Mere mortals couldn’t care less, but for the city’s many fashionistas, the annual Singapore Fashion Festival is heaven-sent. Dubbed as one of Asia’s major fashion festivals, the event constantly draws many tai-tais, fashion buyers and the well-heeled to witness shows from local and international designers and labels. What’s striking about this year’s line-up is local labels that collaborate with major sponsors to do their thing—such as Baylene with L’Oreal Paris and Francis Cheong with Lee Hwa. We’re not saying these are major fashion faux pas, but wouldn’t it be more interesting if these fashion houses collaborated with more unpredictable and totally unrelated sponsors/individuals instead for a more exciting and far-out show? Imagine if:• Chee Soon Juan teams up with rebellious local labels Revoltage and Flesh Imp to produce a line of fashionable prison outfits.• The PAP and Armani come out with a new line of all-white outfits, because white is totally the new black.• Kumar teams up with DKNY to produce a new line of dresses that will cater to men of all sizes.• Instead of the boring tent outside Ngee Ann City, Singapore Zoo and Night Safari are presenting venue sponsors. Watch things run wild.• Tiger Beer teams up with our “working girls” from Geylang for a series of provocative fashion ads and posters. Hey, if there’s anyone who can do sexy, it’s the Geylang girls.• The festival gets mechanized life-sized Barbies to don sexy lingerie from Blush! That’ll be a real head-turner for fashionistas (or just plain perverts) of all ages.• Overweight girls and boys get to strut in overstock and oversized pieces from every major fashion label in town. Reed thin models are sooooo over.• Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan is the face of the Singapore Fashion Festival.Va-va-voom!
