By Anton Karve

Singapore’s streetwear scene is composed of an interesting spectrum. On one side of the spectrum sits massive international brands, with names that are difficult to avoid, regardless of your streetwear knowledge. Think: stereotypically hypebeast brands like Supreme, Palace, Bape, Stüssy, Off-White, the usual.

However, on the other side lies a completely different world of apparel labels, containing a series of homegrown, fascinatingly unique brands that are bursting with talent and youthful energy, waiting for their time to rise to the spotlight.

These young upstarts come from a variety of backgrounds—some, like the co-founders of Singaporean creative collective Tell Your Children (below), met while studying design and kickstarted the brand during their two years of mandatory National Service in the country’s Armed Forces.

Others, like Mark Ong AKA Mr Sabotage, picked up a penchant for design through skateboarding. Inspired by the ebb and flow of punk and skater culture, Mr Sabotage channeled his boundless ambition and subversive spirit into sneaker customization, slowly building an empire that grew into Singaporean label SBTG—later spawning other well-known streetwear and custom sneaker brands such as Foxtrot Uniform, Sabotage Surplus and more.

These true-blue Singaporean brands were widely successful, especially considering the tiny market that is Singapore. Tell Your Children went on to collaborate with giants like Nike, New Balance and Samsung, while Mr Sabotage’s labels picked up massively famous customers such as Stephen Curry, Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park, and the late Kobe Bryant.

However, these two brands are but a drop of water in the ocean of the current Singaporean streetwear scene. As a new generation of more ambitious players enter the ecosystem, we dive into some brands that make us excited for the future of the local streetwear.

See You At One

Skate culture and street culture have always been intertwined, and See You At One brings this connection to the forefront through their apparel offerings. The brand is characterized by their high-quality materials and make, artistic quality and sense of humor.

As a brand known to be by skaters, for skaters, their audience has a very particular set of needs—not only do the clothes need to be stylish, but they also need to have the ruggedness to withstand any number of falls and scrapes against concrete. See You At One, or SYAO for short, perfectly fulfills those criteria.

It’s not all about skate apparel, though. In an interview with FEMALE Magazine, SYAO’s co-founder notes, “We want to get past SYAO being just a skate brand because I think we do things quite artistically. We also love history and art. The street/skate label usually limits us because people already have a preconceived notion of what that is, and it’s usually compared to Supreme and Palace once you mention ‘skateboarding’…”

SYAO’s various drops and capsule collections are chock-full of aesthetic designs, interesting silhouettes, a mish-mash of material textures, and humorous jabs at any topic the creatives could think of. Take the brand’s “Transmission” hoodie collection, cheekily named to reference the increased transmission of infections during Singapore’s rainy seasons, with campaign imagery shot in Haw Par Villa – hint: what else does HPV stand for? SYAO occasionally checks its tone by delving into deeper social issues, such as their “Bebey” campaign that addressed the weaponization of language to oppress certain communities.

Among SYAO’s newest drops were their “Waveform” and “Sine” tees which caught our eye. The “Waveform” tee’s graphic consists of a series of jumbled geometric shapes that just barely resemble text. The graphic was provided depth and a latex-like quality through an interesting use of color and shades of white – the letters look almost as if they were about to pop off the shirt and float into the sky. Meanwhile, the “Sine” tees made use of subtle stitching in the pattern of a sine wave to provide curvature to an otherwise blocky silhouette, choosing color combinations that allow the wave to stand out, yet meld with the solid background.

As See You At One evolves, they continue to experiment with new concepts, materials and designs, and in their words, “laugh their asses off while they’re at it.” The label seems to feel comfortable in their own shoes, which lends a grounded, unpretentious quality to their apparel even as they make waves in the streetwear scene.

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Images via See You At One

Fassbender & Mellon Collie

If you were hoping for some deeper meaning for the long and puzzling brand name, there is none—it came about entirely by chance. The name was formed by combining a name, ‘Fassbender’ (that the brand’s graphic designer thought was catchy) and the album title “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” by ‘80s alt rock band The Smashing Pumpkins.

This concept of letting things happen organically and randomly appears to be something that founder Ethan Lee’s method applies to every aspect of the brand’s wacky portfolio.

Case in point: Lee uses the method of ice dyeing (as opposed to the typical tie-dye method) to create his designs, due to its “uncontrollable, organic” nature as a medium.

From the moment he started the brand, he refused to stock and sell his creations via boutiques and retailers, opting instead to manage the brand only through Instagram, with orders placed through DMs and a recently opened online store.

Lee’s mindset towards running Fassbender & Mellon Collie is clear: he aims to create controlled, beautiful chaos. Rather than the typical spirals or patches you’d see on tie-dye apparel, the ice dye method creates the illusion that the colors, with what seems to be a mind of their own, had spread across the fabric, mingling and interacting with each other, creating patterns and shapes almost resembling the nebulas of deep space. 

