Led by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), Singapore’s participation at the World Expo 2025 was an opportunity to share our nation’s story. Located at Yumeshima Island, situated near Osaka, Singapore's pavilion design is called "The Dream Sphere". It is a seven-storey bright red sphere that pays homage to Yumeshima Island’s name, meaning "Dream Island". With the tagline, "Where Dreams Take Shape", this sphere is designed and produced by Kingsmen Exhibits.
If the design looks familiar, chalk it up to coincidence. Leading Singapore-based multidisciplinary design firm, DP Architects spearheaded its architectural design. Inspired by Singapore’s endearing moniker, ‘the Little Red Dot’, DP interpreted the look of the Dream... quite literally. Conceived in line with the expo's theme of "Designing [a] Future Society for our Lives", the Pavilion aims for positive change to build a more sustainable and liveable city for Singaporeans. It's constructed around the tenets of 4Rs—renew, reuse, reduce and recycle. And staying true to the message of sustainability, the facade is made of more than 20,000 recycled discs.
Other design features of the Pavilion include its scaly exterior. It references the Seigaiha, a traditional Japanese wave motif, and Ema, a Japanese wooden wishing charm. The sphere’s colour coincides with Singapore's and Japan’s national colour. Its shape resembles the distinct silhouette of the Japanese ume.
Carrie Kwik, Executive Director, World Expo and Special Project, STB, said, “Singapore’s participation at Expo 2025 in Osaka serves as an important platform for Singapore enterprises and talents to be profiled on a global stage and a chance for companies to enhance their brand visibility and engage potential business partners. We are proud to bring Singapore to Osaka and aim to have Singapore business missions visiting Japan to network and promote collaboration between Singapore companies and Japanese guests at our Singapore Pavilion.”
Expo 2025 Osaka expects 28 million visitors over 184 days from 13 April 2024 to 13 October 2025.
From 15 to 21 April 2024, Moncler transforms the Milano Centrale railway station into a spectacular creative hub. The station will turn into one of the world’s largest galleries with an immersive exhibition titled An Invitation To Dream.
“Dreams are what have been moving myself and Moncler forward since day one, because we never stop dreaming about what is possible, and how we can inspire and be inspired by others around the world. Always aiming to not only do new, but to do better,” says Moncler chairman and CEO Remo Ruffini.
Curated by Jefferson Hack, the theme of the exhibition heeds closely to the brand’s values. An Invitation To Dream is filmed and photographed by Jack Davison, and features a lineup of visionaries that are the cultural leaders of today. They include Daniel Arsham, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Isamaya Ffrench, Laila Gohar, Jeremy O. Harris, Francesca Hayward, Julianknxx, Ruth Rogers, Ruffini, Rina Sawayama, Sumayya Vally, and Zaya.
“The curated community represent some of the finest creative visionaries across culture who dare to dream for us. They are today’s reality-shapers and they were invited to participate as their work carries with it new hopes and possibilities. It’s the deeply transformative aspects in their work and practice that makes them essential artists of our time and essential for us to bring into this project,” Hack explains.
Without a doubt, the station is one of the city’s busiest travel hubs. But not only that, it also represents the pivotal moment for those daring enough to pursue their dreams. Billboards and screen-based advertising sites featuring imageries and quotations from the artists stand amidst the station's bustling environment. These large-scale text pieces and slow-motion portraits serve as powerful yet silent invocations. An Invitation To Dream celebrates those who embody passion and belief.
Arsham tells us more as he reflects on the concept of dreams and manifestation, and how it might help him in his creative processes. From childhood inspirations to the subconscious realms where ideas germinate, Arsham's narrative offers a glimpse into the inner workings of a visionary artist.
ESQUIRE SINGAPORE: Do you consider yourself a dreamer? Are you a dreamer?
DANIEL ARSHAM: Yeah, I believe in the power of manifestation. When I was younger, I didn't fully grasp this concept or its reality, but looking back, I see how I've manifested many opportunities in my life. For instance, when I applied to Cooper Union, I wasn't accepted initially, but I kept pushing for it until it happened. Similarly, working with Merce Cunningham was a dream I actively pursued.
ESQ: You have a lot of notebooks and that you sketch a lot. It's interesting how dreams often start in the mind before taking tangible form. How do you document your process of manifesting ideas? Do your dreams directly influence your work?
DA: There's that 5- to 10-minute period right before you fall asleep where you're kind of in between sleeping, lucid dreaming, where you're partially in control of the vision that you're having in your dream and part of it's taken over by your subconscious. And you can’t differentiate what’s real and what’s imaginary. I often find inspiration in that liminal state right before sleep. There are moments, especially during air travel, where I enter a state between wakefulness and sleep, and ideas emerge. I rely heavily on note-taking and sketching to capture these fleeting thoughts.
ESQ: It's interesting how much our subconsciousness can help recontextualise the conscious mind in a way it can be a freer space. You know, you have an idea, you sketch, you look at ideas, but then when you're in that kind of dream world, you're able to kind of rethink things, or things are presented to you without bias.
DA: Yeah. Ironically, I sometimes do this thing to document an idea where I'll text it to myself. I woke up the other morning from a dream and saw this text I wrote to myself and it said, "Have you ever woken up out of a beautiful dream 30 minutes before your alarm, and you really just want to get back into that dream? Make your life feel like that."
ESQ: Creative flow and dreaming share similarities in their meditative nature. Do you experience a flow state while creating?
DA: Yeah. My studio practice feels like capturing an existing idea rather than inventing one. The idea behind it has already passed. So it's about capturing an idea rather than implementing it. I don't know how exactly to say this, but when I'm painting, It's almost as if the idea is kind of already there and I'm just finding it. Does that make sense?
ESQ: So are you able to kind of paint and not think about what you’re doing? How would you describe that, that feeling of being in a flow state?
DA: I've been making paintings now for 30 years, and I've gotten into a process that almost feels, I wouldn’t say mechanical, but it's very regimented. I know exactly where all of my paint is, the types of brushes that I like to use, and I've refined all of that, even down to the point where I only use a specific kind of paint now.
ESQ: It's interesting because I think that that kind of discipline and rigour is akin to a meditation practice where you're doing something very mundane, but you're doing it very precisely, over and over again, like raking the Japanese garden in your big installation.
DA: Yeah.
ESQ: It does something to the mind. It does something to the creative mind, that practice...
DA: That's why we call it studio practice, because you're constantly trying things out. You're still learning and there's routines that get built up within that that I think are productive, actually, even if they feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again. But, you become better at those things through that kind of practice.
ESQ: Has there ever been a kind of an epiphany moment in that studio practice where you've just done a left turn or you’re shaking things up and thought, okay, I'm going to re orientate what I'm doing here?
DA: I often find it really difficult to trace the origin of particular ideas in my work because they flow from one another. They're kind of iterative. And, I recently started this new series of paintings that are these kinds of split face paintings. We were talking about them earlier and somebody was asking, where did the idea originate from and I can't even remember.
ESQ: So very much like a dream it's fragmentary, right? You know, it could come from the past and could come from, a moment in history or another life and it could also be a premonition of the future, something that you're projecting or wanting to manifest?
DA: Right.
