the assurance of fast shipping and 30-day returns, it seems that department store’s storied past has to take a back seat to a “relaunch sale”, the tried strategy to incentivise visitors to the site to make a purchase so that they might become long-term customers, which in turn justifies the cost of the discounts dangled.

Online sales seem omnipresent these days. E-commerce and aggregator platforms are pushing substantial discounts more than ever (the just concluded, or still on-going for some, 6.6 Sale!!!). Competing sales from other online retailers (Zalora’s Big Fashion Sale also begins today!) are making Robinsons’s opening salvo not only less special, but uninteresting too. Click on the Shop Now button on the sale banner and you’re immediately linked to the All Sale page. The first 157 products—skincare/hair/grooming—are reminiscent of the old physical store’s personal care department (known to be among their best-performing), with the same, familiar brands. Exciting. But you would require the patience of a praying mantis to scroll right to the very bottom of this page. Products after products with no particular order will pass you by, namely in the categories of skincare and haircare, toddlers and kids, supplements and healthcare, home and bedding. A total of 2,215 sale products are listed, requiring you to scroll through 554 rows of merchandise, if you are viewing on your PC, or double that, if you are swiping up on your smartphone. It took us the entire length of Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour album (a good 38 minutes of fast index finger movement on the scroll wheel of our mouse) to come the end. As she sang, “god, it’s brutal out here”.

If you are not interested in the discounts and want to discover the merchandise, the e-store is not fully opened. Click on the Women tab on the navigation bar, the menu will drop, offering eight categories. We pick “Women’s International Brand Apparel” and are directed to a page that reads: No products found in this collection. We hit the back button and repeat the earlier action and then we now see the discreet “Coming soon!” text next to all the seven sub-categories—51 in total for the Women department, but only four can be found with merchandise, namely underclothes and hosiery. A source later told us that this is “Phase 1” of the opening and they will be “onboarding in the next few days”. Undeterred, we decide to try Beauty. The product placement here is rather odd. We go directly to the page, bypassing the sub-categories. Beauty opens without an enticing header-visual. We are immediately met with health supplements, the first item Herbs of Gold’s Liver Care 60s! As it turns out, most of the merchandise are found in The Bedshop (no surprise there: Robinsons Online is owned by Canningvale Australia, a leading maker and retailer of bedsheets and towels), and Home and Tech. Fashion shoppers come back later.

The fervent push for retail to go digital is a bummer for the offline romantics among us. Robinsons Online is a reminder that we can no longer feel for the store the way we did, to hold it in the esteem reserved for grand dames. Historic it may be, and an institution it might have been, but Robinson Online is a totally new store, bereft of the sentiments its physical self once stirred. Earlier press advisory described its reincarnation as “a fully digital, state-of-the-art, vertically integrated online department store”, with an emphasis on how easy it is to navigate: just scroll down. The result is a cold screenful that corresponds with the anatomy of a great homepage, but evoke no emotion that would spur positive user experience. Thinking that it might be different on a smartphone, we take to our Galaxy S21 for a (re)visit. Although optimised for the small screen, the site now looks oddly condensed. The strolling gets even more tedious. What’s frankly annoying is the repeated popping up of a window that asks us to subscribe to their ”marketing communications” in exchange for ”$10 off at checkout when you spend $100 or more.” We hope this is a work in progress.

Physical retail appeals to emotions. The proverbial “theatre of retail” that successful stores adopt makes the emotional connection. The rebranded Robinsons at The Heeren in 2013 had that, so much so that we considered it the best department store here at that time. Admittedly, it is difficult—some say impossible—to recreate this relationship online. Many e-tailers think it’s all about merchandise and if you flood your space with products, shoppers will visit. But increasingly, the talk is about building “emotional motivators”, even online. Perhaps Robinsons Online is new and there is, as it appears, the rush to open, but it is dismal that the transition to e-commerce is just that: a digital exercise. Or, has “compelling value curation strategy” overtaken strategic goals that should have also spanned the customer journey? Price is prime? Sure, many of today’s shoppers still go after a good deal, but when it comes to the online environment that encourages them to stay and return, it is still a memorable experience that many desire. We know we do. Robinsons Online might benefit from offering virtual shopping that is experiential rather than merely transactional.

The reality is that people and brands still connect to the Robinsons name. The Straits Times, for example, is curiously fixated with Robinsons, like the many women who can’t forget Robinsons once had a haberdashery and fabric department. Since the announcement of the last two stores’ closure in late October last year, they have run nearly a dozen stories with the name in its headline. No other department store enjoys such exposure, especially posthumously. Two consecutive days prior to today’s rebirth online, a pair of articles about Robinsons were published. Perhaps none want the return of Robinsons—owned by foreigners in succession since 2008—more than ST. Now, the onus is really on Robinsons’s Aussie owners Canningvale Australia to truly elevate one of our beloved brands, and a national newspaper’s, to a first-rate digital entity many more would love to embrace again, rather than mirroring their own home-turf site. We can wait.

Screen grabs: robinsons.com.sg

Robinsons To Be Resurrected

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…as an online store on 24 June. It is now owned by the Australian family behind Canningvale sheets

The news was released to the media just after eight this morning. The reactivated landing page was published “late last night”, according to a source. Three weeks ago, just after Phase 2 (Heightened Alert), talk was emerging that Robinsons could come back as an e-tailer. Some brands had been asked if they would like to sell through the new e-commerce site, which was marketed as “tightly curated”, one merchandise manager told us. Some former suppliers to Robinsons thought they were only “conducting a market study”. Six months after the sudden announcement of the total closure of Robinsons in late October last year, the brand is now back, but only with an online presence. Or, as described in the media advisory, “a fully digital, state-of-the-art, vertically integrated online department store.”

