In the final part of our look at Andrew Gn’s Fashioning of Singapore and the World, we explore what might have been foundational to his love of dressing women of status splendidly

A spiritless mock-up of Andrew Gn’s rue de Temple studio at the Contemporary Gallery of ACM

Twenty years after Andrew Gn declared to The Straits Times that he had “only one dream—to be a household name like Armani, and Yves Saint Laurent”, it is not clear if Mr Gn feels that his dream has come true or if the household name status is achieved. In Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World, the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) does not address those two aspirations. Rather, they position the subject of their first major show spotlighting a local designer as “one of Singapore’s most successful exports”. This is the museum’s main trope, even if it is an odd turn of phrase. Mr Gn made it in Paris—his adopted city—all on his own. He did not even take a loan, when the money his father provided was insufficient, from a Singaporean bank (it was a French institution that provided financial aid). His success was not first achieved on our shores and then “exported” (it is not known if he pays local taxes, other than the occasional GST). His business is not registered here, nor does he keep an office on our shores. While his gowns were admired by a handful from here, they were not readily availed to them. This clothes were never made on our island, or designed here. In fact, negligible few were able to see his designs up-close, until now. The resources available to him have been mainly French. Hitherto, the Andrew Gn label has no connection to our city other than a fleeting retail appearance in 1997. Mr Gn grew the sales of his brand largely by his own drive and social skills, and with support from his long-time, French business partner Erick Hörlin du Houx, formerly a caterer to the luxury fashion industry, who joined the Andrew Gn brand in 1998.

ACM, however, needs to connect the dots the way they have. Showing dresses that celebrities have worn—“the full Andrew Gn experience”, as they lumously describe it—underscores the designer’s popularity or “global impact”. But, as a museum set up to spotlight the advanced state of Asian societies of the past, culturally and creatively, or, perhaps more importantly, the relationship between us and our neighbours by way of our status as a thriving “port city”—ACM’s favourite description of our maritime clout, they have to highlight the Asian-ness of Mr Gn’s work, even if it isn’t necessarily central to the designer’s sizable output. So they have to frame his work within the context of “encountering Asia”, as a thematic header states. But is Mr Gn’s use of Asian decorative motifs a mere encounter? What does it really mean to be an Asian or Singaporean designer, with decidedly European design posturing, on the world stage? If a port city is a salad stop of cross-cultural richness, Andrew Gn, in not restricting himself to geographical boundaries, hints at, rather than epitomises the melting pot that we are as an enviable entrepôt. “I take inspiration from everywhere,” he told San Francisco’s Nob Hill Gazette in 2019. It appears he still does, borders be damned. “That’s because I need to be inspired in order to go on working.”

The weak influence of India and Turkey as seen in three looks that barely distance themselves from what might be found in tourist shops

In luxury fashion, it is often about the stories a designer tells and those communicated through clothes. Mr Gn is known to be very friendly (Harper’s Bazaar Singapore’s EIC Kenneth Goh wrote in the hard-back exhibition catalogue that when they met for the first time, they “bonded, like Asian sisters from different mothers”) and is quick to regale the curious with tales of his jaunts through art, his trunk shows, and his growing-up years in Singapore, all told with ambassadorial flair. Just as Mr Gn, who says he has “very eclectic taste”, can be fanciful in his narratives, ACM, too, needs to puff things up or there would be no retrospective that could, as Mr Kenny Ting, ACM’s ebullient director, said in an introductory essay (also in the exhibition catalogue), come close to “exploring Singapore‘s fashion identity.” But, do the exhibits really illustrate anything about our identity by way of dress when Mr Gn has said to the Singaporean press in the past that “we were brought up casually dressed. I wouldn’t go as far to say that shorts and T-shirts are our national costume, but we are very casual dressers (The Straits Times, 2005)”?