ESQ: I think by saying I don't know where my ideas come from, I start to question whether they are from me or are they from another kind of source in a way that I'm channelling. Have you thought much about that? Where does inspiration come from in general for you?
DA: I think every artist is a product of the era they live in. It is the artist’s job to interpret and reveal new potential things within that reality that often go unseen or overlooked. Oftentimes when I create a work that has a big impact, it feels as though it already existed in the world, waiting to be expressed. This sense of inherent presence gives the work a significant impact and a sense of purpose fulfilled.
ESQ: There's definitely recurring symbols and motifs in your work. Are there recurring symbols and motifs in your dream world?
DA: Oh, I have tons of recurring dreams. One of them that's very strange that I can remember going all the way back to high school is, being in a kind of empty landscape with a single tree and there are these cylinders floating in the air and as I go to grab them, they shrink down into a pencil and then just disappear. Then I often have dreams where I'm in my childhood home where I kind of relive my childhood memories.
ESQ: And how does that make you feel?
DA: It's a beautiful thing to go back to your childhood. And, I could probably draw a very accurate floor plan of it even today. I haven't been in that house in over 30 years, but I know it very well. Space has a way of influencing our psychology that I think imprints a lot in childhood.
ESQ: In what way?
DA: I think your childhood bedroom or the space that you spend a lot of time in as a child imprints on you differently than the way an apartment in your 30s might. There's just a different character about it.
ESQ: I'm just imagining younger you in your childhood home, dreaming of what you might be in the future. What were some of the things that you were looking out for that gave you a sense of inspiration or confidence about taking the path of being an artist?
DA: I grew up in a really suburban neighbourhood where all the houses are literally identical with the same floor plan. They might do a mirror image where the house is in reverse of itself. I started getting into photography around age 10 or 11 when my grandfather gifted me a camera. One of my early artistic endeavours was a series of photos capturing the doors of these houses. Even though the houses were the same, the doors ended up being different. The paint of the door. Some people put a flower pot outside their door, or a cross, or something that gave that sameness a unique character. This experience sparked my recognition of an artist's ability to capture the distinctive aspects of everyday life that others may overlook.
ESQ: It's amazing because I can imagine you sort of looking through the frame and then it altering your sense of reality and perspective on the world. I'm really interested in this idea of how you think about reality and perspective. Obviously, our dream world allows us to play with one of those concepts because it is nonlinear, experimental. It's an unreal world. In some cultures, they would say the real world is an illusion and the dream world is the world. But obviously when you're making art and your artworks are also about world building and creating alternate worlds for yourself to inhabit, I wonder if this idea of reality shaping is something that interests you in your work.
DA: Yeah, I think for most people, they accept reality at face value and they accept the limitations of that. Right?
ESQ: The literal physics.
DA: It's not just about the physics; it's about where we're born, the options presented to us, and what we believe we're capable of achieving. For me, the essence of creating art goes beyond a career; it's about realising the potential to bring my visions to life authentically. It can be unsettling to recognise that much of what we perceive as reality are human constructs. Somebody made them, you know. I have my two young sons, Casper and Phoenix, and I often emphasise to them that behind every design decision lies the possibility for change. There's a lot of potential in realising that reality is malleable.
ESQ: So your motivation is about looking at the world and seeing how you can improve on it or change it. Or is it more about seeking some kind of answers to unrealised questions?
DA: Yeah, I think making art is more about trying to find the answer to something, but actually it's really revealing more questions in some ways.
ESQ: That's super interesting. I like that we talked a lot about childhood and your children as well. I think also part of it seems to me that you are always open to change and new possibilities. You said earlier, always learning is also a little bit about staying in a childlike state?
DA: Yeah. Children have this unique ability to perceive things differently.
ESQ: How do you maintain that sense of freshness and openness to new experiences? What are some of your techniques?
DA: I try to relive my own childhood through my sons. This is a bad example, but they've been wanting to get these go karts. Obviously, cars are a big part of my life, so I got them these really fast gas go karts that are probably not even legal today. I have a paved area behind my garage and you can fully drift these things. They kept telling me ‘you're going too fast’ and I was like ‘I got it under control!’ And eventually, like a child, I pushed it over the limit and fully flipped the thing, tore up my arm and knee, and it was funny. Casper, who's the older one, said ‘you know, I told you not to do that.’
ESQ: How have you showcased "pushing the limits" in your work?
DA: As an artist, we often engage in series, and the public often perceives artwork through repetition. It's like pages of a book that you're putting together, but knowing when the book is finished and how it progresses to the next chapter or book is a constant consideration. I often have too many ideas that I'm always waiting to realise. I don't know if that really answers the question. But yeah, I always have too many things on my list to make, too many ideas.
ESQ: Was there an experience, an artwork that's made such an incredible impression on you, the kind of impression you hope your work would have on the public when they encounter it?
DA: Right around the time that I was shooting those photographs, when I was 10, 11, 12, there was a hurricane in Florida that completely destroyed the childhood home that I grew up in. The house was reconstructed back in exactly the way that it had been before, except obviously, the wallpaper was different. The tiles on the floor were different. The furniture was different. But it was the exact same space. It also gave me the experience of seeing how architecture was put together. The structure, the electrical lines, the plumbing, the drywall, the paint. Understanding that, yeah, somebody thought about that, somebody made that, it was a considered idea. I think that really had a major impact on the way that I think about everything. Something being destroyed, something being reconstructed. The use of different materials for different possibilities and its manifested in my work in so many different ways.
ESQ: That's a great story. Last question, what’s an unrealised dream or ambition for you?
DA: Ummm.. an unrealised dream? Film is certainly something that I've played with in the past and I think never really realised in its full potential. Made some short films. But I think at this phase in my life, I keep coming back to the most interesting things that constantly draws me back. I have made a big return to painting after almost a decade. It's become not only a part of my art practice, but also a significant aspect of my daily life in the studio.
ESQUIRE: Coldplay is in town for the next few days. Have you adjusted to the time zone?
GUY BERRYMAN: Not quite. Getting there. We were in Manila prior and were stuck in crazy Manila traffic. I’ve never seen anything like it. Have you been there?
ESQ: Once. A long time ago. You’ll need to frame your appointments around how bad the traffic is. But having the concert held across several days must be great for you.
GB: So many people want to buy tickets, which is amazing. So, if we only do one show, a lot of people will be pissed-off. From a business point of view, it’s better to be in one spot for many shows because it saves on all the transportation and setup costs.
ESQ: I’d assume that it’s enough time to get acclimatised.
GB: It’s nice not having to move. I like coming to a place, unpacking my stuff in a hotel room and staying there for a week as opposed to flying into a city, doing a show and flying to the next place, y’know? That’s way harder.
ESQ: You have outfits that you have collected over the years. What is that one piece that you’re amazed by?
GB: I’ve got so many garments that I’m completely in love with. Quite often, they’re 50 or 70 years old, something like that. There’s one jacket that I have, which is a Royal Air Force Ventile parka from the 1950s that I think is just one of the greatest pieces of menswear ever designed.
ESQ: Why is that?
