A Master of the Classics

In the present moment? You cannot ask me that question because frankly, I am still in the fashion business…

I do not want to point my finger at any particular person - whether they are very good now or what they would be in the future- because we cannot dictate. I’m sure you know there are a lot of brands – if you look back in the past 10 years of fashion history of Singapore -, what happened to them? Today, they dropped out, they failed, or they didn’t make it, although they originally professed that they love fashion so much. No offence, especially the female designers. At the end of the day, they knew they had to be a homemaker and make babies, so they cannot put so much concentration into their careers. And especially when they find a husband or boyfriend who can afford the lifestyle, they are complacent enough to accept their new role. How many female designers are good today? Even Christian Dior’s new designer Maria Grazia Chiuri - I don’t think she is good. She just has got that Italian Mama sense in her work. To me, it’s all dollars and cents, it’s all advertising, it’s all promotion.

Everybody! In fact, even with small brands, they need to do their marketing. Whether they are online or they do a runway show, or they are the top league of fashion, everybody needs to market themselves…with money. And with the big boys, of course it’s all about advertising and promotion. It’s about making a lot of noise. So whether they have really good or bad taste, you have got no say to it because they have the money and they dictate, you know?

I think it takes a lot. It really takes a lot for a young designer. Are you talking about a young designer in this case?

The older designers are getting from bad to worse, because they stopped.

It's something which I don't know whether it occurs to them or not, but they cannot see from their point of view that their work has deteriorated and they already have stopped somewhere. They don't know how to create anymore because they are quite satisfied with the kind of business they have, or the kind of style, artisanal styles that they created in their backroom, with their tailors. So, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Whereas with the new younger generation, as I said, they have not seen the 50s glamour, they have not seen 60s high style, they have not seen you know, the 70s' really super big shows and 80s as well. So, when we have not seen glamour, when you have not seen high style, you just cannot imagine it.

And I would like to ask a lot of young designers today, have they seen a proper fashion show in Singapore for the past six, seven years? The last one probably was Singapore Fashion Week by Mercury group. But then even those shows are not, to me, the epitome of high style and good taste. They are just brands that need to retail themselves on the catwalk.

It's also about the infrastructure and this designer's own passion for creating fashion. You see, I was very lucky when I was born. My mother was a tailor. So she created beautiful clothes and the engineering part of it intrigues me a lot. And when her customers come for fittings I'm there to witness how immaculately the clothes were made. And she taught me a lot of things about dress-making, from the most important thing, pressing work and needlework and all that. Then of course, is the cutting part. And even how to handle a pair of scissors. And as it goes, along the way – I have never been to a fashion design school – I picked up fashion aesthetic from fashion magazines. I read a lot. And I care about my work being observed.

From that time up until today, there's been nobody who has offered to criticise or give me a comment on my work. Until today. Honestly, if I were to do a fashion show now – in fact this happened many years ago as well – I can finish illustrating or drawing a full collection after I edited, I can draw a 300-style collection and edit to about 40 styles for the catwalk. But with this piece of paper, with the illustrations there, who do I approach and ask for comments?

Nobody dares, in the first place.

Well, I've got friends who always like, you know, always, I mean, they're always like, "Oh, I love this. Oh, Thomas it's so nice, this is not you, but then it's so new." That's all. But would they say something like, "Hey, you're passé already"? You know, that kind of thing?

Yes, of course. But this person must be credible.

I do have a couple of friends who are very literate and cultured. I always say in Chinese, 文化基础顶尖 (have excellent foundations in cultural matters). You understand Mandarin, right?

Their taste level. Because, of course, from the way they dress, to their whole lifestyle, the way they live, the books they read. And the movies they see, you know that they are of a certain level of real sophistication. These are the only friends that would say that "I love the collection," or "I'm not too sure". But they know that, you know, even when they say that, I can accept it, and I would edit it again, but I wouldn't change it. Because is my DNA.