Mr Ting told the inattentive audience on the opening night of the exhibition that his wish was to turn ACM into the “V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) of Asia”. It is always good to dream and to be ambitious, as Mr Gn has and is. But the handling of Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World proves that ACM’s lofty aim is generations from blooming. Jackie Yoong, the chief curator of the exhibition, wrote in her introduction of the designer in the exhibition catalogue that the show “presents his fashion journey from Singapore to the world”, but it isn’t such a linear account, and the starting point isn’t our little red dot. For those unfamiliar with Mr Gn’s body of work, this is not taking the visitor from A to Z; this is just an assortment of fancy clothes. It does not guide the viewer through Mr Gn’s developmental trajectory or the evolution of his craftsmanship—handiwork that the museum admires and approves ardently. ACM says very little about the design. Vogue in 2003, described his clothes as “decorative, sumptuous feminine fare”. Even in recent times, in a Women’s Wear Daily editorial from 2022, an American store buyer was quoted saying: “It’s the kind of clothing that’s not intellectual; it’s just beautiful.” ACM has not illustrated that what they have exhibited is more than temporal glamour. Mr Gn told 联合早报 (Lianhe Zaobao) in a recent video interview that the retrospective “讲一个新加坡设计师在巴黎的那个奋斗历史” or tells the story of a Singaporean designer’s history of struggle in Paris—it didn’t show he strove.

Andrew Gn on the cover of Singapore Tatler, held by Instagrammer Dee Kosh, who informed that this magazine is the most popular in prison. Photo: deekosh/Instagram

After a relatively senang (easy) National Service (NS), Andrew Gn made small baby steps to fulfilling his dreams of being a fashion designer. Although he has said that he took the time in camp to come to that decision, he did not, upon leaving NS around 1986, plot to leave the country. He was an able illustrator, so he came up with ideas and sold his drawings to the top designers of the time, such as Esther Tay (now primarily a producer of uniforms) and Celia Loe (now retired). He was, in fact, extremely keen to meet the “masters” headlining the scene then. Thomas Wee was once overheard telling someone at a retail event that a very young Mr Gn visited him at the former’s first boutique in Far East Plaza two months after it opened in the mid-’80s. Mr Gn sheepishly pushed open the glass door and, seeing Mr Wee, said, “Hi, I am Andrew Gn. Can I show you my drawings?”, in a small voice, which was unusual. One industry veteran recalled seeing the fledgling designer for the first time in 1985, in the first multi-label store for Singaporean designers, the Dick Lee-initiated Hemispheres: “he had a big voice and he was boisterous.” In the WWD article that ran on the same day the exhibition opened to the public, it noted that Mr Gn spoke with “booming laughs that punctuate his conversation.” What became of that first meeting with Mr Wee is not known. The talk then was that he was hoping to be offered employment, but Mr Wee already had an assistant, Richard Gien (now an art dealer in New York). It is believed that Mr Gn, too, introduced himself in similar fashion to the late Tan Yoong, another designer he admired, and with whom he developed a quick friendship.

Like many of his contemporaries starting out in the mid-’80s, such as Richard Gien, Taro Chan (also Thomas Wee’s assistant, before Mr Gien; he was last based in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province [珠海市，广东省]), and Heng Nam Nam (bridal/evening wear designer still catering to tai-tais), Andrew Gn was constrained by what the shrinking fashion industry then was able to offer. Garment manufacturing was in its sunset years, even when the era was—as the ‘Merdeka Generation’ would say—the “golden age of Singapore fashion”. Luxury brands were making inroads: Mr Gn’s favourite designer at the time, Yves Saint Laurent, debuted in our major shopping belt with the freestanding Saint Laurent Rive Gauche (whose distributorship was freshly taken over by the growing-in-power Club 21 from Glamourette) in 1981 at the Hilton hotel (now voco Orchard). It is not known if he visited the store back then, even just to admire. But he did say to host Laura Vinroot Poole in a 2022 episode of the podcast What We Wore that he eyed the important retailer at the time, Man & His Woman, and “saved a lot of money to buy my first Kenzo zouaves (a style of trousers), my first Byblos tuxedo, and my first Gianni Versace sweater… as a proud 13-year-old”. From the mid ’80s, the industry on our island was transitioning to a business hub and supply chain centre. With limited resources and—more importantly—funding, designing was, to put it artlessly, mainly drawing. Many designers of the ’80s began by peddling their sketches or illustrations to fashion companies with their own production facility, as Mr Gn did. Those who wanted to see their designs materialise as tangible forms needed to have their work realised as flat paper patterns before these were placed on the chosen fabrics, then cut, made (or sewn) and trimmed (known as CMT). But cutters and sewers were scattered throughout the island—a bummer for many designers except for the very determined, or those who drive.