GB: It’s hard to say initially... but it’s the details, really. The Ventile fabric, the fit, the lining... what’s particularly nice about the jacket is that it’s 70 years old. It’s faded and got little holes in it; there’s a certain patina to it that brands try to recreate with their products. These days, you can buy new jeans that are full of holes, that’s been faded... it’s all fake. What I love about the [Royal Air Force] jacket is the way it looks, it’s old and really beautiful. I wear vintage pieces all the time. I love them because they look a certain way that you can only get from a vintage piece.
ESQ: Do you think, in this day and age, that it’s easier to buy vintage pieces or harder due to fast fashion?
GB: I’m somebody who buys mostly old clothes. When I go to a different city, I don’t head to the luxury retail experiences. I go for the flea markets, the antique shops and the charity outlets. That’s where I’d find the things that I like. I do shop from Dover Street Market but I’ve no issue with wearing secondhand clothes at all.
ESQ: Was your T-shirt, “Love is the Drug” inspired by one of Roxy Music’s songs of the same name?
GB: Actually, that was just a coincidence. The phrase has nothing to do with Roxy Music. So, we do all of our own screenprinting by hand at our [Applied Art Forms] studio. Somebody in the team said since Valentine’s Day is coming up, we should make a special Valentine’s Day T-shirt. I was thinking about what can we do that isn’t super cheesy like a heart or the kind of typical imagery associated with Valentine’s Day. I kinda thought that “love is the drug”. It kinda had that slightly edgier feel to it. I wrote “Love is the drug” on a piece of cardboard with a pink marker. I let the paint run down a little so that it looked cool. We photographed it, screenprinted about, I think, 50 T-shirts and put it up for sale the next day. When it was sold out, we kept getting e-mails from people wanting to buy it. After a while, we kept printing and making more of them. Then, Chris [Martin] wore it, which led to more people wanting it. So, here we are two years later still with “Love is the Drug”. (shows a T-shirt from the rack) We have a version only for Singapore. This is a black on black T-shirt. But, yeah, “Love is the Drug” has nothing to do with Roxy Music.
ESQ: Has Roxy Music contacted you about the phrase though?
GB: No they didn’t. I mean, I don’t know what the IP rules on this are like. I’m not sure. Actually, the phrase I meant to write was “Love is a Drug” and I wrote it wrong. The “just say yes” portion of it has to do with this 1980s anti-drug campaign in the UK... no, wait, it was an American campaign to stop kids from taking drugs and the campaign slogan was “just say no”. So when I wrote, “Love is the Drug”. I changed and added “just say yes” to it. So, that’s how it came about.
ESQ: Will you do more slogan T-shirts?
GB: For me, my real passion for the brand is outerwear jackets. So whenever we launch a new collection, it’s always built around my ideas for the jackets that I want to make. Most of the time I just wear plain T-shirts... that’s just how I like to style myself. But, of course, graphic T-shirts are what the public wants so we always offer a few different graphic T-shirts. Some are sometimes photographic-based. We do a lot of handwriting or stencilling. “Love is the Drug” is a nice phrase and I don’t think I’m going to introduce another kind of slogan anytime soon.
ESQ: You have a studio in Amsterdam. What does that do for you, creatively as an artist?
GB: My partner, Keishia [Gerrits] is Dutch and so I was spending more and more time over there visiting her family. I fell in love with Amsterdam. It’s just such a wonderful city and it made sense to move there. I’m now a full-time resident of Amsterdam. As a city, culturally, it’s very diverse. The centre of the city looks the same now as it did hundreds of years ago. I always think that it’s very beautiful. But there are a lot of creatives in Amsterdam. Many talented people, like musicians and designers. There are incredible restaurant tours there. The city changed a lot even in the last five years since I’ve been there.
ESQ: Hannah Martin is your partner for your jewellery line, A Vanitas and your meeting with her was serendipitous. Do you like collaborating with other people?
GB: I do. Collaboration is such a big thing these days. I feel almost every day you’re looking on social media or whatever and you’re presented with news of a new collaborative product. When the idea of collaborations first started happening, it was interesting but now I kinda see it for what it is... which is just a big marketing exercise. where big brands are saying, you take some of our customers and we take some of yours. That’s what collaboration these days are like. But the collaboration between Hannah and I was not about that. It was just this very chance meeting. We’re two small brands so our collaboration isn’t gonna move the dial for either of our businesses. Our partnership came about with a focus just purely on the product and the designs that we came up with.
ESQ: What’s next on the collaboration front?
GB: The most sensible collaboration would be with a footwear brand. Applied Art Forms don’t do footwear. For a small brand like us to go into footwear is quite challenging because the minimums on shoes are very high and you have a range of sizes for them. What would make more sense for us, is partnering with an established like-minded footwear brand for shoes. That would probably be my next logical step for any kind of collaboration.
ESQ: You mentioned there was a steep learning curve when you first created Applied Art Forms. Is it easier now? Or do you still find it challenging to sustain it?
GB: No, I love it. I’m very passionate, very driven about design. I’m always full of ideas so it is never an issue to realise them. I mean, we did launch the brand at the start of the pandemic; I was living in the UK at the time and the studio was in Amsterdam. So when the lockdown happened suddenly, I couldn’t go to the studio to work. Very quickly, we had to come up with a new way of working, which was, as you know, would be Zoom calls.
I’d be at home talking through the screen with the team in Amsterdam. We’d have an open Zoom meeting for half a day. If a prototype came in, they would hold it up and try it on. I’d look at them saying, no, the shoulders need to be wider, that needs to be longer, y’know? It’s not ideal but it works. Now, I’m on tour and it allows me to come to places like Singapore and speak to you. That’s helpful for the brand. But I can jump in on a Zoom meeting any time because we have the remote working method really dialled in. Eventually, when I move to Amsterdam, it’ll be fantastic because then I can cycle to the studio every morning and be together with the team. This would be much more productive.
ESQ: What about scalability? How do you navigate that and try to stay true to what you’re doing?
GB: We’re always going to stay true to what we’re doing. Of course, we needed to grow and we needed to scale a bit but I definitely don’t want to turn [Applied Art Forms] into a huge mega brand. It’s always about product quality. It’s about building a community around the brand who understands where I’m coming from. And for me, that’s all it needs to be.
ESQ: We’re curious. Your jewellery line with Hannah is about the memento mori trope (“remember that you’ll die so do all you can in this limited lifetime”). Whereas Applied Art Forms is about the longevity of clothes. What does time mean to you?
GB: It all stems down to trying to leave your mark on the world. If you make something which isn’t very good, or if it doesn’t last a long time, it will disappear. I guess it’s kinda the same way when you make music: you’re trying to make songs that will have an impression on the world. And it’ll still be playing after you’re done. For instance, (points to a jacket) that denim chore jacket there... it’s a beautiful Japanese selvedge denim and this is fantastic in the way it’s put together. Somebody like me could go to a vintage store and find this jacket because it lasted that long. But not only that, it will look so beautiful. It will have faded and there might be some holes in it but it’s going to look beautiful. I always want to make meaningful things whether that be music or clothes or jewellery. It has to be something which will stand the test of time.
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Pharrell Williams and Tyler, the Creator share a longstanding collaboration in the music industry, with many of Tyler’s songs produced by Williams. They also feature in each other’s tracks, including Williams' 2022 single “Cash In Cash Out” and Tyler’s “IFHY” from his 2013 album Wolf. The close friends are in constant creative dialogues and thrive on it. Taking it to a new level, the Louis Vuitton men’s creative director delivers a new capsule collection created in collaboration with Tyler.
