You know the atypical Singaporean. Upwardly mobile; kancheong to the point of anxiety; kaisu to the point of ridiculousness. The cloud of reaching for success hangs heavy over our lives. After all, it was our collective hyper-competitive drive that contributed to Singapore's rise. But that push towards excellence also brought in "survival anxiety", because if you're not constantly winning, there is something wrong with how you live.

The Institute of Mental Health's (IMH) most recent study found that one in three young Singaporeans experience severe or extremely severe symptoms of depression, anxiety or stress, and research published in the Lancet Public Health named mental disorders as the leading cause of disability and death among Singaporeans aged 10 to 14.

Geneco's latest National Day campaign—"Begin Again"—makes the case that unravelling isn't failure; sometimes it's just part of the process.

"Begin Again" is led by Rachel Wan and Edwin Goh, whose own experiences with grief and burnout shaped a partnership with Geneco. Crocheting was a craft that Wan was experienced with and later introduced to Goh; it has also became an activity for them to process their grief and navigate their emotions.

The pair started Club Made to introduce crocheting to a wider audience by selling specially-designed yarns that are gives the clothing a better drape; are lighter and breathable; and has smoother stitch definition. With the "Begin Again" initiative, Goh and Wan add the element of mental wellness to the art of crocheting. Through nine crochet pieces, each item is a personal reflection on their own path through uncertainty.

Displayed at grovve, Singapore's first integrated youth wellness centre at *SCAPE, visitors can vote for their favourite pieces and redeem a limited-edition "Begin Again" crochet starter kit courtesy of Club Made. Geneco will take the collection to the inaugural Orchard Road Fashion Week, with a runway show on 13 August followed by a sharing session from Wan and Goh. Every vote cast, feeds towards Geneco's SGD10,000 donation to Beyond the Label, bringing the electrical provider's total contribution to youth mental health causes to SGD60,000.

We talk to Rachel Wan and Edwin Goh about "Begin Again", the collection, and how crocheting helps with their own mental wellness.

How does crocheting tie into your grief?

Crochet gave us something to return to on days when we didn't quite know what to do with our emotions. There's something incredibly grounding about working one stitch at a time because you can't rush it or skip ahead. In many ways, grief feels similar. It doesn't move in a straight line or follow a timeline, so crochet became less about making something beautiful and more about giving ourselves permission to simply be present and patient.

Working with Geneco on its "Begin Again" campaign deepened that perspective. Each piece became a quiet reminder that healing isn't about moving on overnight. Like crochet, it's built one stitch, one day, and one small step at a time.

If someone picked up crochet to distract themselves from a hard moment, at what point does it stop being a distraction and start being the actual processing?

We don't think there's a clear line between the two. Sometimes we need a distraction simply to create enough breathing room before we can face what's going on internally.

For us, we realised over time that while our hands stayed busy, our minds slowly caught up. Thoughts we'd been avoiding would surface naturally, and we'd find ourselves reflecting and processing instead of suppressing them. That's when crochet stopped being something that helped us escape our emotions and became something that helped us sit with them.

Working with our hands gave us uninterrupted moments to focus on what was right in front of us. It created space to breathe, reflect and simply be present, which became incredibly valuable during some of the more challenging periods in our lives. In a world where we're constantly multitasking and consuming information, it was refreshing to devote our attention to just one thing.

That’s also why we wanted "Begin Again" to be more than just a crochet collection. Together with Geneco, we also created limited-edition crochet starter kits which visitors can receive by voting for their favourite pieces via the QR code at the showcase and redeeming them from the grovve guides. Each kit contains all the materials needed, along with step-by-step instructions, to help participants crochet their own bucket hat. We hope that this incentive might encourage others to start crocheting or perhaps find their own outlet for processing difficult emotions.

Crochet is inherently collaborative in the sense that you can't rush someone else's row. What did you have to negotiate creatively when your emotional stages didn't line up on the same piece?

One thing we learnt was that healing rarely happens at the same pace for everyone. There were moments when one of us was full of ideas while the other needed to slow down, and we had to respect that.

