UOB Goes Retro

With new uniforms designed by Odile Benjamin

If you walk in into any United Overseas Bank (大华银行) branch today, you might notice something different. The branch interior would not have received a makeover, but members of the staff that you meet are likely outfitted in new uniforms. At the main bank in UOB Plaza this morning, all frontline personnel went about their work, seemingly pleased with how they turned out. And the new look came with smiles too. Most of the staff wore their corporate attire without an additional outer, even when jackets and a cardigan are offered. And this no-layering, too, is apparent in the other branches, where, as it appeared, the new uniforms were not completely rolled out. Some staff members were still seen in what seemed to be pieces from their own wardrobe.

First impression: The uniform—comprising different looks—is not ugly, but there is something not quite the present age about it. There are eight looks in the women’s (and possibly more since they are reportedly allowed to “mix and match”) that afforded a new—matronly even when abstract—print to prevail. In sum, the looks try to effect corporate chic, but what we saw, as we sat in the vast banking hall, appeared to us like those of old hotels; what receptionists and lobby lounge waitresses were attired in. And, as if to concur with what we were thinking, an elderly gentleman waiting to open a fixed-deposit account, said to us that the women’s uniform reminded him of the old (long closed) Ming Court Hotel (presently, Orchard Rendezvous Hotel), where Orchard and Tanglin Roads meet. A fashion stylist later WhatsApped us to say that the uniform “really looks like it’s for the hospitality industry”.

What could possibly lead to such an impression and evocation? To us, the shapes (and details) of the clothes were not based on blocks that could be described as contemporary. A dress with a band neckline and a bow worn skewed to the left looks unmistakably like a uniform, but it has the whiff of one from the ’70s. We did not have the benefit of a parade of the entire collection, but from images shared by UOB to the press, we could see a twin set, a wrap-dress, a shirt-as-blouse paired with a slim-fitted (in the past, it would be called tight) skirt (and worn, unsurprisingly with court shoes!). And the most interesting, a cropped, round-neck jacket with piping on the perimeter, armhole and hem of sleeves—if the lines are not enough, there is the stripe on each of the out seam of the trousers, such as those that appear on track pants or those trousers worn by members of a marching band.

The uniform—comprising different looks—is not ugly, but there is something not quite the present age about it

UOB’s Deputy chairman and CEO Wee Ee Cheong told the press: “As ASEAN re-starts its engine of growth post-pandemic, it is timely for the bank to unveil its sharpened purpose and brand refresh.” The refresh of the uniform comes some 11 years after the last one, designed by Song Wykidd of Akinn (and once the other half of the Club 21-backed Song & Kelly), and revealed in November 2011. The latest is designed by Odile Benjamin. If the name is familiar, it is because Mrs Benjamin was, together with her husband Douglas, part of the design duo behind the now-defunct Raoul, a label under FJ Benjamin, former retailer of Gucci and, later, Givenchy. Raoul made international headlines when the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton (now Princess of Wales) wore one of their dresses during her visit here in 2012’s Jubilee Royal Tour.

After the closure of the once-lauded Raoul, Mrs Benjamin started Estair almost right away in 2017, self-described as “a 360 degree outsource solution for fashion companies, specializing in children’s and women’s wear”. She has, of course, produced for other brands before, such as the ill-fated Ashley Isham diffusion line, AI. That Estair’s strength is not in menswear (which is curious as Raoul began in 2002 as a shirt label) is perhaps evident in the UOB uniform for the guys. With standard shirts, plain pullovers, and oddly-fitted jackets (one style sporting what looks like upturned lapels and a strange, prominent yoke in the front), the guys’ pieces seem designed to look relaxed, but turn out sloppy. Pants come with legs that are calf-enhancing skinny, perpetuating the Raffles Place belief that such narrowness is a professional standard. And, the men clearly have less to play with than the women.