The way I cut, the way I shape every garment, the way I make sure my garments are three-dimensional. That's me, that's my style. I don't design out of the blue, or in the middle of the night. I design when I'm making my paper pattern. Because it's from the engineering process that you invent, you know, a certain detail, or certain silhouette or a certain shape. For example, a sleeve, or the finishing of a hem, and all that. So these are special details to me. And the set of the armhole to me is very critical because I cannot stand it when I see clothes that are badly assembled.

So from a young age, I began to cultivate all this. When I was in school, of course, you know, after school– we couldn't afford to buy fashion magazines in those days, but I happened to be in St. Joseph Institution and it's just along Bras Basah Road where all the best bookstores were. And after school we'd just go to these bookstores– can't afford to buy but take a fashion magazine and–

We don't copy actually, but we admire the photography, we know which model is on the cover. We read the credits. I read the credits inside: which model, which photographer, which makeup artist, where are the clothes from, and even the prices.

Yeah, of course. Nobody taught me, so I had to learn this myself. Because I had a lot of friends interested in fashion also, whether they are school classmates, crewmates or friends. So you have got to know. Don't make yourself a fool by saying some rubbish things. The more you educate yourself, the more literate you are in terms of fashion knowledge, the more people respect you. And you have to learn to be very articulate when you describe something. That goes from schoolwork until whatever I do after school.

Before we talk about this, have you done any research on me and my work?

So, from your point of view, what kind of a designer am I?

Actually it's not.

It's how the media put me in that kind of a light. But let me tell you, yes. I always believe in sophistication, a little bit of glamour, but don't have to be snobbish. Clothes are clothes, you know, it's supposed to envelope a woman's body. And I don't think a woman should wear an hourglass dress to be feminine. I like clothes that are loose-fitting. But when they are loose-fitting, the most important thing is that it has got to have a three-dimensional form. Design, to me is actually three-dimensional. It's just like a piece of furniture or a car. Whenever you see a Philippe Starck piece of furniture, or an electrical appliance, you know it's a designer piece. Secondly, it sits so beautifully well at that area where he puts it. You practically, sometimes you need an empty loft to put that Philippe Starck furniture there. That's what I call good taste. You can't have everything cluttered together because then you've lost the Philippe Starck aesthetic.

So to me, clothes are for a woman and how she wears it. Until today, I really believe very much in retail, ready-to-wear, selling clothes. Because it's from retailing – it's from my customers, when they walk in and pick the clothes up and go inside the fitting room and come out again, that I observe that, oh yes, we do have such customers. I do have this kind of customers. My job is to cultivate customers. I don't shove the thing down their throat to sell them. "Oh, you look good in this, you must wear it and this is the look at a season," – no. I think it all depends on this person's lifestyle and her carriage and her whole aura.

My style is actually, frankly, really clean aesthetic. Less is more, yes, but most importantly, where it is the "more" part? It's actually in the finishing. I mean, why do rich men buy a Mercedes Benz or Lamborghini? Because it's so beautifully made, you know, leave alone the power of the engine. But you can see it's an elegant car. It's such elegance. And where clothes are concerned, it's the way I finish the garment. To me, designer clothes are all about luxury. But luxury doesn't have to be expensive. I always stress this to my students. A good designer can use a cheap piece of fabric and make it look very expensive. Because that is through his skill, technical skill. A bad designer can use an expensive piece of fabric and just make it look so horrendous, homemade.

You hang it there and it's like, oh my god, where did it come from? And the worst part is, you can have a design from a foreign designer picked from a tear sheet. Give it to five tailors to execute, and the five garments will turn out differently. Because not every one of these tailors are designers. They cannot understand the proportions because from just looking at pictures you can never tell how broad is the collar, how broad is the shoulder seam, how is the armhole set. These are the little details, not just whatever is applied on the bodice or the garment.

You know, no insult to a lot of tailors, no offense, especially a lot of fashion firms, designers, and all that. They have a bunch of people behind them to help solve their problem. They design, they draw, and they pass the sheet and the fabric, probably, to the tailors. And the tailors are actually the people who are the engineers. They are the people who draft that pattern, cut it, and then send it down to the sampling room, instruct the sampling girl or guy how to sew and how to assemble it. Does the designer do it himself?

