The luxury of custom made fashion clothes is accessible in Singapore

PLEASE NOTE – CAYEN IS NOW CLOSED

It’s humbling living in Asia. From Bangkok to Singapore to Hong Kong, when shopping for clothing or shoes the refrain I hear is “No, sorry, you too big. No size for you.” Considering that I am of a very average, albeit tall build (177cm / 5’10”). This is really surprising. And even when I go to countries where women are…ahem….a bit rounder – like Malaysia or India – it is still the same. It must be the height….yes, that’s it, the height.

So when I go to America or Europe I shop indiscriminately…buying whatever I [kind of] like that actually fits. Usually I am there for a week and these purchases are squeezed in between dinners with friends and various other meetings.  Sometimes these binge purchases are ill advised – after cleaning my closet before the move to Singapore, I promised my friend Gretchen no more sequined tops! No more mad dashes grabbing every US size 10 in the store!

And now in Singapore I have a new bespoke option – Cayen Boutique. Cayen designs and makes custom-made clothes. Now if you have spent any time in Asia, you will wonder why this is special given all the guys with flyers standing on the corner and hawking suits. Well that is exactly the point – most SE Asia tailors specialize in men’s suits or Asian-style women’s formal gowns. There isn’t a great option for a girl who wants an of-the-moment top,a well-cut, fashionable pair of trousers or a distinctive party dress (Exception: if you are in Shanghai – get the to the Fabric Market post haste). Also, to be honest, I used several highly-recommended tailors in Bangkok to copy some of my Theory dress trousers and skirts from the US. And they never got it quite right – a combination of using stiffer men’s suiting materials for women’s fashion clothing and then also because they just couldn’t get the form fitting cut right. I was never satisfied with these items and they sit in my closet as annoying reminders of thwarted attempts at fashion in Asia.

My first visit to Cayen was just popping in on a Saturday afternoon. I wanted to see what the styles were like, what kind of fabrics were on offer….having been burned before by over-promising Bangkok tailors, I wanted to see some samples of clothing to understand what the end result might look like. The samples on hand were miles apart from what I had seen previously – skirts with flirty flip hems and detailing that reminded me a bit of  Rebecca Taylor or Kate Spade. And some classic white shirts with flair like French cuffs or ruching like Anne Fontaine.

I spoke to Carol Randall, the owner of Cayen, about my dilemma. She explained to me that anything over US size 6 is considered plus size in Asia….sigh….and that my challenges were not at all uncommon. We browsed through a few of the styles together and she suggested that I come back for a proper consultation where we could sit down and discuss my needs and decide if we would like to work together on addressing my Asian clothing crisis. The plan was this….to discuss my needs, then they would set up a follow-up appointment to present me with a proposal and then finally I could decide which pieces I wanted to commission.

Purchasing clothing would then probably involve a couple of fittings to get it just right, resulting in clothes that I have carefully chosen, that would fit perfectly – see Gretchen, no more sequined tops.

Click Here for Part 2 – the consultation and follow-up proposal appointment.
Click Here for Part 3 – the fittings and end result of the process.

I am thrilled to know I can have new clothes that meet my exact specifications ….now only if I could find someone to custom make size 10 US shoes….

Cayen
carol@cayen.com.sg
54A Club Street
Singapore, 069431
Telephone: + 65 6227 6187

Pin It