While aesthetics deemed retro (including prints, such as the new, grid-like abstraction of the bank’s three-letter initials and their famed Vitalità bronze statue situated outside UOB Plaza, facing Singapore River) would not entirely lose favour, even among those whose profession requires no uniformity of dress, it seems a tad off-message for a bank that is looking forward, particularly to its 100th year in 2035. Yet, how the UOB uniforms turned out is perhaps not surprising. Mrs Benjamin told the South China Morning Post in 2015 that she found the ’70s to be “the most iconic fashion decade”, and her personal style is a reflection of that. And, her creative output too (hence, the wrap-dress?). When worn, the clothes can’t escape appearing old-fashioned or, worse, dated. One of UOB’s new messages that would be communicated regionally is a three-word catchphrase: “You are unique”. Which may inspire the question: In 87-year-old UOB’s banking halls, are uniforms still necessary?

Photo: UOB

In Another Pond

Posted by Style On The Dot

Singaporean brand Raoul is now only available at Robinsons. In America, it has popped up in one of New York’s most popular outlet stores

Raoul is now available online via American discounter Century 21

For Singaporeans, theirs is an unfortunate story. Once hailed as local fashion’s great big hope—a label that even ministers talk about and praise, Raoul is now quickly becoming but a memory. In future reminiscences, it shall be Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge’s wearing of that sole Raoul dress on her maiden visit to Singapore that’s a milestone in the brand’s 14-year history than design or retail breakthrough.

In February, Raoul closed its Paragon store—the last on our island—and announced simultaneously that it was going to concentrate on the wholesale side of the business. Douglas Benjamin, chief operating officer of FJ Benjamin, owner of the brand, told The Straits Times back in April, “We didn’t want to keep the Paragon store open and pay the rents that were being asked.” Weak sell-through, retail observers reasoned, did not justify keeping the lease. In March, Raoul resurfaced in Robinsons at The Heeren as a concessionaire, according to the ST report. Market talk, however, contradict that. It was said that Robinsons made an outright purchase of the line. In any case, the own-store environment in which the brand could communicate some swank is gone.

Raoul’s only outlet here, a concession corner in Robinsons at The Heeren. Photo: Galerie Gombak

For consumers elsewhere (and even here), Raoul is now available through one of New York City’s favourite outlet stores Century 21. Its latest marketing e-mail sent out just yesterday pointed to a selection of Raoul clothes marked down by as much as 72%. A site search revealed 24 items for the picking—not a lot, but the dresses, shell tops, shirts, pants, and shorts appeared to be discounted to clear. While Raoul’s entry into Century 21 may be a plus for some, others consider this a sign of downward crawl for the brand.

Century 21 is what smartdestinations.com calls a “hot spot for cheap shopping.” It’s a go-to destination for bargain hunters as well as fashionistas who consider it the cemetery for couture collectibles awaiting rebirth. Traditionally, stockists of designer brands offload past season’s collections at Century 21 so that the former need not go into deep discounting when the end-of-season sale concludes. For many high-end retailers, this is one way of getting rid of old stocks without seriously sullying the brands’ name.

Despite Century 21’s ability to speedily move past-their-prime designer duds at what the Americans call “off-price”, the store is not considered the place that presents high-end shopping experiences. Retail experts are divided as to the value or de-value Century 21 can offer brands. For some, the store is a great off-site to quietly purge unmovable merchandise, while for some the drastic markdowns could affect the perceived value of designer goods. For customers, the fun is in finding anything as pseudo-designer as Vince Camuto and those as advanced as Rick Owens. The clashing aesthetics does not matter.