The return of Robinsons surprised industry watchers. While it is understandable that an online retail model is viable and right for the present time, it is also rather curious that Robinsons would stage a comeback at all, considering that their abrupt shutting down of their last two stores—in The Heeren and Raffles City—after 162 years of existence (that saw them survive two World War II bombings and a massive fire that razed their Raffles Place flagship in 1972) was not especially graceful or thought to be sympathetic to consignors and customers (particularly those who had paid for mattresses and not received them). But one retail veteran told us, “Robinsons has history behind it. Its name won’t be tainted. Singaporeans are sentimental.”

Robinsons shuttered for good in January. Its return—which the Australian media calls “rescue”—is led by Canningvale Australia, a manufacturer and retailer (online) of sheets and towels, and fabric goods, conceived “to make luxury homewares attainable”, according to the company’s vision statement. Canningvale’s former managing director Jordan Prainito (he now holds the same position at the newly named Robinsons Online) will lead the operations in Singapore. Mr Prainito is a third generation member of the family that founded Canningvale in 1997, when Italian father-and-son refugees from Libya started a terry cloth weaving factory in Perth that emerged to be Australia’s “main towel company”. It is widely reported that Canningvale is “one of the fastest-growing digital retailers in Australia”. According to the press release, the company “evolved from a wholesale supplier into a multi-million-dollar business in just five years”. Business News Australia reported that Mr Prainito led Canningvale Australia’s digital transformation since 2016. During this time, the company’s “e-commerce turnover surged tenfold”.

The Canningvale website. Would Robinsons Online look like this?

Mr Prainito is no stranger to our city. As reported, he did his tertiary education here and knew of Robinsons and the subsequent failure. He told Australian Financial Review, “When we heard the news it had collapsed, we had a chat as a family and I said it’s an amazing brand and an amazing heritage—why don’t we throw our hat in the ring and see what comes of it.” Robinsons was part of the Dubai-based Al Futtaim Group for 13 years. Sometime in the mid-2000s, it was rumoured that Thailand’s Central Retail Corporation (which owns and operates a local department store chain Robinson—without the ‘S’, apart from the more upscale Central) had shown interest in acquiring Robinsons, but dropped the idea because the asking price was too high. The sale to Canningvale—value not disclosed—includes the domain names for Singapore and Malaysia, customer data base, and some 50 product names, presumably former Robinsons house brands. It is not known if those names will be brought back.

Canningvale initially manufactured for bedding company such as Sheridan and fashion labels such as Country Road. They’ve now their own product ranges and are available mainly through the company’s website and select specialty retailers and department stores. Over here, Canningvale sheets and towels are stocked at Tangs and Courts, as well as on e-commerce platforms Amazon and Lazada. Those who were aware that Canningvale were behind Robinsons Online had, in fact, wondered if the e-store would be similar to Canningvale’s own, and if the latter’s merchandise would dominate. Might the emphasis then be on home goods? According to the press release, 200 “specially-curated” brands, including homegrown ones, will be made available. Names have not presently been offered. In addition, Robinsons Online “will present price-sensitive customers with a value oriented, rationalised product offering”. It is not unreasonable to assume that “price-sensitive customers” means bargain hunters. Or is that based on what Jordan Prainito calls “forensic focus on our customers”? Even in the present time of Trace Together, that reveal is oddly discomforting.

Watch this space for our review of Robinsons Online. Photo: file. Photo illustration: SOTD. Screen grab (below): Canningvale

The Uptick From The Umbrage

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One trending word, now happily used and proudly worn

By Bu Shikong

As a nation, we’re hardly ever affected by single words, nor pairs. Ex-Mediacorp stars can start a food business with the curse-turn-oxymoron Sibay Shiok, but no one’s undies are caught in a knot. When former military man, now SPH’s CEO, Ng Yat Chung indignantly brandished “umbrage”—twice!—in response to CNA reporter Chew Huimin’s question, many people are piqued. The uncle’s contempt at the press conference was, for sure, unmistakable. However, it was not just how garang he was that people reacted to, but the word choice (choice word?) as well. This morning, The Sunday Times reported that that one beautiful word very quickly led to a 200,000-plus searches on Google that day: what did Mr Ng really take? What was given? People were burning with curiosity.

In one Coconuts report I read, it was noted that “many Singaporeans have never even heard of the word until it got a mention at the company’s press conference…” With the Speak Good English Movement still running this year’s campaign, Let’s Connect, Let’s Speak Good English, on TV, that is hardly surprising. But the memes and jokes that emerged have somehow diluted the kau-ness of the fury. And the retailers that have been quick to turn this into a money-making opportunity have only made a word expressing no ordinary anger funny. Since yesterday morning, I have been inundated with photos of and links to the availability of T-shirts with ‘umbrage’ emblazoned across the chest, as well as marketing campaigns enjoying the use of what Asiaone called “word of the day”.

It is rather puzzling that the lead time for producing garments, bags, and cups could be this short. Clicking on a Lazada ad on my social media site, I was brought to a page of a selection of merchandise—six different pieces in all. There is a three-product ‘line’ known as “Umbrage Dictionary”, offered by sellers that appear to be in the digital printing business. Things the now-shuttered-for-good Naiise would have gladly taken in. When I looked closely at the images on the website, I could see that the U-word had been superimposed on the images of standard-issue crew-neck tees. This is likely a print-on-order product line, which could explain how they managed to put umbrage out almost as soon as Ng Yat Chung was susceptible enough take it. But I wonder if more umbrage would be taken if he has read how the seller’s lexicographer defined the word that had a nation talking and dissing.