Instead of trying to force the same rhythm, we learnt to trust each other's process and find collaboration in creation of the pieces. Looking back, I think that's what made the creative collection meaningful. Supporting someone doesn't always mean moving at the same speed. Sometimes it simply means giving them the space to move at their own pace and find their own rhythm.

In many ways, that's also what we hope people take away from "Begin Again". Every person's journey is different, and there's no single "right" timeline or reaction when it comes to growth and healing.

Grief doesn't usually resolve neatly, but a garment has to eventually be "finished." How did you decide when a piece was done?

That's actually one of the biggest parallels between crochet and healing and growth. A piece is never really perfect. At some point you simply decide it's complete and ready to be shared.

Healing feels similar. There isn't a moment where you suddenly feel completely healed. Instead, you reach a point where the experience becomes part of your story rather than the thing defining it.

For us, finishing each piece wasn't about closure. It was about acknowledging a chapter while knowing the journey continues. Sharing the collection, first through the Geneco campaign website, followed by the showcase at grovve, and finally on the runway at the inaugural Orchard Road Fashion Week, felt like continuing that story rather than ending it.

Was there a piece you made that you didn't end up liking as an object, but couldn't bring yourself to unravel because of what it represented?

Rachel Wan: I have this green crochet cropped top that I ended up never wearing out because I used the wrong yarn. It’s not suitable for warm weather. But because it was one of my first few wearable pieces, I keep it as a reminder of how far I’ve come today in my crochet skills.

Edwin Goh: No there isn’t, I usually unravel the pieces even though it feels like a heartbreak. But I do it anyway because I know the yarn will be reused and go into a piece which I actually like.

There’s always something beautiful about using yarn from a “mistake project” and turning it into something new.

The collection moves from uncertainty to acceptance to renewal—was that emotional sequence something you planned in advance, or did you only see the arc after the nine pieces existed?

We had broader themes in mind, but we didn't map out every emotional step from the beginning. As the collection grew, we started noticing that the pieces naturally reflected different moments that are universal experiences everyone will go through at some point in their lives—things like uncertainty, resilience, hope and eventually renewal.

Looking back, it felt less like we designed the journey and more like the journey revealed itself through the making. That's also what "Begin Again" is about. Growth isn't always linear, but every stage has value.

Which of the nine pieces took the longest to finish?

The piece that took the longest to complete was "A Moth to a Flame". It went through several design revisions and quite a bit of trial and error.

In many ways, it came to embody the collection’s overarching "Begin Again" theme, as I had to restart and remake the piece five times before arriving at the final design. It wasn't just technically challenging. Every time I unravelled it, I had to remind myself that starting over wasn't wasted effort, but part of the creative process. That became one of the biggest lessons for me behind the entire collection.

Visitors get to vote for the piece that "resonates most". Has anyone's vote or comment projected a meaning onto a piece that neither of you intended?

Absolutely, and that's been one of the most rewarding parts of the exhibition.

Through the showcase at grovve and the voting experience on the campaign, we've seen people connect with the collection in ways we never expected. They bring their own experiences, memories and emotions to each piece, so they'll often interpret something completely differently from what we originally intended.

Rather than feeling they’ve misinterpreted the work, we see that as the collection doing exactly what it should: creating space for personal reflection. It’s been a reminder that healing looks different for everyone, and the same piece can carry entirely different meanings depending on what stage someone is at as part of their own journey.

What's the one instruction you'd want in your starter kit that never makes it into a normal crochet tutorial?

"Don't worry about getting it right."

Crochet teaches you very quickly that mistakes happen, and most of them can be undone. If you miss a stitch, you can go back. If you don’t like how something turns out, you can unravel it and begin again.

That idea extends far beyond crochet. Life rarely unfolds the way we expect, and we all go through moments where things don’t go smoothly. What's important is knowing that starting over isn't failure, but it is simply part of the process. That's the message we hope people take away, whether they're picking up one of the crochet starter kits, visiting the showcase at grovve, or seeing the collection at Orchard Road Fashion Week. If someone walks away feeling a little kinder towards themselves and a little more hopeful about their own next chapter, then we've achieved what we set out to do.

"Begin Again" is held at *SCAPE and will run until 31 August, 2026.