Raoul SS 2016 Raoul’s surprisingly weak spring/summer 2016 advertising images. Photo: Raoul

It’s hard to say where Raoul’s fate truly lies now that it is available in Century 21. Some think it is an honour to be in the company of European designer labels and with a store that has been expanding across the US when many competitors have shuttered. Others, however, consider it a prelude to even more dump-down clearance. Raoul in Century 21 unfortunately appeared around the same time as the disclosure of FJ Benjamin’s quarterly earnings. As reported in the Business Times two weeks ago, the company posted “fifth red quarter with S$5.1 million loss”. Fashion buyers familiar with the brand speculated that a chunk of that figure may be attributed to Raoul’s performance. The slide of Raoul—visible by its rather rapid store closures, not only locally but regionally—is surprising if only because the organisation behind it is no start-up. In fact, parent company, the SGX-listed FJ Benjamin Holdings, dates back to 1959.

It was not this way for Raoul in the beginning. Born in 2002, about five years after FJ Benjamin’s failed multi-label store Rachel B, Raoul began as a men’s shirt line. Three years later, women’s wear was added. At the start, shirts designed for women were available, but that reportedly wasn’t enough to meet customers’ demand for a wider merchandise mix. When the full ready-to-wear line appeared, many were, however, rather disappointed with the vintage-y looks as well as the styles and silhouettes that appeared to be in keeping with design director Odile Benjamin’s personal taste.

Odile and Douglas AFF 2011 Odile Benjamin and her husband Douglas took the catwalk at the 2011 Audi Fashion Week. Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images Asia Pacific

COO Douglas Benjamin’s wife Odile, who admits that she finds the ’70s “the most iconic fashion decade”, has such a firm grip over the design direction of Raoul that despite hiring a consultant, Haidee Findlay-Levin, in around 2010, the brand has not been able to shake off its neo-psychedelic posturing. In fact, it was reported that Mrs Benjamin has amassed 1,000 vintage pieces in an archive from which select clothes are usually present in meetings with the creative team. Raoul would continue to be defined by looks rather than be led by design.

As we look back, Raoul’s plight brings to mind the failure of another Singaporean brand with sight set on the world: alldressedup. Both share a promising start, but unsustainable momentum. In the end, there’s one reality: you can be vaunted as the future of Singapore’s fashion industry, but the future may not be yours to have . Media attention does not indicate that there’s a demand for your products. Rave does not mean love, and consumers go on to the next big thing as soon as your aesthetic looks stale. This is fashion today. It changes faster than you can pick a needle and make the first stitch.

Wide Angle, Narrow Vision

Posted by Style On The Dot

In March last year, the SG50-themed exhibition Fifty Years of Singapore Design opened to scant fanfare. After a year, the “permanent” exhibition still languishes without a crowd on the second floor of the National Design Centre

50 Yrs of SG Design Pic 1

Our second visit to Fifty Years of Singapore Design took place on a Friday afternoon. It was deathly quiet, the stillness not unlike that in a forgotten ancestral shrine. Only the faint murmur from the always busy Tanuki Raw, the café situated at Kapok, the National Design Centre’s (NDC) only retail outlet not connected to anything it exhibits, could be heard. As with our first visit last year, we contemplated and completed the display in a flash.

For an exhibition that chronicles 50 years of design, it is surprisingly undersized. During our first visit a few days after its official opening, we had allotted about an hour to take in all of Fifty Years of Singapore Design, but we finished it in twelve minutes. Fifty years of nationhood may not seem like a very long time, but five decades of design evolution is. Yet, this exhibition painted our island-republic’s business with design in one short, skinny brush stroke. Five decades, it seems, deserve only a feeble précis.

The smallness of the exhibition is magnified by the space in which it is installed: on the second-floor gallery of the NDC that’s about the size of a 4-room HDB flat, possibly less. In the opening month, Fifty Years of Singapore Design sat above what appeared to be the key event of the Centre: New British Inventors: Inside Heatherwick Studio. Staged in the building’s re-purposed indoor courtyard, the exhibits of the Heatherwick Studio (best remembered for their design of the London Olympics Cauldron in the summer of 2012) drew attention with their suitably impressive models, although regrettably crammed in a fairly tight space. In contrast, upstairs, tucked away from the main hub of the Centre, Fifty Years of Singapore Design looks like a transplant from an atrium exhibition at the National Library, just across the street.