Those who don’t find charm or humour in this meaning of the hot noun may aquire some other at the National Library. I always thought that our flagship public library is staid. Well, it isn’t. A new display to entice you to their books was very recently set up: “Umbrage And Other Words You Should Know”. An orgiastic grouping for those who would relate to titles such as Word Nerd. But if you need to take knowledge-seeking to social media, enter ‘umbrage’ in Facebook search—the result will tell you the word is “popular now”, just as another phrase is: Umbrage Singapore. As it turns out, this is “a group for Singaporeans who want to take umbrage at anything and anyone”, created just a day after Mr Ng’s heated retort. It is understandable why his rebuke has generated so much reactions. It wasn’t just the use of an uncommonly-mouthed word, it was also the near-bullying way that he spoke it, which included the delectable and by-then-obvious admission that he is not a gentleman.

But not everyone thinks the umbrage was unwisely taken. The former journalist Bertha Henson, who, as one online description enthused, covered “Singapore developments for the Singapore Press Holdings stable of newspapers for 26 years”, took a more contrary view. In her blog Bertha Harian (Bertha Daily, a pun on the Malay-language broadsheet Berita Harian or Daily News), Ms Henson wrote in the piece “It…could be… a new beginning for news media here”, shared a day after the incident of the CEO and the journalist, that she “empathised” with Mr Ng, even when she noted that he “lost his cool”. Many who have read her post were certain she was speaking up for her former employer SPH, which wouldn’t be surprising. Ms Henson, now also an author, is a product of The Straits Times and its sibling titles. She knows why—and how—SPH has become what it is today, even correctly acknowledging that “journalism standards… have been declining at a precipitous rate”.

But as an experienced news person, she curiously chose to deprecate a journalist who turned up to do her job, of which asking questions is expected. She opined that “it is a naive reporter, especially from a local media outlet, who asks such questions which can be applied to his or her own employers and editors”, in a clear reference to a competing news organisation. I don’t expect Ms Henson to play the dajie of local journalism, but choosing not to also empathise with someone whose job she once did seems, to me, to be taking the side of a media company she still feels dearly for. If that singling out was not enough, in a Facebook post from yesterday, Ms Henson wrote in defence of those working for her former employer: that it was “pretty insulting to insinuate that SPH journalists were pandering to advertisers and not maintaining their integrity.” Ms Henson was basically saying to the CNA staff, you deserve it. How becoming, I wonder, is that of a news veteran? Was Bertha Henson also insulted or was she, as the T-shirt sold on Lazada suggests, simply dulan?

Product photos: Lazada. Photo illustrations: Just So

History Of His World

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Raf Simons has a new, ”curated” website. And we get to see what makes this man ticks

Raf Simons is a designer with a distinct point of view, not to mention, an unmistakable voice. He’s now opened up to his fans, so to speak, and we get to have a peek into his ‘world’—actually, soon, likely universe. His new website, History of My World, is, according to its own description, “distinct from the Raf Simons brand, this new multidisciplinary platform offers a curation of pieces selected by Raf Simons which reflect the designer’s point of view, aesthetic and philosophy.” Those who follow Mr Simons’s career will know that History of My World was the title of the 10th anniversary collection of his eponymous label, shown in 2005. As such, “the website proposes a unique and direct echo of Raf Simons, a personal and intimate window into a thought process, onto a world.”

Launched today, it opens with a trio of photographs that recall the last Raf Simons collection: spring/summer 2021, which includes womenswear. The models are not standing. They are all on the ground: one seated and huddled like the Little Match Girl, one asleep like a vagrant albeit a fashionable one, and the last, body tilted back and supported by both hands—a pose that suggests waiting during a fitting. All three, apart from wearing Raf Simons, also have with them the new Raf Simons-designed blankets. These, as we shall soon see, are not those one might use in place of the duvet. That Raf Simons would put blanket out to sell is as expected as Prada moving bathmats. Yet, they are here, not one, but 45 of them.

As you can imagine, these are no ordinary blankets, and not quilts made by a bevy of grandmothers needing something to do during lockdown (no disrespect to Lee Suet Fern’s favourite craft). These wool, handmade-in-Antwerp blankets, with edges left raw, are an extension of Mr Simons’s predilection for applying scrapbooking montages on his clothes. These include photos that appear to be picked from school yearbooks and other memorabilia, such as pins. They don’t come cheap: the least expensive is priced at €1,650. And the dearest is €2,200. As we write this, 17 of them are sold out. It is not certain if there are only one of each available, but at these prices, they would reasonably be limited in quantity. And it is unlikely that anyone would take these blankets to go to bed with. They’d be used as an outer, draped over the body like a cape. Or—don’t be surprised—hung on walls, like tapestries.

Apart from the blankets, there are three products released so far. There are “apothecary candles” that come in sets of four (€450), all shaped like those brown bottles that you might find in an old dispensary. Made in Belgium, these candles are unscented. Two sets (there are six)—one the colour of rhodonite and the other, the shade of jade—are sold out. Then there are the books. Three of them, all pricey: Isolated Heroes (€950), Raf Simons: Redux (the commemorative book that went with the 10th anniversary of the brand, €950), and the cheapest tome, Woe Onto Those (€450). Style of My World appears to be in the early stages of development. Presently, there’s not much content, and there are too few products. But it appears destined to be an online stop for those looking for unique, Raf Simons-curated gifts. High prices? We don’t think these shoppers care.

Screen grabs: historyofmyworld.com

12.12: Expected!

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They would not end the year without a sale that is named after the same numbers for the day and the month. Again

Before Cyber Monday could come to an end, we’re being readied for the 12.12 sale. This floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, screaming red/orange Shopee poster was seen yesterday afternoon at Orchard Road MRT Station. While we wouldn’t call this wall art, it is massive. Could it be installed to overshadow the 15-year-old Cyber Monday? Or, to extend a monthly sale event that had started in September, the month of the Mid-Autumn Festival? The specific sale date of 12.12 has no precedent, but it looks to be Shopee’s retail event of the month, conceived and marketed to beat the year-end and post-Christmas sales before they can happen.