This isn't Tyler's first brush with Louis Vuitton having most recently composed the soundtrack for the Maison's Autumn/Winter 2023 menswear show. The Louis Vuitton Spring 2024 Men’s Capsule Collection by Tyler, The Creator is a melodic combination of the visual vocabularies of Tyler and the Maison, especially the one that Williams has established—it's preppy meets dandy with a whole lot of fresh interpretations of both.
The collection features pieces that Tyler would personally wear. “I dress the same in a meeting as I do a performance or grocery store trip, so hand drawing the monogram felt like the perfect balance to me,” he says. Dubbed the "Craggy Monogram", his hand drawn monogram comes in chocolate, vanilla and pastel shades. In addition to the usual LV symbols and 4-petalled LV Flowers, the Craggy Monogram incorporates representations of daisies and Airedale Terriers—familiar motifs from the visual universe of the artist. The uneven shapes of the hand drawn Monogram are echoed in lines and details throughout the collection, from chocolate down jackets to vanilla windbreakers, denim jackets with matching denim pants and denim dungarees, along with accessories.
Known as the guy who turns up to awards shows in shorts, Tyler’s collection just had to include them. Classic shorts and chinos with pleats and fold-ups appear alongside dandy-esque shirts adorned with graphics. With his penchant for pastels, the collection also features baby blue cable knit jumpers with a craggy V-neck and cuff stripes, and a pink fair-isle vest. As a nod to Tyler's obsession of luggages, a special-edition Courrier Lozine 110 trunk featuring the Craggy Monogram was created for the collection.
Tyler's authenticity shines through his recurring playful motifs in the collection’s accessories ranging from flower-studded rings to a Craggy Monogram cereal bowl with a matching spoon. The collection also features a chess set with its chess pieces portraying melted chocolate, hand-sketched by Tyler himself. This is also, unsurprisingly, the rapper’s favourite item from the collection. “I wanted to mix my style and Louis Vuitton’s codes together in a way that felt slightly whimsical but could still be worn to the gas station on a Tuesday,” he explains.
Needless to say, Williams is a fan of the collection: “This collaboration is unique to Louis Vuitton because it’s a natural extension of our LVERS philosophy, building on our network of incredible artists and creatives. There are so many elements specific to Tyler built into these pieces and it’s been inspiring to see him hone in on his craft and collaborate with him for this spring collection."
The Louis Vuitton Spring 2024 Men’s Capsule Collection by Tyler, The Creator is now available in boutiques and online.
Here's something to do over the weekend. The fellas who added "hypebeast" to the lexicon are adding something different to their portfolio: a concert on our shores. Called Hypebeast Live, this concert will occur 23 March from 4pm-10.30pm at Somerset Skate Park and TRIFECTA SINGAPORE. We are talking a line-up of live music, DJ sets, arts and food; the event promises a night filled with partying and fun. And if music doesn't do it for you, there are always the activities at TRIFECTA SINGAPORE... but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Here's what you can expect at Hypebeast Live.
Courtesy of HighHouse, the music event will be headlined by regional act Autograf, an electronic dance music duo from Chicago. Having performed at big events such as Coachella and Lollapalooza, Autograf knows how to get a crowd moving. Helping them keep the energy going, two musicians presented by WILD Entertainment will join them—local singer, Haven, and KIARA, a versatile DJ renowned for her eclectic music style.
The line-up concludes with DJs from Sivilian Affairs, including Nicolette, HBN, Sivanesh, TropicLab, and DONN. All the acts will also be livestreamed on the official Hypebeast Youtube channel, providing international fans a virtual front row to the shows.
It's not just about the music. It's about the culture. And nothing enlivens the culture than with a permitted graffiti presentation. Helmed by artist Clogtwo, who will work on a large mural artwork called "Canvas" on-site at TRIFECTA SINGAPORE. See the process as it starts from basic sketches and transformed into a colourful finished work. For some extra sugar, a giveaway will be held, gifting winners with an exclusive t-shirt designed by Clogtwo.
There will be pop-up stores as well like ASICS, Don Julio, Guinness, Häagen-Dazs, Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Rip Curl and more.
Capping off the night is an intimate afterparty held at HighHouse. Ticket holders of Hypebeast Live are entitled complimentary access to this restaurant-bar, where Autograf will deliver another exceptional performance.
Tickets for Hypebeast Live are available for purchase here.
ESQUIRE SINGAPORE: We understand that you’re a big fan of podcasts.
DAPHNE KHOO: I’ve been listening to so much of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast.
ESQ: Oh, yes. Duncan can be very deep with the big questions about life. Are you in a better place right now?
KHOO: Yeah, I think I am. When I was younger, I had this beautiful image of the future. No matter how bleak my reality was, everything was going to be better. The equations in my mind, social expectations of people and life... they made sense.
ESQ: I’m hearing a “but”.
KHOO: But as I got older, I realised you can’t predict how people will react to me, so my mindset has changed. While I’m optimistic about my life right now, I also understand that it is because I had overcome tribulations and I'm just waiting for the ones to come.
ESQ: You are expecting the other shoe to drop?
KHOO: Always, always, always, always. But I’m also reminding myself to enjoy the moment. Like now. This is great and I’m super grateful for it.
ESQ: When did this shift occur for you?
KHOO: I think it was a gradual accumulation. Episodes where I got cancer kind of scuttled my plans. I was like, that’s ok. I’m resilient. I’ll get up, I keep going and then it’s one thing after another, you know. It’s not just the illness but also people disappointing you, taking advantage of you.
ESQ: Life and its lemons.
KHOO: But there is hope. That’s what keeps me going.
ESQ: Can we ask about the name change? You went from Daphne Khoo to Haneri.
KHOO: Ok, the reason that I needed a pseudonym... no wait, that’s not right. I’m thinking of another word.
ESQ: Persona?
KHOO: Yeah, thank you. I needed a new persona because I put out a lot of music as Daphne Khoo. It was fun but I didn’t know anything. I had no one to teach me, no music mentor or life coach at the time. I needed to figure out who I was and what kind of music I like for myself.
ESQ: What were some of the things you wish you’d known then?
KHOO: I didn’t know what I was aiming for. I didn’t know if I wanted to write a hit nor did I think about that side of things like marketing or PR. I was driving blind and I couldn't see anything ahead of me. But I’d just go.
Here’s how much I didn’t know: I didn’t hire professionals so instead, for a music video, I roped in my sister's mother-in-law who sells make-up to do my make-up.
ESQ: Selling make-up does not mean one can do make-up. At least, you were enjoying yourself.
KHOO: I was. But there wasn’t a lot of thought going into it. It’s like if you were painting but you don’t care about the brushes or the colours; you just want to get your paint on canvas. That was me.
ESQ: The “Just Do It” mentality.
KHOO: Yeah, just do it and figure it out later. Now, with experience, I find that there’s texture, storytelling and intention in music. I’ve learnt so much in the last 20 years of my career and waking up to that realisation—I didn’t know who I was; I didn’t know what I stood for; I didn’t know what I cared about.
ESQ: When did you start to realise this?