Because they don't even know how to make patterns. And even if they know how to make patterns, a lot of people tell me, "I don't like to make patterns because it's very tedious. And my maths is no good. I've got to calculate, you know, how many cm from here to there," which to them is very painful.

You've got to be technically very strong. As I said, a good designer can use a cheap piece of fabric, like $5 or $6 a metre, or 45-inch width, narrow width and make a beautiful tunic out of it. It depends on what you apply in between, like the lining, the interfusing, you know, the armhole set, whether you another extra piping inside – this is the whole process of making the garment tailored, or draped. So it's not how expensive this fabric is. Yes, when you get an expensive fabric, definitely, you can tell it's very expensive. But when you have poor engineering, you just kill the fabric. And so a lot of people don't know.

Today, very few people go to tailors. All the aunties don't go to tailors anymore. But during my time, everybody went to the tailor. And there are a lot of tailors, even though they're trained from the dressmaking school, but it's through many years of doing tailoring that they cultivate and they improve this skill. Then they understand how to make anything from a shirt to a suit to a Chinese qipao. They improve, because they care that when they deliver this piece of garment, the customer doesn't reject it. So at the end of the day, let me tell you: to be a good designer, you must make sure you do not have thick skin. You must feel shame of what you do if it is not good enough.

Yes! So long as the customer comes in and looks at your clothes and says, "Such-and-such designer, I think your clothes are very well made," this is good enough. When I price it, or the designer prices it, we call it 'perceived value'. But does it deserve that price? It all depends of course, on this designer – how much pressure he puts into finishing the garment, pressing the garment, hanging it on a hanger and fitting the customer when she wants to try it. It all boils down to feeling proud of your work. When you wear the jacket or the customer comes with the dress, you just tie it for her and wrap it up for her and you just feel that, yes, you got it.


And if there's anything wrong, any alteration needed, that's a lesson learnt. You learnt what not to do in the first place and you learn that, okay, there are certain parts of that garment that, when you have to repeat a certain style again, you make sure that has to be edited. So I think we are always in the process of learning. We are always in the process of editing and correcting from errors. But a good designer usually is quite confident of his DNA. So if you ask me, my DNA is: I evolve. And I am also totally very into all kinds of concepts and themes. I can do oriental very well because I'm Chinese. I know the 5000 years of Chinese dynasty. You cannot cheat me – you cannot put an emblem there and tell me that is Qing dynasty when it's actually Ming dynasty – that kind of thing.

I tell my students, 你们中国五千年的历史， 你没有一样东西骗的过我. (There is not one thing in China's history of 5000 years that you can fool me about.) I know. I read. I go and see. And when I was in Shanghai, of course when we went to the museum we saw so many beautiful things over there. Who says Chinese is ching-chong? The Chinese culture is one of the best cultures in the whole world, leave alone the Indian culture.

I love everything Indian. I wish I would have gone to India for a one-year study of their industry, from their weavers to their dyeing process and all that, it's gorgeous. And of course, the detail. At one time when I was doing my high fashion haute couture, all my beadwork and embroidery were all done in India. I got an Indian beader as an agent that comes to Singapore and collect my orders and go back and dive right in. And these cottage factories are the people who do work for Armani and Yves Saint Laurent!


So when you have seen the best of all these cottage factories, without a doubt you will know how to use this thing to add value to your garment. But on the other hand, I'm also a very western-inclined designer – I love suits. The first thing I did when I went to Paris was I went to the Yves Saint Laurent boutique and I just pushed myself through the two glass doors and went straight to the Le Smoking jacket that YSL is famous for and just look and check what's so interesting about this old suit? And yes of course it's a tuxedo, it's very, very well made. And it was very obnoxious of me at that time to say, but when I came out, I said, "If he can do it, I can do it". Because, as I said, that's an education.