This could be Shopee’s final sale of 2020, but we aren’t counting on it. With the vexatious and trying Gurmit Singh as Phua Chu Kang (still) helming their mass-appeal ads (to differentiate themselves from Lazada?) or in marketing parlance, “hyperlocal”, is it possible there is more life to this event, predictably based on the day similarly numbered as the month? The last episode of the eight-season sitcom Phua Chu Kang aired on 11 February 2007, more than a decade ago. Yet, the titular character is still so alive in our collective consciousness that Shopee believes he can move merchandise as well and rapidly as the most-followed influencer. Cringe not—“don’t play play”!

But Shopee isn’t the first to tempt the sale-hungry with 12.12. Two days earlier, in the midst of the Black Friday madness—online and offline, the usually atas Sony (they don’t keep pace with the sale seasons) floated a flashing ad that appeared on our social media feeds. It, too, used the same marketing device, playing up that date, leaving no uncertainty as to who they’re targeting. This upcoming event is, in fact, part of Sony Days 2020 Year-End Promotion, the on-going discounting that began last month. It does’t appear to be a separate sale event, with more irresistible buys or unexpected giveaways. Same face different mask.

After spotting the unmissable Shopee MRT ad, we started noticing Zalora’s own 12.12 online shout-out. They call their own version the “Most Awaited Sale of the Year”. Really?! Is it possible that despite markdowns across so many shopping portals since September’s 9.9 (wait, wasn’t there an 8.8 for National Day too?), we’re still awaiting the “sale of the year”? Have we been duped? Had those other monthly sales—even Lazada’s Big Brands Sale or Shopee’s touted as “mega”—not been big at all? Who remembers? And what is the likelihood that 12.12 would be better than 9.9, 10.10, or 11.11? If 12.12 turns out to be nothing but hype, perhaps we would wait (again) for the arrival of the New Year’s Day sale or—no prizes—1.1?

Photos: Chin Boh Kay

Spill Not From Santa’s Sleigh

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You know for certain that times have changed when outside mailboxes, they are delivering more parcels than letters

This isn’t Christmas morning. Yet. It’s a gloomy, humid, drizzle-speckled noon. The mailman has not arrived, but the delivery people have. And they come bearing what could be Santa’s early bounty. The orders are scattered all over the void deck, as if Mr Clause’s elves have been busy, but not tidy. Big and small, tall and stout, thick and thin, they are there, all more massive than any mailbox could hold. They look to be the same community of packages, delivered in the paper uniform of brown/white envelopes/boxes. What we see are arrivals for an entire block of flats. Is that not a lot of shopping delivered in a moment? And Black Friday has only just arrived, barely 12 hours ago.

Perhaps we have been e-commerce disbelievers, the die-hard brick-and-mortar shoppers for too long. Seeing this pasar malam spread, it’s hard to dispute that our shopping habits have changed, and that we’re the goons still going to stores and touching things, and interacting with increasingly indifferent service staff, who must think we are from a distant, backward star. The rest of the populace are no longer going out to buy what they want and bringing the items home themselves. They are shopping via their smartphones, and having their purchases delivered to their front door. And it isn’t just the odd lazy consumer ensconced at home. It appears to be a whole community, an entire people doing their shopping online. One of the most primal of human behaviours—and needs—has really succumbed to digital conversion. Like cash.

Retailers, too, are pressured to go online. Adopt the platform or perish. The threat is very real, not virtual. A distributor and retailer of a popular shoe brand told us that the potential of online sales cannot be ignored. “Before 11/11, we were doing less than 10% of online sales,” she said. “Now, we’re doing more than 35%!” One sales assistant at a clothing store, said to us that “unless we have a sale, traffic is very slow. People may come in, but only to check the prices. They end up buying online.” Government ministers have warned too. Reacting to the impending closure of Robinsons, manpower minister Josephine Teo told the media that “it does signal very strongly that our industries are going to continue to have to transform.” There was no mention in the trite statement of how Robinsons has slipped in store positioning or merchandise mix. Whatever it is, rejig—go online. Keep the deliverymen busy.

Photo: Chin Boh Kay

The Crazy 1s

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Is 11.11 really the biggest sale of the year?

By Truss Tan

Who’d thought that innocuous quadruple one, split in the middle by a period, can be such a big deal, and date. Yes, the symmetrical numbers are appealing, lined up in a neat row, like rubber trees in a plantation. But people don’t know them as “ones”. These are not simply a repetition of the lowest cardinal number, deemed lucky in numerology. As K-actor Lee Min Ho (now with more than 20 million followers on Facebook and Instagram) said in the Lazada ad, “eleven eleven” (I did not, at first, understand what he uttered). Or as they say in China, “shuang shiyi (双十一, or double eleven)”, the massive, 24-hour retail event that is so huge, a tally room is set up to track the sales and the millions made, by the second!

Like so many shopping phenomena, these days, much of them are emerging from China. Originally known as Single’s Day (光棍节, guang gun jie), 11.11 has gone beyond the celebration of singlehood and not be ashamed of going without a romantic partner to become a gargantuan and unfettered consumerist indulgence—so massive in scale, it’s often acknowledged as the largest online and offline shopping festival in the world! And Americans thought Black Friday is huge. Last year, in China alone, they chalked up a record-breaking (again) USD38 billion in sales! If that is not staggering, I don’t know what is. As I write this, I have not been fed this year’s numbers, expected to break records again since spending is predicted to be high, considering people have accrued a lot from not travelling overseas.