50 Yrs of SG Design Pic 2 From left, the designs of Thomas Wee, Tan Yoong, and Benny Ong

Even in NDC’s sleek SCDA Architects-designed interior (headed by one of the recipients of the inaugural President Design Award, Chan Soo Khian), there is a community-centre (now called club) vibe to the exhibition. You would have thought the People’s Association commissioned the exhibition rather than DesignSingapore Council (DSC). It is likely that the aim is to reach out to as many people as possible, including those not design-savvy, rather than to a growing public interest in and consumption of design. Hence a non-alienating, visually-tame, all-can-understand approach was adopted to downplay the potentially high-brow status design may project. The flat, some parts dim, lighting and a distinct lack of atmosphere, and playroom cubes that were used as compositional elements, therefore, suited the original use of the space: the most community-focused of spaces: the classroom. It, too, was like walking into a set of RTS—Radio and Television Singapore, circa 1975, and Ahmad Daud was about to sing.

Design, however, deserves a more engaging and visually stimulating platform, even when not installed in an actual museum. The NDC is, of course, not a museum. It is not bound by the traditional goal of museums to collect, record, research, and then display what they have amassed for public enjoyment and education. It offers exhibition spaces just as the National Library avails its atrium as exhibition space. So, we venture to suggest that the onus is on DSC. It is really not immoderate to expect the Council to demand a more inspired approach to installation and to ask the curators—(curiously from the French architecture/design firm WY-TO) for more rigorous selection to spotlight Singapore’s design history.

It is, of course, tempting to say that design in Singapore, despite five decades of growth and discovery, has not reached a level of excitement that deserves a grand display. It has been said that Singapore design deserves what it gets: boring begets boring. However, we tend to agree with Irene Etzkorn, co-author of Simplicity: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity: “There is no such thing as a boring project. There are only boring executions.”

From left, the qipao of Gary Lau/Kang’s Boutique and the shirt of Dick Lee

Since this is a fashion site, we shall not comment on the other disciplines of design except fashion, specifically clothing design. And that, sadly, is the biggest let down of the exhibition. With boutiques now designed to place products for maximum attention in spatial terms–museum-like almost, it is surprising that 50 Years of Singapore Design is so diametrically opposite even the simplest retail design seen in mass labels such as Bershka, only a stone’s throw away at Bugis+. The NDC is situated among design schools, yet the exhibition, too, isn’t able to scale higher than those of graduate shows.

As clothing is best appreciated when worn, it is mostly exhibited on mannequins. It is no different here, but we did come to the conclusion that the mannequins used for the exhibition are either donated by a supplier or picked up from a few clothing shops that have been served bankruptcy notice. Headless dummies of different stock, some with ill-fitted caps at the top of the neck, mean the clothes do not fit properly. Each designer submitted one outfit, and since none are based on one-size specification, the mannequins have to fit the clothes, not the other way round. This hampers the viewer’s ability to truly appreciate a garment’s cut and fit since, in a couple of cases, the bust darts, for example, are off-point. In addition, some of the clothes look like they are not granted a requisite meeting with an electric iron.

What Charles Eames once said came to mind: “The details are not the details. They make the design.” We really should state that we were not expecting ICOM (International Council of Museums) standards for handling valuable dress in a museum (or the Costume Committee’s Guideline for Costume). However, unless the clothes are accorded the respect they deserve, and the acknowledgment that there are talents behind these designs, the exhibition is no different from those retail events staged in “event halls” of department stores put together to clear stocks. No one expects OCBC’s very publicly displayed Henry Moore sculpture—the bronze Large Reclining Figure—to be poorly installed, and for the same reason, no one expects 50 Years of Singapore Design exhibits—clothes no less—to be less than perfectly set up.