KHOO: The first was in 2008. I was in my mid-20s or early-20s. I wouldn’t have had that epiphany here [in Singapore]. Getting into Berklee College of Music and moving to the States helped. Even then it was this weird hybrid of who I was trying to be and who I thought I was.
That self-awareness came about later on, when I realised I wasn’t focusing on health and relationships.
ESQ: Back then did you think the music was superficial?
KHOO: Not at all. I thought I was super deep but I probably wasn’t. I was introspective; overthinking every possibility. It’s one of the things that served me well but it also ended up backfiring because you can’t take everything too seriously in life. I’m trying to look at one emotion in a thousand different ways.
ESQ: You can’t please everybody.
KHOO: Yeah, but part of being a people pleaser came from thinking that was where my income was coming from. That if I didn’t please everyone, I wouldn’t sell music and in turn, I wouldn’t be able to feed myself.
So, that came from a place of desperation. I was trying to suss out what everybody else wanted. I look at all these young artists these days and—I don’t know if it’s the way I was brought up culturally—but what they do seems selfish and yet, I get it. They are so unapologetically themselves and people vibe with it. It doesn’t matter how I present myself. The bigger question is: How do I feel? And I can also go off on a tangent and be like, Why does that matter?
ESQ: Must be fun living in your head.
KHOO: But going back to your question about “Daphne Khoo” and “Haneri”... people [in Singapore] remember me as Daphne. I’ve done so much more as a musician since I adopted the "Haneri" persona when I was in LA. If you go to Europe or the US, there’s a higher chance that people will not recognise me but they’ll recognise the music, more than all of my fans in Singapore.
ESQ: You work with other music producers.
KHOO: Yeah. With a lot of EDM producers. It’s one of the things that made the most money in my 20s. As Haneri, my first single was with Dash Berlin so I have a lot of requests coming in from around that region. When I returned to Singapore, it seemed like a smart move to go back to “Daphne Khoo”.
ESQ: You’re now working in radio.
KHOO: As you know, I'm now with Kiss92 [Eavesdropping with Daphne Khoo].
ESQ: Congrats. Are you satisfied with where you are right now?
KHOO: No, I’m never satisfied with where I am. But I am content.
ESQ: Was it easy to get to this level of contentment?
KHOO: Absolutely not. You saw me through some dark years.
ESQ: Are we talking about the COVID years?
KHOO: That was a terrible period when I lost my dad. I think that was the biggest reveal that disappointing things can lead to beautiful things. Imagine if I had my visa renewed and decided to stay in the US, I’d never have been able to be with my dad in his last days during the pandemic.
ESQ: But you’d have returned anyway, right?
KHOO: But I might have been too late. Or my relationship with my dad wouldn't have been the same.
ESQ: What’s your relationship with him like?
KHOO: We don’t have enough time to unpack that but in a nutshell: my dad was a wonderful human being but flawed like all humans are. He didn’t know what he was doing when he had kids. He didn’t know how to be a dad to three girls; he was so out of his element with us.
I think the hardest thing in the world is sucking at something for a while and figuring out how to do better. You can’t just be, I’m a bad dad so I won’t be a dad then. He took it upon himself to try and slowly get there. He didn’t know how to show he loved us because he came from a very difficult background and he felt there was no way out of it.
But watching him in the last few months of his life was quite something and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
ESQ: Did you get your closure?
KHOO: I think getting closure made me even more mad at him. In a, wow, you did this perfectly. You did everything you wanted and then figured out how to just make it all better just before you died.
ESQ: Took a while but he got there.
KHOO: He changed a lot as I got older. We had conversations like two grown adults. I mean, he was never good at talking about his feelings but he was consistent on how he apologises, which is never... but in other ways, he’ll demonstrate it by wanting to take you to work, you know? Towards the end, he just got very spiritual. He fought the cancer for eight months and in that time, did some very tough self-reflection. He told us about his life and where he thought he fell short. And then, asked us for forgiveness.
My mom found a bunch of notes on his phone. We kept his number alive and now use the phone as a media player now. He showed me that you don't have to have it all figured out. The people around you might disappoint you but you still can choose who you want to spend time with.
Those memories will stay with me for a very long time. Some good and definitely some bad because it is very tough to watch life drain out of someone you love. It was tough for him too, but he handled it.
ESQ: With regard to your career, would you consider this a comeback?
KHOO: I do, but it’ll be a very slow comeback. I had a new single called “Daydream” that came out. For the last three years, I haven’t looked for jobs; I haven’t been actively creative. I'm just trying to ease my way back into making and releasing music. I try not to let the last couple of years hold me down because I’d rather move forward.
All the accolades and achievements that I have gathered while in LA—even if just for a few years—have been part of the most amazing experience in my life. I’d like to believe everything that’s happened to me—good and bad—is leading me to where I’m supposed to be... which turns out is in this weird little cafe with you right now. And that’s ok. This is nice.
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Styling: Asri Jasman
Hair and Makeup: Nicole Ang at SUBURBS STUDIOS using DUNGÜD and CHARLOTTE TILBURY
Photography Assistant: Kerk Jing Yi
Styling Assistant: Lance Aeron
To hear Ng Seok Har and Michelle Lim talk about pottery is to experience love. They wax lyrical about how a vase is made, from the kneading and throwing of the clay, to bestowing it a form on the wheel, till it’s baptised by fire in the kiln.
Lim points to a blood-red bowl. “Do you know how this ox-blood glaze came about? Before the Song Dynasty period, China was the only country that could get this level of red. As the legend goes: the imperial potter was so stressed that he couldn’t get the particular red hue that he leapt into the kiln to die. But in doing so, he finally got the desired red. Apparently, bone ash was key in achieving that colour.”
The material, clay, holds history. It comes from the ground upon which humans, animals, vegetation have trodden and interred for centuries. There is something existentially mind-blowing about this very idea.
“It’s humbling to know that, in the grand scheme of things, you’re just a speck that’s still learning,” says Ng, “That’s what appeals to me.”
“This was made by Tju Tjuna Andy, an indigenous artist from the Ernabella tribe in central Australia. If you’re familiar with indigenous art, it is usually painted on a flat surface, often like a bird’s eye view of the land. Dots are often applied, their colours and patterns symbolising rivers, well holes and where food can be found—like these emu footprints circling a well. The designs are done without preliminary sketches; it’s a direct translation of what they see in their mind’s eye. The indigenous community doesn’t usually paint three- dimensional forms but has recently begun to work with potters.” - Lim
“This is the first piece we collected as a company. If Mud Rock [Ceramics] were to be in dire financial need, we would have to sell it. Made by Takeshi Yasuda, he is a magician with porcelain and one of Japan’s living national treasures. This was made in Jingdezhen, China, the porcelain capital of the world.” - Ng
“When Mud Rock was first established, we went to visit Takeshi who was getting ready for a gallery show. We managed to get a few pieces before the event, without the high gallery prices.” - Lim
It’s the act of creation, where the alchemy of earth, water, fire and air can give birth to a ceramic piece.
“Innately, every human being longs to create,” Lim says. “And even if you don’t do it yourself, watching another person do it is rather satisfying. We feel very lucky to be able to make pottery by hand. And we’d be happy to keep on doing it.”