Much like the way the carefully-chosen colored dyes mix and blur together over the brand’s apparel, Lee sees his brand’s chosen mediums and techniques as a way to “blur the line between beauty and what is deemed ‘ugly’ by society.”

Fassbender and Mellon Collie’s vision, concepts and methods match the independent, erratic, anti-establishment roots of street, creating some of the most outlandish designs you’ll see.

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Images via Fassbender & Mellon Collie

Talents like See You At One and Fassbender & Mellon Collie are constantly pushing the forefront of Singaporean streetwear and street fashion. While they look towards the future, there are also those who focus on the past. Of course, we are talking about the vintage and thrift stores of Singapore.

This interesting facet of the street fashion market comes as a new wave of shoppers search for sustainable ways to source for clothes. Worldwide, thrifting and resale expanded into a S$49b industry in 2021, and is expected to overtake the fast fashion industry in the years to come.

Curating and organizing thrifted apparel is a talent and skill in its own right, and there are a wealth of brands whose founders seek to use their abilities for the benefit of their generation.

HonsiePonsie

Hon Liang Lung got into the habit of thrifting clothes to improve his style while in National Service. During his frequent visits to local thrift and vintage stores, he began to see a gap in the market: many outlets were woefully understocked in menswear, and some did not have any men’s apparel at all.

In 2020, seeing a gap in the market, Hon started an online curated thrift store by the handle @honsieponsie on Instagram. Though he originally began with posting and selling individual pieces, as his account grew he quickly began diversifying—pairing clothes together to sell them as ‘collections’ or ‘outfits’, cutting apart, mixing and reconstructing clothes to create entirely new designs, and writing journal-like entries sharing his thrifting experiences and observations. 

HonsiePonsie’s unique curated inventory and honest, down-to-earth vibe was not lost on his appreciative customer base. Through word of mouth and social media, Hon’s brand had picked up hundreds, and soon thousands of followers.

In 2021, he tried his hand at opening his first pop-up store in Farrer Park’s Concept Market Festival. His resounding success at this event, coupled with the inefficiencies of running an Instagram store, was all the drive he needed to make the leap of opening his current physical outlet in Queensway Shopping Centre.

Doing so opened up countless new opportunities: the larger physical space allowed him to begin thrifting and importing larger amounts of second-hand clothing from all over Asia. He was able to stock specific types of clothing—for example, cargo pants by Carhartt or workwear by Dickies—and release them as “collections” or “drops” within his physical store. All the while, the word of his brand kept spreading.

Today, Hon still owns and runs HonsiePonsie with the help of his very sweet mother (who you’ll see manning the store counter, pictured with Hon above). Even while studying full-time in university, he’s proven himself to be a natural at social media marketing via Instagram and TikTok, while constantly sourcing for new, exciting second-hand clothing to share with his loyal customer base. With tens of thousands of people following his social media accounts and new projects in the works, it doesn’t look like he’s slowing down anytime soon.

Check out HonsiePonsie at Queensway Shopping Centre, #02-40A, or on Instagram and TikTok.

Images via HonsiePonsie

Function Five

Yet another young addition to Singapore’s thrift and vintage street scene, Function Five curates an amazingly wide variety of pre-loved clothing and apparel—from simple tees for S$5 to rare finds going for S$100. Co-founders Hafiz Arif and Yazid Sadali named their brand based on its mission—just as the keyboard’s F5 key refreshes a computer interface, Function Five refreshes unwanted apparel and deadstock.

Arif and Sadali were no strangers to thrifting. Nearly a decade before they started their joint venture, the pair experienced the sheer scale of the second-hand market in Malaysia, and saw an opportunity to apply the same business model to Singapore.

However, it was only years later when the two seriously considered the idea, and began sourcing for suppliers overseas. Seeing an opportunity in bulk purchasing clothes from overseas garment factories, which in turn draw them from landfills, the two co-founders decided to bring their idea to fruition.

In early 2021, Function Five opened its first physical outlet on North Bridge Road, now named Function Five Rag House. A successful 8 months later, the entrepreneurs opened an even larger shophouse a few roads down on Arab Street, dubbed Function Five Thriftshop.

Each outlet focuses on slightly different sub-groups, with Rag House stocking budget items while Thriftshop flaunts a larger range—price and rarity both ascend as customers reach their top floor, a section named the Reworked Vintage Colosseum.

Since the day they opened shop, Arif and Sadali have continued their supply runs to various countries in Southeast Asia, gaining exposure to the state of the second-hand industry in the region and applying the lessons learnt to their own business practices.

Check out Function Five Thriftshop at 43 Arab Street, Function Five Raghouse at 749 North Bridge Road, or find them on Instagram.

Images via Function Five

With more and more youth seeing the opportunities present in street fashion, entrepreneurship and sustainability, Singaporean streetwear continues to diversify, opening the general public’s eyes to its vast potential. After all, if temperatures are rising and the economy is crumbling, we might as well look good while it happens.