From left, dresses by Hansen and Raoul

Sadly, they are not. Mannequins too large or too small for the clothes aside, the handling of the garments could benefit from nimbler and abler hands. Even if the exhibition is not about scale or ambition, surely there could be some vestige of quality in the execution. It is disturbing—and the designers are partly to blame—to see the history of Singaporean fashion reflected in clothes that are displayed in a manner that could not hold up to close scrutiny. Whether a dress that requires pearl-head pins to stay up or another with a bodice that won’t remain flat after buttoning, they’re all there to our horror.

The choice of clothes on show, too, throws up questions on the curatorial decisions made. It is understandable that putting together an exhaustive list of fashion designers who have impacted how we dressed as a nation is near impossible. Given the historical breadth, 50 Years of Singapore Design should, instead, establish the link between clothing forms and the general psyche of the time(s) and illustrate how fashion has played out in the building of our nation, how it reflects our aspirations or moral dispositions. We did not see this connection in the clothes and designers selected. The final nine (why not ten?) given a mannequin to hold a signature look seem to reflect desperation to get anyone willing to participate than true scholarship.

What’s perhaps even more difficult is finding those clothes that truly represent the decades that the exhibition depicts. Nothing from the ’60s is represented (Roland Chow received a cursory mention). The ’70s is reflected in a single uniform: the Singapore Girl’s Pierre Balmain-designed kebaya, suggesting, perhaps, that it was time of work as we pursued economic wealth, even if an air stewardess’s dress is so far removed from the reality of a citizenry with a much more mundane life pursuit. The golden age of Singaporean fashion design—the ’80s—is represented by Thomas Wee, Tan Yoong, Benny Ong, and Dick Lee. The rest of them are only mentioned in the descriptive texts that accompany the exhibits. Of “The Magnificent Seven” cited—the septet that not only created ripples in the local scene, but also brought Singaporean designs to Paris, only Mr Wee’s and Mr Tan’s clothes are shown.

From left, the designs of Depression and the stage costume of Frederick Lee

To the uninitiated, this decade may not look like it produced some of our best fashion design talents, or that many of them have laid the foundation for what we see today. It was as much an issue of aesthetics as the substantive. Thomas Wee’s yellow and black skirt suit is supposed to be from the designer’s most successful line: Mixables. The curators, unaware that Mr Wee no longer designs such styles and unable to find clothes from that period, had the designer re-produce something for the exhibition. The result is clearly not anything akin to what Mixables was about. The shoulder of the jacket, for example, is very telling: Mr Wee has shaped and proportioned it in the aesthetic of today. What we saw isn’t an iconic garment of an era, but the uniform (again) of an off-duty cosmetic salesgirl.

Benny Ong, considered the Singapore boy made good in London (on that note, Andrew Gn, who succeeded in Paris, is curiously omitted), is summarised by a strange, low-waist dress with notched fichu-collar of velvet and a sort of calvary bodice of shantung silk, and in a black and orange pairing that recalls Halloween. It was hard for us to reconcile this frumpy ensemble with London, and even harder with Princess Diana, who once wore Mr Ong’s conservative designs before she embraced Gianni Versace’s and the like. Dick Lee, the multi-hyphenate, jolted our memory that he was once a fashion designer. His dress-avatar is a cutesy men’s shirt that is in the happy colours of Stephen Burrows and had more than a whiff of teen spirit. The close-up allows one to examine Mr Lee’s not-perfected tailoring skills, made worse by a mannequin with a neck too thick for the shirt’s collar.

Of the group, Tan Yoong’s dress stood out. Here is without doubt the work of a master, whose ability to translate something as potentially clichéd as petals into sumptuousness of pure visual pleasure is, hitherto, rare and unmatched on our island. Inspired by the cattleya orchid, and based on the iconic William Travilla-designed dress that Marilyn Monroe wore, standing astride a subway grating that blew the dress up in the Billy Wilder film The Seven Year Itch, Mr Tan’s version should go down the history of Singapore design as a classic. Lest we’re mistaken, this is no copy; this is completely the designer’s take, and it boasts the technical finesse—those baby-lock stitches on the hem to stiffen the gauzy silk petals-as-skirt’s edge so that, when tacked at discreet points, the skirt appears to be caressed by the wind—that corroborates his standing as one of our best and most accomplished designers.