The passage from Ecclesiastes comes to mind: “Of earth, they were made, and into the earth they return together”. It sums up the women’s singular vision—one that was forged individually even before their paths crossed.
Ng’s first dalliance with pottery occurred when she worked in the foreign exchange market in Japan. When she returned to Singapore, she traded in her banking life for one in ceramic making. Lim’s path was more linear, with her studying pottery at the Australian National University and becoming a full-time lecturer at Singapore Polytechnic.
They first met at a non-profit ceramics festival called “Awaken the Dragon.” Organised by Lim, the festival was to raise awareness about the historical significance of Singapore’s last two remaining dragon kilns. The chance meeting also awakened the idea of reintroducing handmade ceramics into the homes and dining spaces of Singapore. This led to the formation of Mud Rock Ceramics.
There was never an official long-term goal for the business. “We didn’t think that far when we started,” Ng says. “We just looked ahead and continued walking.”
Now Mud Rock Ceramics celebrates its 10th anniversary with Clay Camp, which offers guided museum tours, lectures and masterclasses with veteran ceramicists like Iskandar Jalil and Janet DeBoos.
Over the decade, Ng and Lim also amassed a cumulation of ceramics. As their collection grew, so did its rarity and value. They haven’t sold off anything, citing that each piece holds too special a significance to part ways with. Ng shows us an earth-coloured vase from Hagi, Yamaguchi. “I collected this to remember my visits and what I’ve learnt from my stay.” The ceramics fill their house, many of which are not kept in storage but remain in use. Friends who come over are asked to choose from a selection of tea cups to sip from. Daily, vases are filled with flowers. “You feel more joy in using them than packing them away in safe storage,” Lim reasons.
One is reminded of the Jewish folklore about the golem. Made from clay or mud, it is brought to life through incantations written on paper that’s placed in its mouth. In this instance, the ceramic vessels are like tiny golems: fully formed and purposeful as pieces of utilitarian art.)
Miraculously, Lim says that she hasn’t broken a single ceramic from the collection (at the admission, she raps her knuckles on the surface of her wooden table). “Sadly however, I have had guests who have broken stuff within 30 minutes of their visit.”
“There’s no big story to this Lisa Hammond piece. It’s just beautiful. This is the only piece that we bought online without ever meeting the artist or being at the gallery. It’s one of those moments where you just want a Lisa Hammond work in your collection.” - Lim
“I purchased this tea bowl at the Clay Gulgong, a ceramic festival. This is completely wood-fired with the clay and wood taken from Janet Mansfield’s land. Janet is an important figure in the ceramic world for the last 30 years. She founded and served as president of the International Academy of Ceramics. I was invited to her place in the clay commune that she built. She was the first who taught me how to do wood firing. It isn’t what this tea bowl is about, but rather what it means to me.” – Lim
As to the criteria of the pieces that make it to their collection? “There needs to be an instant attraction,” Ng says, “because we are ceramicists, we are aware of the work that goes into a piece and the value of it.”
Lim extends a pair of nondescript mud-coloured cups with dark brown speckles. “These were made by Yuri [Wiedenhofer], a hermit who lives up on a mountain in New South Wales. You can’t buy his creations anywhere. When we visited him, these cups were a present from him.”
She holds them reverently, caught in the charge of a quiet air. Her finger traces a minute chip in the rim of one of the cups. A lamentable accident but one that is eclipsed by what the cup represents, instead of what it is.
“It is quaint experiences and little stories like this that make the pieces we have so special.”
“When I lived in Japan, I visited Mashiko, a pottery town whose most significant son is Shoji Hamada. I saw this piece at a gallery and it was love at first sight. It called out to me because of its unique texture and special glaze.” - Ng
“The clay in Mashiko isn’t fine, but tends to be craggy and rough, which accounts for the unique texture in its pottery. You wouldn’t guess it but the glassy beads on that vase were formed from wood ash. The ashes settle on the clay while in its molten state, turning into glass when fired. All the colours that you see have been forged by the movement of the flames.”
– Lim
“My teacher arranged for me to visit Carol McNicholl’s studio, which used to be a former piano factory. Carol is a character, having risen up with peers like Vivienne Westwood. In her home/studio, there’s a plaster ceiling of roses in the kitchen and a staircase that’s lined with olive oil cans. This piece is made from a plaster mould — it looks like three teacups stacked together but is actually just one vessel. All of Carol’s work is politically-themed. There are drawings of aeroplanes on the exterior and on the inside you can see drawings of butterflies.” – Lim
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Art Direction: Joan Tai
It’s a new year, and there’s a good chance you’re looking for a new job. Maybe you’re pondering going freelance or starting your own business. You are not alone. Statistics suggest that a third of the workforce switches jobs every 12 months nowadays. Witnessing wave after wave of layoffs, people have learnt that companies aren’t loyal to staff any more if indeed they ever were, so why should employees display blind loyalty to their bosses?
Even here in status-obsessed Singapore, where a stable and well-paid office job has long been seen as the ideal, more and more people are looking for “meaning and purpose in what they do, not just for good salaries,” per the gahmen’s recent Forward SG report. Giving new meaning to the phrase ‘Money no enough,’ today, we want jobs that are rewarding on a level beyond remuneration—jobs we’re passionate about. Often, that means creating a job for yourself.
Many of Canadian artist Samara Shuter’s super-detailed paintings celebrate the type of peacock sartorialism seen at the Pitti Uomo menswear fair. Why the passion for men’s style? Shuter’s family has deep roots in the garment trade—she grew up amongst bolts of colourful cloth, and she says her father’s dapper dressing when she was a young girl also left a lasting impression.
“My father had an incredible appreciation for style. He had the most amazing collection of ties,” she recalls. Her dad’s struggles to support his family in various corporate sales roles, which required the Shuter clan to regularly relocate—“We moved every year or year-and-a-half; I was kinda like an army brat, it felt very unstable,” Shuter says of her peripatetic upbringing—also left an indelible mark.
So, when she set out to forge her own career, Shuter says, “It was important to me that I could do something that I love, but where I was in control.” Having seen her father suddenly lose jobs and the turmoil that caused for her whole family, she says, “It was important that what I did, nobody could take away from me.” So she became an artist. Back in the mid-’00s, Shuter took the money she’d saved waiting tables and tending bar and hired a booth at an art fair in Toronto. It was a big gamble, several thousand dollars, everything she had. “But that weekend, all the works I’d painted sold out. I couldn’t believe it.”
Three years later, Shuter was selling sufficient volume, at high enough prices, that she was able to quit pouring pints and focus on her art practice full-time.
Leading independent British bespoke shoemaker Nicholas Templeman says it was an invaluable experience mastering his craft as an employee of one of the most legendary firms in the trade. But to make the sort of shoes he was passionate about, he had to set up his own business. “I trained at an established bootmaker—I worked at John Lobb for seven years before going it alone,” he explains. “I had a great time there and there’s a lot I look back fondly on, I don’t think I could have learnt as much about shoes and bootmaking anywhere else in the world.”
Eventually, though, Templeman reached a point where to be fulfilled, he needed full creative and quality control over the footwear he made. “That’s only really possible when your name is stamped on the soles,” he says. Having his signature on the product also means Templeman is especially punctilious about quality. “I’m pretty fastidious about what I make, no shortcuts, even if, as currently, it makes the lead times longer than I’d like.”
