Breaking the pattern: The women putting their spin on heritage menswear tailoring
The leading ladies of three home-grown businesses share their stories, and how they’ve made their mark in this male-dominated industry
[SINGAPORE] Despite the continued rise of fast fashion, growing costs and lower-priced competitors from around the region, tailoring businesses in Singapore still enjoy a healthy audience.
After all, the scene here is solidly decorated, even as a smaller industry – just a thousand strong, going by estimates from the Singapore Master Tailors Association. In their heyday, these tailors counted among their clients the likes of presidents from around the world, and even the who’s who of Hollywood.
And though the industry is unsurprisingly male-dominated, a small number of women have taken the reins at some of the Republic’s heritage tailors.
They now helm at least three home-grown names – CYC Tailor, Meiko Tailor and Joe’s Tailoring – and are proof that gender is no obstacle when it comes to earning their stripes and taking their brands to the next level.
Fong Loo Fern, CYC Tailor
Founded in 1935 by husband-and-wife duo Chiang Yick Ching and Foo Ah Neok, CYC Tailor has been a mainstay of Singapore’s tailoring scene for nine decades now. Heading the company today is managing director Fong Loo Fern, the founders’ granddaughter.
Being part of a family business – her uncle, Chiang Ping Choo, and her father, Chiang Sing Choo, were both involved in CYC – she got started on her journey in tailoring early on. “I grew up with CYC in my genes,” says the 71-year-old. “At just 12, I was already learning to serve our customers and, sometimes, playing cashier.”
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Though Fong fondly recalls the humming of sewing machines and in-store chatter that came to define her childhood, she was intent on pursuing a professional career. She thus went on to complete a degree in accountancy, but, as she puts it, “life – with its unexpected turns – led (her) back home”.
Seven years later, feeling it was time again for her to explore the world outside CYC, she secured a job as a trade specialist in the US Embassy. Her eventual return to CYC in 1992, like her first stint in the company, wasn’t quite on the cards – until it was.
“My uncle, then managing director, suffered a heart attack, and my father’s health was also faltering,” she recalls. “Returning was not a choice – it was a responsibility I needed to shoulder.”
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At the time, her youngest child was just three. CYC was also in a period of decline amid steep competition and falling demand.
Tough as the circumstances were, she took the opportunity to nudge CYC forward as it approached the new millennium. Instead of the ready-made shirts the brand was known for in the 1970s and 1980s, she switched the focus to custom attire.
Equipped with fresh ideas from her time outside the company, she also looked at modernising operations.
Loo Fern, particularly focused on building technology into the business, lists the advances CYC has made with the acuity of a zippy tech CEO: “We run our front-end and back-end operations through an advanced enterprise resource planning system, offer our business-to-business partners a dedicated uniform management system, design digitally and manage human resources online.”
CYC has also brought into its fold omnichannel marketing, which enables it to “reach customers wherever they are”.
“Change is my watchword,” she says. “Every technological leap, every process improvement, matters in keeping CYC relevant and resilient.”
Today, she is the last remaining member of her family running CYC. Her niece, Cara Chiang, was involved in the company from 2017 to 2020, but has since gone on to pursue a career in law.
So Fong has built a team “who are as devoted to CYC as any family could be”. The idea, she adds, is to make the company one that “will be defined by continued innovation, human connection, and the same spirit that breathed life into (its) very first shop”.
With the next generation in place and stepping up, she jokes that she is working herself out of a job. “I want to show the world that a business can be strong and sustainable, even when it’s not passed down within a family… My hope is that CYC continues to stand for quality, resilience, and heart – no matter who’s at the helm.”
Joanne and Joy Koh, Joe’s Tailoring
Having grown up surrounded by the “aunties and uncles” working in their father’s business, Joanne and Joy Koh feel Joe’s Tailoring is practically their second home. So much so, in fact, that its store in the Plus building in Cecil Street is even furnished with pieces from their actual home.
“We didn’t even realise we were following our dad to work,” says Joy. Their family holidays to Europe included trips to factories there, including those of big labels such as Loro Piana.
Joy found herself naturally gravitating to the business, even though she had taken a degree in mass communications. She now signs off on company papers as its operations manager, though she humbly refers to herself in conversation as the “paperwork girl”, overseeing processes and bookkeeping.
Joanne, meanwhile, studied biomedical science in university.
It wasn’t until later, when she realised science wasn’t quite her calling, that she considered joining Joe’s Tailoring. She set off to the London College of Fashion to pick up the art of bespoke tailoring, and then took on apprenticeships in Saville Row.
