It was on 10 April 2020 that Clare Waight Keller announced she was leaving Givenchy after serving the Maison for three years. Waight Keller was Givenchy's first-ever female creative director, and while that seemed to be the headlining achievement (partriachy, everybody), her time at the Maison was a creative breath of fresh air while paying homage to founder Hubert de Givenchy. Her designs—across womenswear, menswear, and haute couture—paid due reverence to the heritage of Givenchy while making them relevant in the modern context. Under Waight Keller, men's haute couture too became a more prominent pillar for the Maison.
For four years, Stefano Pilati served as head of design of Ermenegildo Zegna Couture (now simply rebranded as Zegna) where he made full use of the brand's mastery in fabrics to create menswear collections that would certainly qualify as "quiet luxury" in today's context. Pilati's creations were undoubtedly luxurious both in aesthetic as well as feel with designs that pushed Ermenegildo Zegna beyond the confines of traditional menswear.
Both Waight Keller and Pilati—albeit different in styles—share a similarity in that they both followed the traditional path of cutting their teeth at several fashion houses before eventually holding creative reins. Waight Keller started out as part of the design team at Calvin Klein before moving on to Ralph Lauren and then Gucci, while Pilati took on design roles at Giorgio Armani, Prada, Miu Miu, and Yves Saint Laurent. And of course, they're both celebrated fashion designers in their own right.
It's curious then that with the kind of experience and design excellence they both possess, Waight Keller and Pilati weren't snapped up by another big-named fashion house.
Then last year, Waight Keller announced her first solo venture: a new partnership with Uniqlo called Uniqlo : C. The brand—like most under Uniqlo's LifeWear umbrella—focuses on building a capsule wardrobe of staple pieces seen through her designer lens. It was launched with womenswear before introducing menswear in its third season this month. And then two weeks later, Uniqlo announced that Waight Keller's involvement has expanded to not only be the creative behind Uniqlo : C, but also as its creative director for the entirety of the Uniqlo mainline collection beginning from the Autumn/Winter 2024 season.
Pilati launched his own brand Random Identities in 2017 through Instagram. Inspired by Berlin's club scene and the ongoing shift of gendered clothing, Random Identities is stocked on SSENSE.com, Dover Street Market and a number of other select stockists. Much like Waight Keller with Uniqlo, Random Identities is also a departure from the luxury pricing of Pilati's former creations. The brand is certainly more affordable yet still with a design point-of-view. Pilati is doubling down on affordable fashion by recently embarking on a capsule collection with Zara slated for an October 2024 release.
Designer collaborations are rife in fashion, especially the likes that have been pushed by fast-fashion brands such as H&M and Zara. Uniqlo, in fact, has turned its collaborations into longstanding partnerships with Christophe Lemaire, Jonathan Anderson as well as Inès de la Fressange. And quite like with Waight Keller, Lemaire eventually became the creative director of the design-forward Uniqlo U line.
But designers moving out of luxury to more affordable fashion brands as their solo ventures is something that's quite uncommon.
In a 2023 interview with W Magazine, Waight Keller highlighted that the jump from working in a couture house to a brand like Uniqlo was challenging but only in achieving certain techniques at the latter's usual price point. "The brand was so open to understanding new techniques of finishing. I showed them examples of, this is how the spaghetti string that runs through the dresses should look; this is how it should balance. A lot of the things I did on a constant basis whilst I was in Paris are techniques that I was able to distribute through the collection as well. It’s just an innate way of working, or what I’ve absorbed over the years," she said. According to WWD, Pilati expressed similar sentiments about his time working with Zara, especially with the brand's capability of producing at standards above its price point.
It remains to be seen how Waight Keller's Uniqlo and Pilati's co-ed collection for Zara will each shape up to be, and whether the latter could inspire Zara to hire Pilati as its creative director. But what's certain is that there is still hope out there for honed skill and talent of real fashion designers in the fashion space. It may not be at the big fashion houses, but in the bigger scheme of things, they're helping to elevate the designs of pieces for the everyday and for everyone.
Singapore lacks a fashion museum. It’s not imperative for every developed metropolitan city to have one, but we have been trying to position ourselves as a serious fashion hub for decades now, and not having one seems off brand.
We’ve organised a steady slew of fashion weeks—there were the previously Audi-backed Singapore Fashion Week, Digital Fashion Week, and Fidé Fashion Week just to name a few—and encouraged fashion-focused reality television series ranging from fashion model searches to design competitions. Fashion is also a major in a number of art schools in Singapore. There’s even a Singapore Fashion Council.
To be fair, fashion-skewed exhibitions aren’t uncommon here. Aside from brand-specific exhibits by fashion giants the likes of Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Hermès, there have been numerous international fashion designer retrospectives as well as culture-related highlights. The latter is often a responsibility undertaken by the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM). But for the past couple of years, the museum has been ramping up on a meatier fashion programme.
It started off with 2019’s blockbuster Guo Pei: Chinese Art & Couture, a study of Chinese couturier Guo Pei’s creations—including that heavily meme-d gown worn by Rihanna to the 2015 Met Gala—and their cultural references. After a year’s break due to Covid-19, the ACM debuted #SGFASHIONNOW in collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts in 2021 that was followed by a second edition a year later. And in 2022, batik became the centrepiece in a two-pronged exhibition that included a display of a menswear collection by students of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in collaboration with Indonesia batik producer BINHouse.
