Salina Chai: From mopping restaurant floors to luxury leather handbag restoration

DURING THE FINAL WEEK OF every year, Salina Chai writes on Post-it notes the things she wants to achieve in the coming 12 months. For a few years, that included making the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

That’s hardly something most young adults even think about, much less put on their to-do lists. But Chai is a different creature. “It was more like a self-actualisation goal,” says the 32-year-old, her petite frame and sweet demeanour belying a steely determination.

She did not know how she was going to get on the list or even the precise metrics that qualify one for it. But amazingly, in 2024, Chai did make Forbes’ Asia list under the retail and e-commerce category – for co-founding leather bag restoration atelier Margo & Smith. That was also the final year she could have qualified, since the names were selected the year prior, when she was 29.

“To get this sort of recognition for being in the leather restoration industry was quite emotional for me.”

Margo & Smith was established in October 2023 with her husband John Chung, a shoemaker who has trained under renowned masters in Hong Kong and Japan. Chung started his award-winning artisanal shoe shining, repair and leather care store Mason & Smith back in 2013.

After the couple met in 2018, he began restoring Chai’s handbags, followed by those belonging to friends. So it was a natural evolution for them to start Margo & Smith, offering an elevated leather care service for women’s beloved – and often high-end – purses.

It helped that Chai had years of experience working with luxury brands by then, having built a fashion community from her digital content creation work on social media platforms from when she was just 18 or 19.

“I downloaded Instagram for fun and was just sharing pictures of what I was wearing,” recalls Chai. “Back then, there was no such thing as being a social media content creator.”

Business savvy

Today, not only does Chai have some 182,000 followers on Instagram, but Margo & Smith is also a respected name with which the well-heeled entrust their luxury handbags – especially those clad in very expensive exotic skins – for some TLC.

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She may be constantly surrounded by luxury goods, but the savvy fashionista runs a lean and mean business. She was very careful about how much was put into starting Margo & Smith – especially since the couple had no investor – and negotiated for a good rent at their charming shophouse space on the upper floors of a Cantonese clan association on Ann Siang Road.

Chung personally did whatever touch-ups were needed for the space, which they filled with furniture taken from their home.

To craft the Margo & Smith client experience, Chai injected elements inspired by high-end retail – personalised consultations, colour swatch creation and displaying bags in their original and newly stained colours.

The business broke even within two months. Last year, the couple merged Mason & Smith’s store – just a short walk away – with that of Margo & Smith’s, thus saving on both rent and operational efficiency. The two businesses are now held under the Mason & Smith Group, with combined revenues growing 40 per cent since Margo & Smith began.

To add another feather to her cap, Chai was invited by Indonesian womenswear label Gemme to collaborate on an 18-piece capsule collection. Launched in April, response has been “really good”, with the clothes available online.

An entrepreneur in the making

From a very young age, Chai knew she wanted to start her own business. She just didn’t know what it would be. Her father works in the tech industry while her mother is a homemaker, and neither encouraged her to become an entrepreneur.

Hers was not a sheltered life and she was expected to help out at her aunts’ food and beverage businesses after school from when she was just 16. There, she did everything from food preparation and cleaning up to writing press releases and hosting guests.

Even when she got a part-time job selling shoes in a multi-label footwear store, she would sometimes rush over to one of the eateries to help out at night. Her work in the F&B industry continued, whether she was pursuing her retail management diploma at Temasek Polytechnic or her marketing degree from SIM-RMIT.

She would also work at her former boyfriend’s family business, which involved a cafe, bakery and baking school. Post-graduation, she was crafting marketing strategies, sending out press releases, pushing out social media and doing some public relations work for them.

After the couple broke up, she returned to help with operations and business development at one of her aunt’s restaurant businesses.

“Working in the F&B industry is very tough,” she says. “It really tests your perseverance and grit, because nothing beats working maybe 13 hours and then still mopping the floor at the end of the day. But it helped grow my character and trained me in the skills I needed to start my own business.”

Future-forward

The heart of Margo & Smith’s business, says Chai, is her passion for educating people about leather bag care and preserving the stories of clients’ precious pieces, much like her enthusiasm for sharing what she loves online.

“For me, it’s always been about that rather than chasing the money. Because when you do something you really love, the business will speak for itself.”

Which is why she was also delighted to create her own Longchamp bag via the French brand’s My Pliage customisation service.

“With My Pliage, you can choose your bag size and colour, and even the fonts and colour of your hardware. So it’s similar to the personalised approach we have at Margo & Smith,” she says. For Chai’s own My Pliage bag, she picked a happy yellow hue, with her initials emblazoned on the outside. Inside, she’s got “Keep Smiling” printed on the internal pocket, “because you need to be positive every day”.

“The joy is really in having something that’s truly yours appear in real life after you choose your design on the website. In a way, it’s like how we want our customers to feel when they receive their bag or shoe after restoration. We work on many sentimental pieces, so there’s an emotional aspect to what we do too.”

In the near future, the optimistic go-getter is looking to launch a men’s formal shoe range to complement Mason & Smith’s made-to-order casual loafer line. She’s also open to new collaborations.

But, what will likely appear on her Post-it notes this year-end?

“I’d say we’d want to see if we can expand our business overseas. It could be a franchise or joint venture with a bigger company, and that’s something we’re always on the lookout for.”

Photography: Darren Gabriel Leow Fashion direction & styling: CK Hair & make-up: Sveta Klyn/ The Suburbs Studio Location: Fraser Residence River Promenade