Lee Min Ho for Lazada. Photo: Lazada

As the popular telling goes, in 1993, four unattached, unnamed dudes from Nanjing University (南京大学), probably bored to death, was wondering how to mitigate the “monotony” of not having a romantic mate. An idea came to these guang guns—“bare sticks”, the slang word Netizen used for single men. They thought it would be a good time to organise fun activities (nothing to do with shopping) to occupy similarly single campus mates, and they did, which apparently became popular among the co-ed population of the school. Phallic symbolism aside, 11.11 was also meant to be a stand to show that men do not need romance to validate their masculinity. It was, therefore, also known as “anti-Valentine’s Day”.

But no good idea can escape the grip of some greedy entrepreneurs, especially those in tech, sitting behind their laptops, watching the world, all agog for action. In 2009, Alibaba, through the manic site Taobao, create the 11.11 that we know today. Who cares about the singles now or the increasing number of them, left on the shelf, when you can, instead, see the item(s) you have been lusting after fly off the shelf. In fact, 11.11 is now a veritable cultural event, with celebrity attendance. In 2018, Mariah Carey kicked-started the festival with a performance backed by the Cirque de Soleil. Last year, Taylor Swift plugged the buying frenzy with a splashy performance. In the past years, we, too, have caught up. As Alibaba has a sizeable investment in Lazada, 11.11 has gripped the imagination and aroused the appetites of shoppers here.

Club 21 sleek landing page. Screen grab: sg.club21global.com

I am not easily afflicted by any shopping fever. In the past years, 11.11 came and went, and I have not been disadvantaged by it. But when Club 21, this year, persistently appear on my social media accounts with their beckoning, I was seduced into experiencing 11.11, at least once. Now, atas Club 21 was never known to play by the typical sale-schedule rule book. In the past, they would not even participate in the now significantly less great Great Singapore Sale (which was “forced” to go online due to the pandemic). Yet, here they were, notifying me on FB and IG incessantly that there were, at first, two more days to go before 11.11 (shown in bold, patterned type), and then, there was a day more. The urgency it created and the possibility that FOMO may strike finally aroused my curiosity about Eleven Eleven.

The Club 21 e-shop is still one of the most unfriendly to navigate despite a supposed remake last year. They are, to be sure, not Qoo10; they are a lot more classy, for a lack of a better expression. But they are not what you would call engaging (the buzz word in e-commerce these 11.11-aware days) or experiential. A journalist friend had texted me yesterday to ask if “get your favourite items for the price of one” (according to the Club 21 ads) meant “two items for 50%”. The answer is not immediately available on the Club 21 homepage (I assume I’d have to “see ‘promotions’ for T&C”, which, despite the pointer symbol appearing when I hover over the line, wasn’t clickable).

Anyway, I was not really here to spend (at least not at twenty past midnight); I wanted to see how our island’s premier multi-label store is adapting to 11.11, or adopting it. Regrettably, it was a totally anti-climatic session. Once you click on ‘shop now’ on the main page, it’ll bring you to the products page. No fanfare. A click on any item did not immediately bring me to the merchandise. It took an unusually lengthy 11.25 seconds. In fact, my entire 30-minute browsing was characterised by very annoying lag. And especially curious was items listed under the ‘Sale’ tab: they were not discounted! And when I clicked on the back arrow, the page hanged!

Singaporean actors Wang Weiliang (王伟良) and Gurmit Singh, peddle for Shopee

Might it be better at Lazada, heavily advertise on TV this past week, featuring the hard-to-comprehend Lee Min Ho? The sheer number of items offered by Lazada, on the homepage alone, often makes me nervous. Where do I begin? And there are those coupons preceding the listing of products. I saw an inordinate amounts of coffee machines, kitchen storage, and electric fans! I tried a search: fashion. The first item that appeared was a “2020 Autumn Clothing New Style Hong Kong Flavor Chic Versitile (sic) Fashion Vintage Hong Kong Flavor qian kai cha(?) Backless Strapped Dress Women Fashion”. Thankfully, there was the picture. But, was I in the market for clothes to wear to a nightclub when they are allowed to open? At $8.80 (not marked as an 11.11 sale item), it was cheaper than a McDonald’s Breakfast Deluxe Extra Value Meal.

While Lazada took the more stylish—no less popular—choice of Lee Min Ho, kitted in a pink suit, for their 11.11 communications, Shopee adopted a more grassroots approach, selecting Singaporean actors, Wang Weiliang (王伟良), as himself, and Gurmit Singh as Phua Chu Kang to helm the selling. I’ll keep my feelings about Mr Phua as a salesman to myself for now. Clearly, Shopee is geared for the mass market. And those who must buy at a discount or what is perceived to be cheap. The homepage, however south you scroll, was slapped with discount coupons after discounts coupons after discounts coupons. I finally saw ‘Key Highlights’ after what seemed like the time I would need to pee. Still, there were no product so irresistible I would go weak in the knees (or knuckles—I was scrolling with my fingers) for. By now, my eyes were so fatigued I mistook a Military “Lensatic” Compass for a compact! It was really time to go to bed. In the morning, I’ll try Tekka Online Market; I heard they were doing 11.11 too.

Illustration (top) by Just So

Watch, Not Buy

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One Orchard Store, the Textile and Fashion Federation-initiated e-commerce platform joined the first E-Great Singapore Sale today with a shop-by-video access. Only thing is, it isn’t shoppable… yet

The Textile and Fashion Federation’s (TaFF) e-shop One Orchard Store (OOS) launched a video today that allows viewers to shop what they see, but it was met with a glitch: like that, buy not. The video, showing models in pairs and filmed at various local tourist spots, is supposed to have the added function of allowing viewers to immediately access the “looks” that they like and desire to buy. A discreet “Shop this Look” link is provided on the bottom-right side of the video, but click on it, and no pop-up page opens that allows viewers to shop the desired garment. It was later reported on CNA that “due to a technical error, a video without the function has been uploaded.” CNA also said that according to TaFF, the operator of OOS, “this was a loss of direct purchasing opportunity.”