The ACM’s latest fashion exhibition continues the trend. Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World traces the journey of one of Singapore’s prolific fashion designers, Paris-based Andrew Gn. The exhibition is the museum’s largest ever dedicated to a contemporary Singaporean fashion figure.
“Fashion isn’t new for us,” says Kennie Ting. The director of the ACM and Peranakan Museum is the man behind the developmental shift in ACM’s curatorial approach. One might add that it’s a necessary evolution of the museum’s raison d’être given how the charting of history doesn’t stop till time, well, stops. Ting reasons that the ACM’s move into more contemporary design disciplines—fashion, jewellery and furniture—are “natural extensions” of the museum’s existing collections.
In 2020, the ACM completed a refresh of its permanent galleries and officially inaugurated two new additions: the Fashion and Textiles, and Jewellery galleries. Both are housed within ACM’s Materials and Design wing located on its third level and serve as a celebration of the decorative arts in the region.
“The strengths of our collection currently lie in historic fashion and textiles up to the mid-20th century, including Indonesian batiks, Indian trade textiles, and Peranakan fashion,” shares Jackie Yoong, senior curator (fashion and textiles) at the ACM and Peranakan Museum. Yoong has played an integral role in curating the former’s fashion exhibitions as well as the permanent fashion gallery of the recently reopened Peranakan Museum. “We work closely with associated communities and collectors on significant loans, with special attention to provenance. Our Peranakan collection—including fashion and textiles—has travelled quite extensively for overseas display, including Paris, Seoul, Tokyo and Fukuoka.”
Opening up to the contemporary sphere means that the collections will reflect that too. As part of National Heritage Board’s Our Singapore Heritage Plan 2.0—a set of initiatives guiding Singapore’s heritage and museum landscape for 2023 and beyond—the ACM is seeking to expand its fashion, furniture and jewellery collections with contemporary ones. For example, more than 160 pieces of Andrew Gn’s creations have been added to the National Collection.
“We hope the Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World exhibition spurs more local designers to think about their legacy, and to think about ACM when they think about preserving their legacy,” Ting says. The ACM has already begun connecting with new and upcoming local fashion designers through #SGFASHIONNOW, tapping on the series’ student collaborators to bridge connections between the two.
One would assume that holding more contemporary fashion exhibitions would immediately rake in visitors in droves. After all, New York’s Metropolitan Museum has managed to make its annual Costume Institute exhibitions important global events. There’s also Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, an exhibition so successful that it was shown years apart in New York City and London, and prompted the institutions in both cities to introduce unprecedented measures to meet public demand. At the ACM, Ting reveals that that’s hardly the case. The footfall of the museum’s classical exhibitions still make for its more popular ventures—at least for now.
“I think there is still a disjoint between the public’s perception of what the ACM was versus what it has become. And there is also very little exposure for local designers in general,” Ting proffers. “Most Singaporeans still don’t know very much about the Singaporean fashion design scene. If we did a show on a major Western fashion label or designer (or even a major Asian one), it would almost certainly be a huge hit. But featuring a Singaporean designer? Huge risk. Then again, between supporting a major Western one and supporting our own, I would choose the latter without hesitation. We have to take risks in order to progress.”
There’s still much to be positive about, especially with such “risks”. Ting says that the fashion exhibitions organised thus far have introduced the ACM to an entirely new crowd. He’s encouraged by statistics that show about half of the visitors to the contemporary fashion exhibitions have been first-time ACM attendees, and a majority of them range between teenagers to those in their 20s. And the fact that they’re being exposed to a more diverse pool of Singapore’s fashion design talents? Priceless.
But what is Singapore fashion? It’s a perennial question that often comes up, almost as a dissenting voice to the efforts that multiple organisations like the ACM work on to highlight a scene that’s still somewhat in its infancy.
As someone who has spent her career studying and dissecting fashion by people from and of the region, Yoong offers this wisdom: “As a Southeast Asian port city at the crossroads of international trade, people in Singapore have been exposed to a multitude of influences across the region and the world for centuries. The multiculturalism in Singapore has fostered a society that values experimentation and appreciates diversity. This ethos is reflected in the fashion choices of people in Singapore, who celebrate and incorporate different cultural elements into their style. Fashion becomes a platform for self-expression and cultural exchange, allowing individuals to experiment with their different styles and a hybrid aesthetic that reflects the essence of the Singapore story. This should be recognised, instead of seeking a single, imagined, ‘national style’.”
It’s a poetic notion. Yet one that rings true. If there was an aspect to lean in on and hone when it comes to Singapore fashion, it’s that there’s hardly an identifiable look. What others may see as having a lack of strong identity could actually be a strength. We’re a community open to outside ideas and welcoming of different cultures—traits that make us, perhaps quite tritely, uniquely Singapore.
The ACM may not be Singapore’s official fashion museum, but given how as a country, we’re connected and influenced by the many different cultures in the region, there’s unlikely another institution that could fill the role quite as harmoniously. The permanent galleries serve more than mere historical references to understand and learn about the past. Rather, they’re a continuation of a journey towards crafting a creative vision for the now. It may not be an apparent link (what could perhaps be a potential exhibition by the ACM) but the next time the museum holds a contemporary fashion exhibit, take a gander at the permanent galleries as well and you may notice such interwoven connectedness.
In the bigger scheme of things, Ting hopes that the Singaporean public will grow to appreciate the kind of creative and design talents that we have through the ACM’s continued efforts to highlight them. “And feel compelled to support them,” he adds. “That would constitute success.”