That period was certainly no walk in the park. “For six months, all I was doing was canvassing; I canvassed till my fingers bled,” she recalls. After those first six months, she was allowed to move on to pressing and ironing – for another six months – before going on to work on other parts of suits.
Funnily enough, she recounts all this with a smile. “It was great!”
Her days now involve keeping the company’s designs up to date, and supporting its factory in Lower Delta Road with the technical side of things.
The sisters were later joined in the business by their brother, Justin, who focuses on shoes and accessories.
Speaking on the toughest parts of their jobs, Joanne and Joy point to labour as a major constraint. Besides working to gain the respect of their factory workers – many of whom had watched them grow up – as colleagues, they also have to ensure there is sufficient manpower to keep things running.
Getting the right workers, however, is getting tougher, especially with a dwindling number of locals keen to learn the ropes and put in the hours.
While bringing in foreigners is an option, tailoring businesses can hire foreign workers for just up to 35 per cent of their total workforce, other regulations notwithstanding. In other words, without a large-enough pool of Singaporeans on the payroll, some have had to keep operations small, or even scale back.
Joe’s Tailoring, for one, has held off on expanding its womenswear offerings, though it still offers women’s suits. Joanne points out that she handles most, if not all, womenswear orders.
But the sisters don’t see staying small as a bad thing. “A lot of people ask me what the next step is, if we’re opening a new shop,” says Joanne. “We could expand, but then we’d lose the essence of a bespoke tailor, and that’s the one thing I hold very, very dear.”
And although the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in tailoring has made headlines in recent years, Joe’s Tailoring is happy sticking to the tried-and-true bespoke experience.
The big differentiating factor, Joanne says, is taste. “AI give you the specifications, and it can probably churn it out faster than any human, but it can’t say this would suit you better than that.”
Adele Chung, Meiko Tailor
Adele Chung never expected to join her father, Chung Chi Kwong, in Meiko Tailor, the company he had set up in 1977. Sure, she’d pottered around in his shop in Geylang when she was younger, but tailoring as a career just didn’t feel quite right for her – not for a long time, at least.
“I was caught up in the corporate chase for most of my adult life,” she recalls. “I never imagined I’d one day find the courage to leave (that) behind and step fully into this world of threads and needles.”
What pushed her to join Meiko in 2018 was a confluence of things. “It was the right season, the right time, and the right action that I needed to take,” she says. “And,” adds the 49-year-old, “I was going through what you’d call a midlife crisis.”
A Sunday lunch with her family – where her young niece lamented the elder Chung’s busy schedule – tipped the scales. “That broke me,” she says. “Hearing it first-hand – it struck a chord I couldn’t ignore.”
Though she was initially apprehensive about joining the company, she felt it was important to keep Meiko going. “I took a leap of faith to carry forward a legacy… I am the last lifeline to preserve the family business, to keep alive the craft my father has devoted his life to.”
So she started taking classes at the Textile and Fashion Industry Training Centre, before undergoing an apprenticeship under her father.
Though Chung has since learned the ropes, she recognises that – as far as mastery goes – she’s still on her journey. “Let’s just say… I haven’t quite clocked my 10,000 hours yet,” she says. “True tailoring demands a level of technical competency and experience that I’m still working towards.”
And while her father remains involved in Meiko – “I’ll continue to draft and cut for as long as my sight allows and hands are nimble,” he says – the day-to-day operations now fall squarely on her.
Among the changes she’s introduced is a new sub-brand – Uncommon Hem, which was launched in June. Each piece from the line is bespoke-made using repurposed materials such as deadstock fabric.
“It’s still in its early days, but the reaction on the ground has been encouraging,” says Chung.
“There’s a growing appetite for slow fashion, and many of our clients truly value the idea of owning one-of-a-kind garments.”
Meiko opened a new store in Boat Quay, this year; it now operates in two locations, including its flagship at the Pan Pacific Singapore hotel.
Chung intends to continue growing Meiko’s womenswear offerings, both in the main line and through Uncommon Hem. She also wants to further integrate technology into the business, with an eye on attracting potential investors.
With her father now aged 76, they both acknowledge that the time will soon come for the reins to be handed over fully.
“That race against time is something I carry with me every day,” says Chung. Though she acknowledges feeling a fair bit of pressure and self-doubt, each “small win and moment of trust earned” along the way has allowed her to find her footing more and more each day.
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