Master watchmaker Denis Flageollet, cofounder of De Bethune and a godlike figure in the world of watches, reckons passion—and the confidence to express that passion—is an essential attribute in anyone aspiring to stand out in haute horlogerie. “I love talking to young independent watchmakers to see whether they have that spark inside them, that passion that will allow them to really grow their vision of what watchmaking can be,” he says.
“For several years now, I’ve realised I need to pass on the knowledge I have, not just to train new watchmakers for De Bethune, but to share what I know and my experiences with a larger audience,” Flageollet says. The advice he habitually gives young watchmakers is, “You have to be brave, you have to be bold. If you think you’ve got an idea, but it’s maybe a bit of a crazy idea, or it’s a bit left-field, just go and do it. The only way you’re going to know is to try it, and then see what the world thinks of it; it could be the next great idea.”
He says creatives have got to trust their instincts. “You shouldn’t be scared of not being understood. Maybe they’ll understand you in 10 years’ time—or after you’re dead! The most important thing is that you do what you believe in, what you’re passionate about.” Flageollet encourages rising watchmakers to place a bet on themselves. “I tell them to gamble, try and do something that they believe in, take a leap of faith because that ultimately is what’s going to make them happy.”
Independence is brilliant, but as any start-up entrepreneur, small business owner or freelancer will tell you, there’s also much to be said for a reliable monthly salary. However, those who choose to go the regular wage route are increasingly opting to work for purpose-driven businesses, where the sense of fulfilment goes beyond merely cashing that wonderfully predictable pay cheque.
“To be a successful organisation in the 21st century, to attract the best people, you need to be authentic,” says the co-founder of Soneva luxury resorts, Sonu Shivdasani, OBE. “You can’t be saying one thing and doing something different, because people will vote with their feet now—they don’t need the work. So if you aren’t authentic, you’re not going to attract the best people.”
In Soneva’s case, that authenticity comes down to what Shivdasani calls “a very clear focus, an undiluted philosophy” he has dubbed SLOWLIFE, an acronym standing for Sustainable, Local, Organic, Wellness, Learning, Inspiring, Fun, Experiences. “Essentially, offering luxuries, while minimising our impact on the environment and enhancing the overall wellbeing of our guests,” Shivdasani sums it up. Soneva is considered the gold standard in sustainable tourism.
The brand’s founders, Shivdasani and his wife Eva, believe a business must have a purpose beyond simply making money, if it hopes to generate high levels of employee engagement and as a flow-on effect, happy customers. “In our industry, in hospitality, the definition of luxury is the magic created by our people, the hosts—we don’t have employees at Soneva, we have hosts. And I believe that magical service has to come from the gut; you can’t train it, it has to be instilled. By having a core purpose that our hosts are aligned with, they become more engaged, more passionate.”
Preparing to open a new wing opened at Soneva Jani in the Maldives a couple of years ago, Shivdasani recalls, “We had 80 vacancies. And within a week, we had 3,000 applicants for those 80 vacancies.” When the successful candidates arrived and Shivdasani was performing their induction, he joked with the fresh hires, “You know, it’s actually tougher to get into Soneva Jani than it is to get into Goldman Sachs or Oxford—and that’s because people really were passionate about joining us.”
We’ll grant you that the prospect of working in a tropical paradise probably didn’t harm Soneva’s recruitment efforts. Nevertheless, there’s a potent lesson in the anecdote for organisations trying to engage people who’ll stay on for more than 12 months. Showing you care about something beyond the bottom line—demonstrating you care about your employees, your customers, and the world—has its advantages. Think about it, boss.
GIVE A PIECE OF BLANK PAPER TO A KID, give them some paints, they will automatically create great work—great colour, forms, lines, space—without knowing much about art. That’s the kind of artist I want to be.
I STUDIED with Liu Kang at a very young age, 11 or 12, drawing and things. But it was Chen Wen Hsi who really inspired me. I looked at him, he would constantly stay in the studio, paint, not much socialising. I don’t think he had any bad habits. That inspired me.
INSPIRATION is more important than learning.
ART IS ACHIEVED through your own experiments, your own practice, your own hard work. It’s not something somebody can teach you. It cannot be taught. It can only be inspired.
THE MAIN THING IS you have to make a painting breathe. You have to give it life. That life makes a great painting. No matter what kind of painting it is, traditional or contemporary, all the great artists of the past bring life to their work. If it’s dead, kaput. So, I’m constantly fighting to achieve that.
I’LL FOCUS ON THE DETAILS, study a little patch, alter it. But then, you have to constantly step back and look at the bigger picture.
KNOWING when a work of art is finished is like when you accomplish a sexual encounter with a woman— when it’s done, you know it’s done.
A LOT OF EUROPEAN ARTISTS lead an exotic lifestyle, a more exciting life than most people. This kind of experience in life, I think, generates a great deal of energy that then goes into your writing, or your painting, or your music.
EXPERIENCE is the fuel for us, as artists.
EACH MAN IS DIFFERENT, each person is different, what you learn is what you are. It’s not “you are what you eat”—what you learn is what you are. So, all the things that I’ve learnt, experienced, encountered over the years, they have come to make me who I am. That’s what I’m translating into my work.
I LOVE THE FEMALE FORM. All the great artists will tell you the same thing. The lines, the textures, the curves are almost like a landscape. You’ve got hills, valleys, streams...
IT’S IMPORTANT to have good friends. Correct friends. If you have the wrong type of friends, you become the wrong kind of person.
AN ART CAREER IS A MARATHON. You’ve got to keep running, keep fighting. I had to make a living, so I did all kinds of jobs. Through this, you learn. Life is formed by your experiences.
I THINK HUMAN BEINGS are still uncivilised in many senses. Just like in the primitive days, we’re still fighting over a piece of meat—but today, a piece of meat means money and power.
YOU WANT TO BE AN ARTIST? I say, don’t get married. If you do get married, don’t have children. If Van Gogh had a wife and children, there would have been no Van Gogh.
YOU KNOW artists never have a happy life. Well, a few do, but maybe less than one per cent.
A COUNTRY WITHOUT GREAT ART, we cannot consider a great country. Simple. No matter what kind of weapons you have, it doesn’t count. Art is the thing. Think back to all the great countries in history: Egypt, China, Rome—why we consider them as great is because of their great culture.
SOME TIME AGO, they said, “Painting is dead.” That’s propaganda. You can all lay out all kinds of reasons to support any idea.
IF YOU HAVE A GOOD EYE, if you’ve been educated. If you’ve visited a lot of good artists’ exhibitions and museums, right away you know if something is great art or not great art. You know at first sight. It’s like we know if someone is good or bad, by judging through just appearance. They say don’t judge a book by its cover—that’s not true, the cover is important. You right away know good from bad.
THOSE WHO PAINT will know Jackson Pollock is wonderful, they’ll know Willem De Kooning is great. Those who don’t paint, but who have a good eye and good education will also know that these are great artists. All the truly great artists today, on the surface of this earth, they’re genuine. I’ve seen a lot of artists come and go. But the great artists stay.
SOMETIMES there’s a very thin line between commercial art and fine art—a very thin line.
