Majors And Minors

What inspires your unique style?
I love Japanese fashion designers and styles with looser and oversized fits. In fact, everything I have on right now is from the Japanese fashion label, Comme des Garçons. I’ve been a huge fan of the brand for over 20 years since Theseus Chan of WERK Magazine opened the very first Comme des Garçons guerrilla store in Chinatown.

What I really admire about the brand is their ethos that one should dress for oneself. I also like how the founder and designer, Rei Kawakubo, consistently challenges the status quo in fashion with her radical use of proportions, techniques, and abstractions.

My wardrobe is filled with their pieces and they make up the majority of what I wear everyday; it’s possible as I work in the arts industry where dress codes are usually more relaxed.

I do sometimes get stares when I’m out and about as Singapore is still quite conservative. But we’re progressing. In fact, I get many questions on Instagram regarding my outfits. I try to help wherever I can; I want to make people more open to different kinds of fashion styles.

Tell us what you do as a Marketing Manager, and what you love about your job.
I work for the Singapore Symphony Group which handles the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO). I worked with SSO previously and switched to the media industry, but I still love the arts a lot, so I decided to come back.

The most fulfilling part about my job is being able to attend concerts by these groups and seeing the culmination of all the work we’ve done to market classical music in Singapore. We’ve been getting a lot more young concert-goers thanks to the popularity of classical musicians like Australian violin duo TwoSet Violin, and our artist-in-residence Chloe Chua, which is very encouraging.

Who are your favourite classical music composers?
I like the big romantic works from composers like Sergei Rachmaninoff and Gustav Mahler.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?
I play a lot of video games on the Playstation such as Resident Evil. I also enjoy watching movies and reading—I’m quite a homebody (laughs).

I mostly read Japanese-translated novels by authors such as Haruki Murakami, Yōko Ogawa, Koji Suzuki, and Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ll be catching the film, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, next. It’s based on a Haruki Murakami book by the same name.

For those who are interested to learn more about classical music, how would you recommend they get started? 
We have many free community outreach programmes that are very accessible and a great place to start appreciating classical music!

Sean was previously seen here.