Whether there is calculable loss is not yet known. For the debut of the e-Great Singapore Sale (e-GSS), many retail platforms have included live-streaming to make online shopping more engaging, but OOS has opted for a video format instead. Titled “Step into a World”, the video is “Specially Curated for You”, and comes with the possibility of instantaneously buying what catches your fancy. We were not tempted, but curious to know how this would work, we clicked on the link when we saw a cheongsam by Lai Chan. The link offered no other action than pausing the short film. As the video is powered by YouTube, the bar of ‘suggested video’ (based on your viewing habits) appeared at the bottom of the screen. Nothing bore any relation to OOS.

We repeated this at other points on the two-minute-plus video for the next two hours, and the same result kept surfacing. This, in fact, was not the only glitch that we experienced on OOS today. Earlier, we tried accessing the video on our smartphone, but was met with an error message: “Webpage not available.” SOTD contributor Mao Shan Wang later messaged us to say that she too encountered the same problem on her Galaxy Note 20. We took to our notebooks and only then, did we land on the webpage with the yet-to-fully function video—possibly the first technical snag of the e-GSS.

The technical fault was easy to overlook since we were not really here to shop. But what we found rather curious is the direction of the video. Was this, in fact, from the Visit Singapore website? We had no idea why the selling of Singaporean fashion labels via an e-commerce page has to be a video recommendation of our island’s places of interest—National Gallery, Asian Civilisations Museum, Treetop Lofts, S.E.A. Aquarium, and Gardens by the Bay. What is surprising is how lacking in fervour the video was filmed. This may have worked as a TaFF video annual report, but for the retailing of clothing, was it saying that OOS is a mere cluster of brands? And a Singapore Tourism Board (STB) vehicle too?

We are not sure if clothes and locations are equally enticing when shared in one promotional material. Sure, the e-GSS is part of the STB’s impressively-budgeted S$45-million marketing splash to get locals to explore the island’s many attractions in lieu of holidays abroad. But must the film project an image of our city’s offerings as grassroots rather than worldly, average rather than exceptional? To be certain, the video is consistent with the content now being generated in a COVID-19 world, when models/subjects with zombie smiles are unable to benefit from professional hair and makeup services, when visuals have to look decidedly homespun, when clothes have not the benefit to meet an electric iron.

It is not known how much sales One Orchard Store has generated since its launch in June. Or, if the labels in its fold have been able to generate sufficient interest with the bland product visuals submitted by the respective brands for use on the OOS site. The video is possibly aimed at creating not just a less static platform, but also one with which OOS is able to project a vestige of image consistency for the online store. Sensory stimulation to counter OOS’s till-now one-dimensional and dull product presentation is a positive way forward. But a mere moving version of those unimaginative photos really won’t do very much.

Screen grabs: One Orchard Store

Elaine Heng Has A Fashion Label

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The popular blogger tries her hand at retailing. Looks like there is no decline in the demand for more clothes of garden variety designs

Ilo P1

Influencer Elaine Heng, 27, is a proud owner of a fashion brand. It’s called Ilo the Label—yes, as in Ilo Ilo, title of the award-winning film and, if spelled as one word, a seaport of central Philippines. But the brand prefers the Finnish meaning—joy. Or, according to them, “sunshine”. It isn’t clear why it is necessary for her brand to be identified as “the Label”. We can only surmise that it is a trendy naming convention, such as at Collate the Label and Ying the Label. Ms Heng, who now posts on Instagram under the name Elaine Rui Min (瑞敏), and considers herself an “entrepreneur” occupationally, launched her fashion label online in mid-March, eight days before the Multi-Ministry Task Force announced stricter measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 that would lead to the Circuit Breaker measures about two weeks later.

Despite the charges of professional shortcomings and the iffy video defence she posted on IG Stories in 2018, Ms Heng has not suffered any blow, nor has she been impeded from furthering her career as an influencer. She has been able to happily align herself with retail names such as the Japanese eyewear brand Owndays, lingerie label La Senza, and beauty brands Olay and Sum37. She continues to act as merchandise promoter on Instagram, which radiantly exhibits her (now-married) life with enviable felicity. Marketability dictates that she is dressed her best, in clothes that her audience can relate to: pretty. Elaine Heng, who graduated at NUS in communication and media studies, is the girl-next-door you envy, knowing you can never dress to look like her. When Malaysian singer Ah Niu sang in 1998, 对面的女孩看过来 (Girl Opposite, Look Over Here), he probably had someone like her in mind.

Ms Heng is aware that her girlish style has bankable following and, hence, business potential. Two years in the making, as the brand declared on IG, Ilo the Label appears to be conceived to mirror her wardrobe or what she tends to wear to earn her income on IG. If a girl, among the countless, desires to start a fashion brand, especially online, this would be it. No design value required, nor point of view. Just straight-on pretty, vanilla pretty. Ms Heng calls it “my joy”, which is consistent with the brand platitude that quotes Australian poet Gemma Troy, “Whatever that makes you feel the sun from inside out, chase that.”

Ilo P2Influencer Melissa Jane Ferosha in Ilo the Label. Photo: Instagram

To be sure, Ms Heng is not a fashionista in the mold of Yoyo Cao, Willabelle Ong, and Andrea Chong. But, she is considered a “fashion blogger” It is, in fact, her ordinariness that those who seek the same find captivating, not a bold, statement-making style that would score her a best-dressed nomination at any of the annual society balls. From her beginning as a blogger, she has not shed her pronounced girlishness, her xiaoyuan zhihua (校园之花 or schoolyard beauty) posturing, her marketable cheerfulness. The prettiness is projected to be palatable and is tempered with a healthy dose of sexiness. She moves between the two comfortably and are just as willing to pose in a sundress as negligee. She has co-ed appeal; she is both women’s envy and men’s fantasy, effective as a go-to for what to wear for a date on Saturday night and what to see when, for the guys, that evening turns lonely.