PRETTY, DECORATIVE FLOWER PAINTINGS can be pleasing. But ugliness can be fine art. The German Expressionists, for example. So ugly, so naive, so childlike and yet, so very powerful.
OUR LIFE, we are only a fish splash. We are nothing, you know?
Photography: Jaya Khidir
Brands do this all the time. Collaborate with a fellow renowned brand or commission a notable person of interest. Nonetheless, if the brief here is not so much novelty but an apt fit for the occasion: Johnnie Walker clearly understood the assignment.
When you see the work of Taiwanese-American artist James Jean, you can’t think of a better mind to conceptualise what the Year of the Dragon could look like as a Blue Label skin. The vibrant, sinewy, yet altogether modern aesthetic wraps around the bottle in a playful, textural imprint.
According to Jean, the natural motifs prevalent in his work takes on the form of flowers and organic tendrils. These floral traits evoke the idea of roots; a connection. These are the bridges between respect for the past and looking ahead to the future with hope.
Plus, the most powerful creature in the Chinese Zodiac and the highest-grade whisky in the JW collection? Insert Epic Handshake meme. If you're familiar with the Blue Label, you'd know that the blend is made from unparalleled—a term not lightly used here—Johnnie Walker reserves of Scotch maturation.
Chiefly because only one in 10,000 make the cut. It's selected from 10 million casks; of which some irreplaceable ones are sourced from long-closed ‘ghost’ distilleries (Cambus, Pittyvaich, Brora, Port Ellen, for the whisky experts among you). A 12-strong blending team infuses these rarities from across all four regions of Scotland, and it’s these very complexities that the visual artist was inspired to interpret.
“There are hidden elements in the picture as well—layers to be discovered, just like the layers in this incredible whisky,” he says, “I want the viewer to peel back the layers and discover more about the image. I want my work to function from far away but reveal more details the more closely you explore the imagery.”
Now where better to witness it up close than in Depth of Blue Room. The brand’s first flagship bar in Southeast Asia sits at the Park Hyatt Bangkok penthouse. It enhances the launch experience with a multi-sensory tasting complete with dedicated cocktails, an immersive room and scented touches. It presented a truly extravagant, thematic dive into what makes Blue Label a big deal.
It’s far from the first time a brand has pulled out all the stops. But such a celebration is certainly a worthy altar for a release as limited edition as this.
Johnnie Walker Blue Label (James Jean edition) is out now.
It’s hard not to be shaken by the current geo-political situation on our doorstep. And while many (if not all of us) are feeling somewhat helpless amid the turmoil, one common hope emerges: Peace.
A symbol recognised worldwide, a circle with an embedded branch, has come to represent this aspiration. Conceived by British graphic artist Gerald Holtom in 1958, it was originally associated with the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Hence its nickname: CND. Holtom’s intention was to convey the image of a stylised figure with outstretched, open palms, symbolising helplessness and resignation in the face of the nuclear threat. The original sketches of this iconic symbol can be found at Bradford University. Holtom, a committed pacifist and conscientious objector during World War II, intentionally refrained from copyrighting his design, making it accessible for all to use.
Earlier this year the US-based design museum, Cooper Hewitt, unveiled its ‘Designing Peace’ exhibition. It explored the unique role that design can play in the pursuit of peace. With more than 30 design proposals, the exhibit showcases how design can respond immediately to urgent humanitarian needs, providing products that aid individuals in rebuilding their lives and restoring their dignity. Creative forces are capable of addressing emergency requirements for secure, healthy and respectful environments. The United Nations, through its Sustainable Development Agenda (Goal 16), lays out a plan for nurturing peaceful coexistence. This exhibition is currently on view at the Museum Craft and Design in San Francisco, USA.
In 2023, Tokyo hosted the World Design Assembly. One of the main themes was the pivotal role of design in driving social change across various dimensions. This includes design for peace, design for social change, innovation, inclusion, and cohesion. It is a thread that has played a prominent role in modern Japanese culture. Since 1983, the Japan Graphic Designers Association presented a project entitled ‘Hiroshima Appeals’ dedicated to creating posters with the purpose of promoting peace. Back in 2015, the Japanese government approved the ‘Basic Design for Peace and Health’ recognising human security as the fundamental principle.
In the aftermath of Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Japanese government harnessed the power of design. Through design, they rebuild the nation through innovative products utilising recycled materials to minimise production costs. Another testament to design’s influence on modern society is machizukuri. This is a process of community design that involves both local authorities and residents, allowing the public to play a part in shaping their own futures.
These initiatives illustrate the ability of design practitioners to reinvent their field. To address the economic and societal challenges that Japan, or any modern nation, may encounter in its history. Let’s embrace the Japanese concept of Kyosei or ‘conviviality’. That's where true peace encompasses not only the absence of violence but also the rectification of past injustices, exploitation and oppression.
Lately, with fibre craft on the rise, knitting and crocheting have been the new trend. The laborious craft requires huge dedication and commitment from craft artists. But the final results are testaments to the artists' passion and creativity.
Prominent local crochet artist, Kelly Limerick, is celebrated for her alternative take on the ancient craft of crochet. She was chosen to collaborate with LOUIS XIII to create an artwork called "100", which took four months to complete. Limerick journeyed to the LOUIS XIII Domaine du Grollet Estate in Cognac, France for inspiration for her art. There, she delved into the heritage of LOUIS XIII Cognac, allowing her to comprehend the values that the House holds. She became enthralled by the House’s timeless heritage.
“The sense of history in the old town was unmistakable, and... I grasped why LOUIS XIII is steadfast about its origin and identity,” Limerick noted. “There's an evident pride in the meticulous approach, a serene and unwavering dedication to savoir-faire passed down from one cellar master to the next. Ageing the eaux-de-vie holds an element of unpredictability... It falls upon the cellar master to trust their palate, sampling the diverse eaux-de-vie to craft the familiar blend of LOUIS XIII that we recognise. These two elements—trust in the unknown and confidence in personal skill—resonate with me and have inspired me greatly.”
"100" was unravelled and reworked 100 times to illustrate the progress in time. With its tedious craft-making process, "100" is meant to emphasise the similarity to the laborious production of LOUIS XIII. Limerick confessed that "it involved four months of daily dedication; more time and effort required than if I did 100 individual pieces."
The final sculpture resembles a vessel with a double-walled bowl within. Crafted as a single piece without joins or internal structures, like a fountain, the sculpture remains hollow. By holding soil from Cognac, it encapsulates the flavourful layers of LOUIS XIII as it ages. This is a cognac that could only be tasted decades later.
Anne-Laure Pressat, Executive Director of LOUIS XIII Cognac shares that “We are honoured to collaborate with Kelly Limerick, having her join us in exploring intertwined concepts of time and preserving artistic heritage for future generations..."
"100" represents THE DROP, the latest product by LOUIS XIII. An embodiment of a new generation that reinvents luxury codes through ownership, THE DROP fosters a unique 'art-de-vivre' akin to Limerick's approach toward art. Coming in a 1cl bottle, THE DROP retails at Tatler Bar at SG$288 and SG$1,440 for a pack of five 1cl bottles. The add-on lanyard accessory with a leather bottle case is priced at SG$168.
