One of our favourite Singapore fashion designers – and our Her World Young Woman Achiever for 2015 – Priscilla Shunmugam, is a somewhat intellectual creator. She thinks things through and comes to her collection development from sometimes very esoteric places.
READ MORE: Her World’s Young Woman Achiever Priscilla Shunmugam on her fashion journey
For the new Ong Shunmugam Cheongsam 2017 collection that she showed at Singapore Fashion Week on October 29, the basis was how our eyes register colours. RGB – red, green, blue – is a common designation for base colours that are used to create all other colours; the primary colours of red, yellow and blue that we all learn about at school are ‘subtractive primary colours’ (according to Priscilla) but RGB are ‘additive primary colours’ because human are most ‘optically sensitive’ to them. Anyway, RGB colours are the basis of how colours are created in photographs, on your phone, etc. All this delving into how we perceive colours and her own personal experience of realising that ‘yellow’ was also a primary colour was the basis of Priscilla’s latest collection.
All this intellectual musing translated into a series of very colourful clothes on the runway. Opening with a speedy run-through of all the looks, the collection offered up classic Ong Shunmugam shapes – peplum tops and dresses, almost traditional cheongsam dresses, a 50s wiggle dress or two, some 50s fuller skirts and the mid-calf culottes. There were a few more 60s style tunics as well and a nod to the ‘big sleeve’ and ‘cold shoulder’ trends, but overall the collection offered her fans (and there are a lot of them) brightly coloured new versions of their favourite things.
The colours ARE rather fabulous – particularly the coloured lace – and combined well with the customary Ong Shunmugam batik prints, plain coloured silks and a new blue and white Chinese-style floral print. All of the looks were worn with simple sneakers again; but this time they were lovingly hand-painted adding an additional pattern to the mix; the models were also wearing the brand’s very first jewellery pieces – large floral embellished earrings.
The collection as a whole will keep Ong Shunmugam fans very happy – there are plenty of pieces that will easily fit into many a working Singapore woman’s wardrobe – and there are some die-die-must-buy looks that are perfect for Chinese New Year.
CLICK THROUGH THE GALLERY TO SEE ALL THE LOOKS FROM THE ONG SHUNMUGAM CHEONGSAM 2017 COLLECTION AT SINGAPORE FASHION WEEK 2016
The Ong Shunmugam Cheongsam 2017 collection will be available at the brand’s new store Atelier Ong Shunmugam at 43 Jalan Merah Saga #01-76, Singapore. For more information about Ong Shunmugam, go to ongshunmugam.com.
READ MORE: Singapore’s top fashion label Ong Shunmugam opens its first store and it’s awesome