As a fashion entrepreneur, Ms Heng typifies many who dream of their own fashion label. Or, (re-)creating whatever they already buy and wear. They are not in the business to fill the proverbial gap in the market; they are merely adding to the surfeit of similitude. Bloggers-turn-fashion-designers of her ilk are nothing new. The clothes are casual, cheery, and common. How does Ilo the Label then stand out? It doesn’t. Perhaps, that’s not the aim. As with many other labels these days, the five-month-old brand is “beyond just creating pretty clothes,” according to their own description, even if they don’t step out of the comfort, over-shared zone. They “hope to create a community that sparks fun, laughter and joy, thereby lifting the spirits of anyone that is part of it.”

Ms Heng’s clothes consciously project this joie de vivre, just as her IG posts present her as a particularly ebullient person. Ilo the Label does this by featuring hand-painted house prints, featuring dainty flowers that could be as comfortable on tea towels or bed sheets, or bath mats. One Orchard Store would come a-calling. According to her designers, “Our founder, Elaine, is all about prints and the first thing she told our team when we first gathered was ‘Ilo is going to be a brand of happy prints.’” The exultation of spirit through blooms is typically Gemma Troy: “I’m the type of person that falls in love with flowers…” And Elaine Heng too. In an IG post back in 2017, she wrote of an unremarkable WheresCinderella floral dress, “Somehow, I always find myself drawn to wearing florals because they make me happy.”

Ilo P3The startling sameness of Ilo the Label

This selling of positivity rather than design is also the modus operandi of brands that she promotes, such as All Would Envy, Lovet, WheresCinderella, and possibly her absolute fave, Thestagewalk—all labels for women who want to look pretty in the manner that is not intimidating—roses among roses, rather than to stand out dauntlessly—thorns among roses. It is hard to differentiate between these brands since all embrace the conventional than the unconventional, the straightforward rather than the complex, the winsome rather than wondrous. It is through Ms Heng’s fashion choices that one could learn of the many like-minded brand owners who have shared aesthetical preferences, and are happily part of a group of relatively quiet online businesses that trade in pretty dresses Ms Heng and her followers view with eye-watering delight.

You need not click on Ilo the Label’s generic-looking website to imagine there would be maxi-sundresses, spaghetti-strapped shifts, rompers, off-shoulder tops and more maxi-dresses, spaghetti-strapped shifts, rompers, off-shoulder tops. Most are made of 100% “quality polyester”, the brand emphasises, like those who underscore “luxury denim”. The prints—ditsy florals digitally rendered on those polyesters—comprise mostly small blooms with positive vibes, such as honeysuckle that “inspire love and passion”, all painted in a style that an art teacher might say lovely, but a gallerist would not. The sum are clothes that could easily be found on Lazada or Shopee, or in any mall across our island.

And therein lies the limitation of the brand. Ilo the label veers to the side of bland and sits on the centre of commonplace, inspiring the reaction, “another one of those”. They are as differentiable as the countless clothiers that started to pop up in malls prior to the pandemic: The Closet Lover, Fayth, Playdress, Yacht 21, et al. Many of them, like Ilo the Label, tout creating their own prints, which, for most brands, is an easy way to generate pieces that stand apart even if the silhouettes are similar, if not the same. This is an approach even stall owners of Bangkok’s Chatuchak weekend market adopt. It isn’t certain if Elaine Heng has learnt her métier as a fashion professional. However, given her present standing as a successful blogger and sunny stalwart, she can sell anything. Sunshine, too.

You may also be interested in… The Closure of Ilo the Label

Photos: Ilo the Label

One Online Option

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Digital stores offering clothing and such are by now nothing new. As e-shops and sales conducted via social media go, newcomer One Orchard Store isn’t setting itself apart. They’re just joining the crowd

 

OOS homepage June 2020

Resilience is an admirable quality in the business of fashion. Failure is not. Nor succumbing to it. One form of a venture may not have succeeded, but you can try again with another. This can be said of the Textile and Fashion Federation’s (TaFF) latest retail endeavour, the new e-commerce platform One Orchard Store (OOS), set up to promote, as TaFF does, local designs. In the wake of an economy-ravaging pandemic, this enterprise is more urgently needed than ever.

Some observers thought OOS is the online imprint of Design Orchard, last known to be operated by the vagabond retailer Naiise. It is not. Design Orchard has its own website with an inactive “shop”. Rather, this could be considered TaFF’s return to retailing or the provision of a retail platform for fledgling and established brands. A post-Zhuang, if you will.

Few remember Zhuang (庄, or farmstead, or the banker in gambling, such as mahjong), a TaFF initiative to put local brands with minimum or no retail exposure in a pleasing physical space. Their first in 2016 was a pop-up at Tangs. That was followed by a store in swanky The Shoppes at Marina Bay in 2017. Zhuang quietly shuttered a year or so after their mall debut, due to lack of brand and shopper interest, and what was thought to be a diffident effort.

It is not known why the nearly 40-year-old TaFF chose to close Zhuang rather than take it online, which could have been a more viable platform, and in line with what many others retailers were already exploring to do back then. Formed in 1981 as a trade alliance of sort to augment the profile and visibility of its members and to propel them overseas, TaFF has since taken the role to not only guide local labels in their search for markets elsewhere, but also create channels with which to help them reach an audience within our shores or further afield.

Zhuang @ MBSZhuang @ The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands in 2017

Published just twelves days ago, One Orchard Store is “based on the idea of discovery”, according to its webpage, and it “curates contemporary designers in Singapore and introduces innovative businesses.” Nearly two weeks after going online, OOS looks like it’s still in browser testing stage. Curation is cursory and innovative businesses have yet to appear. Perhaps the mask-making workshop Mask4SG counts?