50 Yrs of SG Design Pic 6 What’s amiss? Clockwise from top left: the collar of Dick Lee’s shirt collar is too small to fit the mannequin’s neck; strange tape and marking, and poor finish below the add-on collar of Depression’s shirt; the crumpled, bunched-up bust line of Benny Ong’s dress; and the exposed velcro and fastenings of Frederick Lee’s “dress”

Except for Tan Yoong’s cocktail dress, most of the other designers are represented by clothes that seem to suggest that local women’s clothes went no further than the humdrum, or that they dressed as an act of instinct, not adornment, with none of the exhibits reflecting the different tempos of the passing eras, the disparity of rising and shifting urban life. It is as if nothing has changed. Indeed, the exhibition, like so many of the SG50 events, is just a show or a product of what has been called a “catwalk economy”; it is not particularly reflective or critical, and is not a platform for debate to establish those Singaporean designers who have truly contributed to our contemporary culture.

Singapore’s fashion history is not long enough to leave behind a legacy. It is also too short to reflect the social strata of fashion. Even society women, conventionally the adopter of the latest dress designs, were not visible enough, until recently (thanks to social media), to set trends or influence what women wear. None are cited as exemplary bearer of Singaporean fashion. Television and pop stars are similarly passed over since there are not that many of them or, perhaps, because they have no real influence on our lifestyle and fashion choice. Scanning the displays of the different decades, it is hard to determine if these are indeed fashionable clothing of the day, and if they speak of the zeitgeist of the respective eras. It is even harder, tried as we did, to see any ‘design’, the principal theme of the exhibition. In the end, they are just clothes.

A puzzling inclusion is Frederick Lee’s costume for Wild Rice’s staging of Stella Kon’s play Emily of Emerald Hill in which Ivan Heng wore the designer’s glammed-up and far-from-bibik-looking frock. In an accompanying description, Mr Heng was shown in a sleeved dress, quite unlike the one on display. Upon closer inspection, the strapless dress is unable to sit properly over the bust. It is too small and, in fact, requires the aid of flat and pearl-head pins to stay up on the mannequin. From the side view, the short front and long back of the outfit suggest that, perhaps this is a skirt worn as a pretend-dress! If art imitates life, then may be this costume illustrates that Singaporean fashion design is still in want of a good fit.

Fifty Years of Singapore Design is on at the National Design Centre till March 2017. Admission is free. Photos: Jim Sim

First Look: Raoul Fall/Winter 2014

Posted by Style On The Dot

The Sixties vibe from last season returns like updated cell phone apps: improved but not life-changing. Raoul’s Fall/Winter 2014, the much anticipated follow-up to Spring/Summer’s refreshing collection, continues to explore the label’s fascination with a period that oscillates between 1960 and 1970. The graphic sense, so energetically introduced six months ago, is re-explored, but you don’t sense it is revivified.

Held, this time, at the Kaplan Penthouse of the Lincoln Center Plaza, and (finally) part of the official calendar of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, the showing is, once again, a static display that allows the viewer to ascertain that the clothes, to be expected, are well made and fit as they should, with an ease that befits the brand’s “contemporary luxury” positioning.

While Raoul may have seduced consumers into perceiving the brand as higher-end than they really are, their merchandising approach is similar to that of its mid-price competitors. And like the latter, they don’t break new ground in product categories nor design approach. Still headed by Douglas and Odile Benjamin, the line hardly vary in terms of silhouettes and aesthetics too, which may make for sound branding, but may not arouse those seeking excitement for an increasingly generic wardrobe.