I go into not a school, I go into an Yves Saint Laurent boutique and I learnt something, came out, free of charge. Very few people have that opportunity. So that's why I say today a lot of designers, they don't really look into their things, they design something and they pass it on to their tailors. They have a rough idea how will it look like. But do they ever bother to go and beg, borrow or steal a Dior, a Chanel, to show the tailor "I want it to be done this way"?

There's a lot of education that goes into it. Name me one designer or one brand in Singapore's fashion scene whose backroom tailor has touched, or seen a Dior or a Chanel. If they have not, how can they make you one? And if the designer does not take the pain to go and find something similar to show them "I want it to be done this way – look at the finishing, look at the cut, look at the lining, look at all those secret details they put inside the garment. Can we do it like this?"

Of course, the tailor will say, aiyah it's very difficult, it's too much work and all that. Yes, it's a lot of work. But you'll have to sell it a little bit more expensive because a lot of pain goes into it. That's research. So when these tailors have not worn a Chanel or a Dior, what do they know about luxury? When you slip on – even those days – a Donna Karan dress, it's so luxurious, it just clings to your body. It hangs from your shoulders. This is the kind of thing a lot of young designers have never experienced, can never visualize and can never know. Unless they wear it themselves. Or they walk into Chanel or Dior or Gucci to really fit the thing themselves.

I motivate students by bringing in beautiful things to show them what you have not seen. That's very important. I mean, no offense to these people. Of course, the day they're born, they're facing an HDB flat, they're facing four concrete walls, their parents don't instill this thing called proper dressing up at home, or even when they go to the neighbourhood market and all those sort of things. But it's how much this student gets the chance to see. You have got to show them.

Those days when I was teaching in NAFA, I really brought in an Armani or a Donna Karan, or a Yves Saint Laurent jacket. I borrowed from friends. I put them on the dummy mannequin and show them the whole three-dimensional aura of that jacket. How the collar sits, how the armhole is cut, falls according to you know, from a straight line, how many degrees. You have to observe all this. Why do you call this a cigarette sleeve? Because it's really shaped like a cigarette. Or all those darts and detailing, which to me is a fashion element. Darts doesn't just– they don't make darts just because it has got to shape the body. They make the darts also as a fashion detail. The darts don't have to go here, the darts can, from princess-cut to French darts, these are fashion details and the student has got to know it all. You don't have to apply things on the garment.

So a lot of designers fail in their work because to them fashion design is add, add, add, apply, apply, apply, embellish and embellish and embellish. They do not know the most difficult thing to do in terms of fashion design is to eliminate, eliminate, take out, take out, remove, remove, remove everything from this so-called piece of garment – but you can still tell it's a designer piece. That's the most difficult, isn't it? So how do I tell them that this is pure aesthetic? I have got to prove it by making my own clothes to tell them this is pure aesthetic.

Honestly, I am very happy sometimes when a customer wears my clothes from the fitting room they come out and they, you know, or after they fit already they pass the skirt or the pants or the dress to me or my salesperson and they say, “Thomas, don't think I never see what's inside - it's so beautiful.” It makes me feel good because it's worth my bloody time planning for all this. You know what I mean? So it's something which I think is part of my DNA. It’s part of what I'm known for. Customers who buy my clothes, after many years, they still have them. They still keep them. They say, "I sayang (can’t bear) to throw that away. Because Thomas, your labour is there, in the finishing."

You know, it makes you feel good, that you're wanted. Whether the media knows or not is another thing. But the most important thing is I'm a businessman. When I sell something, I want to make sure that I put myself in the customers' shoes. Buy something worth it. Buy something which I can wear seasons after season. We don't have seasons here, but we can still call that a classic. It's very easy to design avant-garde, modern things. But it's very difficult to design a classic or call a design a classic. Because we evolve. And looking back, sometimes – that's the reason why I encourage a lot of people in Singapore I don't know whether we have, to go to the vintage or thrift shops. These are the places with things that a designer can learn: what the professionals before them did.

Even the young designers when they walk into my counter, I just let them touch my things, it's fine, if you can learn from it.