About the project

Fashion Shows and Fashion Media: Identification and Documentation of Singapore Fashion Heritage 

This research aims to bring together a longitudinal multidisciplinary approach to the study of half a century of fashion history in Singapore (1950 to 1999), as an under-examined area of study. Its main purpose is to investigate how fashion functioned as a site of transformation, and an interlocutor for the development of urban life and modernisation of the Nation-State. In other words, we ask, what roles has fashion played in shaping the life of modern Singapore? How has it reflected the growth of the nation and corresponding identities, industries, institutions over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century? 

By excavating this unique and relatively unknown aspect of Singapore history, this project aims to produce conceptual relationships between fashion, the city, national cultures and sites of transformation by looking at two preliminary key sites of investigation, namely fashion shows and fashion media.

Supported by Heritage Research Grant of the National Heritage Board, Singapore.

What we did

The chronological scope under examination covers the last fifty years of the twentieth century. Beginning with Singapore’s very first fashion show in 1949, organised by the Singapore Chinese Ladies Association, to the launch of Singapore Fashion Week in 2001. In the half a century during which Singapore transformed into a cosmopolitan metropolis, fashion has been an integral platform for the aspirational material culture in Singapore, in part it is the evidence of the shifts of everyday life of ordinary Singaporeans.

Fashion media and fashion shows are the primary sites of cultural consumption, production, and distribution that highlight the shifting roles that fashion occupies in our society. By examining their historical categories, this project aims to reveal how fashion media reflects our social values, norms, and trends as society changed, progressed, and developed. The data excavated will also produce deeper and broad thematic concerns towards fashion and its relationship with societal attitudes, women’s roles, and modernisation of the urban city. Fashion shows are sites of deep cultural investments due to the costs it takes to erect such events. They are symbolic of a different hierarchical or class system, and reflect a different preoccupation from the study of fashion media.

To examine both of these social categories, we first scanned the National Archives and National Library Board for the types of fashion titles related to fashion content. From 1949 to 2000, there were 78 fashion titles that can be categorised as consumer magazines spread between publications in English, Malay, and Mandarin. Some key publishers over this period were Times Periodicals and MPH Magazines. We were able to ascertain that several broadsheet newspapers were also distributed and popular over this period, namely The Singapore Free Press (1835 to 1962) and The Straits Times (1845 to ongoing). 

Meet the Team

  • Dr Jinna Tay

    Dr Jinna Tay is the primary investigator of the ‘Fashion Media and Fashion Show in Singapore’ research grant from the National Heritage Board, which resulted in this website. She is senior lecturer at the Department of Communications and New Media (CNM), Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. Her research interests lie in the intersection of popular culture, media and national identities, and she has published widely in the fields of television, media in Singapore and fashion journalism.

  • Weiqi Yap

    Weiqi Yap is an independent fashion writer, researcher, and curator with a background in fashion media and journalism. She runs Fashion On Display, a Singapore-based fashion curation studio. Her curatorial practice revolves around everyday dress, experimental exhibition-making, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Weiqi lectures at the School of Fashion Studies at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Fashion at Lasalle College of the Arts. Her writing has been published in the International Journal of Fashion Studies, Vogue Singapore, and the Asian Film Archive.

  • Angelene Wong

    Angelene Wong is an emerging scholar and dance artiste. She is a doctoral candidate at the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University and holds the MA in Fashion Studies from The New School, Parsons Paris (2019). Her research interest is in the intersection of fashion and performance, which she is pursuing through her doctoral dissertation that explores fashion modelling practices in 20th-century Singapore. Angelene is also a part-time lecturer at the School of Fashion at Lasalle College of the Arts. She is the co-author of Fashion, Identity, Image (Bloomsbury 2022).

  • Eldrick Cheong

    Eldrick is a recent graduate of the National University of Singapore, majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Language Studies (Japanese) and Japanese Studies. He enjoys asking questions, listening to music, watching films, and reading.

  • Jacelyn Teng

    Jacelyn Teng is a Communications and New Media graduate from the National University of Singapore. With a strong interest in human behaviour, she explores consumer experience in areas such as fashion, beauty, and entertainment. Jacelyn aims to bring genuine happiness to consumers through marketing and business strategy.

Contributors

Celestine Chia

Jamie Lee

Kimberly Ong

Leonard Wong

Ruth Francesca Ho

Special Thanks

Andrea Kee

Baey Shi Chen

Brandon Barker

Jackie Yoong

Judith Chung

Dr Nadya Wang

Pat Kraal

Rizal Ahyar

Dr Tripta Chandola

Vivian Liew