The Benjamins have no Raoul archive to mine, so they do not. They stick to shapes that they like and are familiar with: the usual shell top, the slim (not constricted) skirt, the puff-sleeved shirt, the slightly-tented jacket, much with a subtlety-lite nod to Oleg Cassini. For design cred, they look to art. This season, it is the Wiener Werkstätte Sti or the Vienna Workshops Style, an early 1900s Modernist movement that later influenced the Bauhaus group as well as the American Art Deco, and has even spawned fabrics that are categorised by micro-prints of florals and graphic shapes. This is, however, not a crossover, as the art is a mere hint, not a master stroke to its design dimension, and does not vary in treatment from the previous season. Even the cut-outs that form the border of a shell top qualify as replicate.

By associating itself with art, Raoul is able to invigorate a line that may, by a mere misstep, be unremarkable as it confines itself within commercial context. It’s a balancing act that, to be fair, the brand has walked with some finesse. The AW 2014 season appear to comprise several stories, but taken as a whole, they do not look disparate. While not as tightly edited as the previous season, the pieces will, for the most part, translate into healthy sales, which, no doubt, will inform the following season’s design direction.

Raoul may be presented in New York and presumably targeted at Americans, but the label’s sensibility is somewhat European. The print-on-same-print styling recalls Prada’s and Marni’s (although the daisy is unabashedly Marc Jacobs). And the over-sized Harlequin checks—a minimalist ode to Italian commedia dell’arte? The Euro-sense for an Asian label is not necessarily a drawback since American consumers do look to European fashion with a palpable fervour. As such, Raoul, has hit some notes right.

First Look: Raoul Spring/Summer 2014

Posted by Style On The Dot

The Sixties vibe is unmistakable, the conceptual strength sturdy. But hardly the front of the pack, how did Raoul come to this? That’s not quite obvious.

Just two days ago, on Friday the thirteenth in New York, the day after Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week ended, Singapore’s much-lauded label showed its SS2014 collection. The static presentation at the Highline Stages, a multi-studio space in the Meatpacking District, offered what, at first sight, could be Raoul’s best offering to date.

Silhouettes associated with Twiggy and prints vaguely recalling the graphic designs of Dutch typographer Jurriaan Schrofer (but are, in fact, influenced by Brit artist Ben Nicholson) form the backbone of the collection. The shifts, shell tops, tunics, and pyjama-styles reflect tight editing. There is a certain simplicity that is alluring as well and, at the risk of sounding trite, modern. But Raoul was not always like this.

Most press coverage of the line in the past has attributed Raoul’s aesthetic to its design director Odile Benjamin, who, together with her husband Douglas Benjamin, often took to the catwalk at the end of stage presentations. When the women’s collection was launched some 10 years ago, it was positioned as a take on the men’s, which appeared first in 2002. Looking at the show photos of the SS 2014 season, it may be hard to believe that not so far back Raoul was variations of the shirt before moving on to dresses not quite on the right side of the fashion track. The line was build on feminine construction that was classic rather than innovative, and it escaped a Burda-esque image mostly through savvy marketing.

About four years ago, New York-based stylist Haidee Findlay-Levin came onboard as a consultant. It was then that Raoul started its journey towards trend-led collections, and on the way, picked up accolades when celebrities and actresses started wearing Raoul very publicly. Ms Findlay-Levin’s influence is discernible, more so when you consider her reach with designers, stores, stars, and the media, connections so vital to the visibility of brands today.

The biggest achievement for Raoul came in September last year, when the Duchess of Cambridge, during her visit to our island, wore a silk outfit to the Rainbow Centre at Margaret Drive, effectively ranking Raoul alongside her favourite labels such as Jenny Packham and Erdem.

Exactly how much creative input Mrs Benjamin offered in the making of recent Raoul is not certain. Alone or with a lieutenant, the captain may be marching Raoul to the right evolutionary beat.

Photo: http://www.zimbio.com; Mireya Acierto/Getty Images North America