And what can be discovered? It depends on what is considered a discovery. If finding a product is the mission, perhaps. If it’s gaining insight, perhaps not. OOS encourages discovery by scrolling from the top feature banner down to the last. And clicking on tiled pictures between. The interface borders on the bland and the attempt to reach out to the viewer, on the passive, leaving behind energy levels of the pages that make Love Bonito’s look positively frenetic.

Opting for a flat design typical of websites such as Fairprice and Courts, OSS is built around click and get, less song and dance. No GIFs (or animation) are seen, no videos, no soundtrack (an opportunity to expose local music?). Engagement is perfunctory. At the moment, only shipping to local addresses are available, despite OSS saying that it “seeks to showcase and facilitate exposure of the locally based designers locally, regionally and globally.”

Three core categories of products are offered: women’s wear/accessories, kid’s wear, and lifestyle, which, despite a sub-head ‘home’, comprises only of products in ‘fragrance’. The women’s clothing section has a surprisingly large sub-section with a list of 14, but not all open up to something to see or buy—activewear, denim, and suits have nothing in them, while knitwear has one item. In shoes, there is only one brand, in beauty, none. It might be possible that OOS, like Zhuang before it, is disadvantaged by a lack of brand support.

OOS fashion labels June 2020Some of the labels available at OOS: (clockwise from top left) GINLEE Studio, Ying the Label, hher, Silvia Teh, Shirt Number White, Minor Miracles, ANS.EIN

Among the old and new fashion names that populate OOS, Zhuang alums such as influencer Beatrice Tan’s Frontrow by Klarra, the streetwear collective Mash-Up, and Gilda Su’s Rêvasseur are not included. But one name is: Ying the Label. A favourite of the political elite and a darling of TaFF since the days of Zhuang, Ying the Label—now without a designer collab—seems to enjoy favourable visibility, with the top feature banner in a photograph of the brand’s art-infused outfit shot like it was a design student’s work, destined for a graduation catalogue.

OOS is, visually, a sum of photographs pulled from the brands themselves, but not put through the rigors of editing. In fact, even the products appear to lack some measure of merchandising. Perhaps brands can choose what they want to sell in OOS. It is possible that OOS had been in a state where having stock is better than not. It is difficult to reconcile the astonishing difference between Anna Rainn’s ’90s secretary aesthetics and newbie Silvia Teh’s borderline edgy looks.

E-commerce platforms, like their brick-and-mortar counterparts, are better served if there is a component in its set-up that can effect experience. OOS’s potential is impeded by a genuine lack of content. Scrolling mindlessly down a page might be explorative to some, but it is, for many others, a reason to kill the page. And, strangely, despite all the discovering encouraged, facilitated by over-working the index finger, there is not even a single back-to-top button. Despite its shortcomings, OOS is still appealing to some, such as influencer Andrea Chong, whose website DC Edit calls it “brilliant… responsive digital marketplace.”

To land on OOS, it is imperative that one does not search One Orchard (an understandable action), which would link one to YMCA @ One Orchard! The full One Orchard Store is required. The name choice is, in fact, rather odd, considering that OOS is a digital-native business and need not be associated with a known shopping street or a specific destination, such as a fruit farm, unlike, say, the e-shop of Dover Street Market, which was originally situated on Dover Street, a short, 330-metre thoroughfare in Mayfair, London. If place name is crucial, why not—for strong local flavour—One Ang Mo Kio Store?

Screen grabs: One Orchard Store. Photo: Zhao Xiangji

Two Of A Kind: Doing Dots

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One Singaporean designer is going the Finnish way

 

Sabrina Goh vs MarimekkoLeft: Sabrina Goh. Photo: Sabrina Goh/Instagram. Right: Marimekko X Uniqlo. Photo: Uniqlo

Marimekko is not only known for their oversized abstract flowers (particularly the house bloom, the Unikko poppy), they are loved for their oversized, irregular-edge polka dots, arranged in a neat grit—a sort of chessboard with circles. In their collaboration with Uniqlo, one of the most popular dresses, we were learned, is an A-line, cotton/linen blend dress (top right), based on one of the house’s popular prints Kivet, first conceived by the Finnish textile designer Maija Isola in 1959 for Marimekko. So popular is Kivet the repeated circles that the print now appears on other garments such as ponchos, accessories such as umbrella, as well as home furnishings such as blankets and cushions.

Concurrent to the availability of this Marimekko X Uniqlo dress is one possible sibling—a 100% cotton version (top left) by Sabrina Goh’s label Elohim. The kinship is further augmented by the black and white colour scheme, and overall shape of the dress—loose-fitted, with light gathers in the centre, just below the bust. Ms Goh’s version has shorter sleeves (almost capped) and sports a slit on the right side. Although it is, similarly, V-necked, it is additionally mandarin-collared. It is shorter, too, skimming just below the new, while the Marimekko X Uniqlo dress is of maxi length. The print also looks similar, but each piece of the pattern is, in fact, a three-sided polygon that suggests pebbles. This also recalls the inspiration behind Ms Isola’s design, which, according to Marimekko, “likely originate(s) from the large, rough-edged stones cleared from the site of the artist’s studio home”.

The Elohim dress is called ‘Genesis’ (Ms Goh has a weakness for biblical references. Elohim is frequently used in the Hebrew bible to refer to god), and the naming seems to hint at creation, origin, and beginning. Or, corresponding to creativity, original, and first? Whichever description you’re inclined to accord the dress, it is unlikely that both came hand-in-hand from the garden of (design) Eden.

Elohimby Sabrina Goh ‘Genesis’ polka-dot dress, SGD249.90, is available online at Sabrina Goh e-shop. Marimekko X Uniqlo linen-blend V-neck dress, SGD59.90, is available online at Uniqlo’s website