Andrew Gn in his late teens. Illustration: Just So

A lucky few, however, were able to find employment with ‘boutiques’ that offered not ready-to-wear that was expected, but made-to-measure clothing (in the ’80s, many women did go to Arab Street or Chinatown’s People’s Park to kar bo cho sar [剪布做衣], Hokkien for cut cloth, make clothes). These shops usually had an in-house designer whose main role was to sketch outfits for the customers. Taro Chan became a full-fledge designer when he left Thomas Wee in the mid-’80s to join Flamingo Boutique, a Beach Road establishment started in 1984 by a former make-up artist from Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. Flamingo Boutique and similar were acceptable training ground for those who liked to sketch and whose designs could subsequently become actual garments. Andrew Gn, too, was gainfully employed in a similar manner. For a short time before he left to further his studies, he was sketching dresses, among rolls of fabrics, for customers at a now-defunct store started by two textile dealers in Parkway Parade known as House of Origin Boutique.

However hard his formative years were, bustling from Upper Serangoon Road in the north-east to Marine Parade in east coast, Mr Gn had, in fact, a more encouraging start. In 1984, he joined a competition to design the clothes for the participants of Miss Universe Singapore. He took the second place, which, encouraged him to use the more visible pageant stage to make a name. Throughout much of the ’80s, young designers were availed few platforms on which to launch themselves. To be noticed, there were primarily three channels: the Her World Young Designers’ Awards, which debuted in 1978 and launched the careers of many of our island’s top designers, including Thomas Wee and Tan Yoong; the SODA (Society of Designing Arts) shows (1985—1987), which was the largest runway presentation at the time, and Hemispheres (1985—1987), the popular retail outlet. But Andrew Gn was less interested in creating a line; he preferred making one-offs (as in haute couture), and was, therefore, rather active on the competition circuit, keen for his designs to be seen on the stage of big-scale events.

Four outfits that Andrew Gn designed for the Miss Tourism Singapore 1986. Photos: The National Archive/National Museum of Singapore. Collage: Just So

Other than the 1984 Miss Universe Singapore, there was another pageant—Miss Tourism Singapore in 1986, whose contestants were decked out by SODA designers. By then age 21 (according to press reports then), Mr Gn dressed a Miss Tourism Singapore competitor, Angelina Ng, and she won. While this was not a design competition, the wearer of his creation winning meant Mr Gn did too. With more confidence he had gained by now, he made four different looks for Ms Ng that—typical of the more modest pageants of the era—comprised office, casual, and evening wear. There was a navy pleated-skirt suit; a green, partly embroidered qipao; a black cocktail dress; and a red, off-shoulder evening gown. Retired fashion journalist John de Souza opined in ST that year: “Best of the evening bunch, I thought, were Andrew Gn’s simple yet striking red gowns in satin, lace and an intriguing rumpled silk.” The seasoned journalist later added, “But judging from these Miss Tourism designs, which I would call couture only in a very loose sense, we have a long way to go.” These clothes are now in the possession of the National Museum of Singapore; they are unfortunately, not part of the exhibition at the ACM. If Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World is, as curator Jackie Yoong says, a “fashion journey from Singapore to the world”, it could have started here, where Mr Gn is wont to say his “roots” (also the name of his last collection) are.

Apart from beauty pageants, Andrew Gn, in his late teens, participated in fashion shows too, specifically the SODA shows, in 1986 and 1987. He was, by then, a member of SODA, and eligible to showcase in what was then considered the best fashion show of the ’80s before it became Fashion Connection in 1988. Unlike the pageant stage, a fashion runway would draw industry notables, store buyers, members of the media, as well as society women—precisely the people Mr Gn wanted to attract, whose approval mattered more to him than attendees to a beauty pageant. He was proud of his collections for the SODA shows, his very first two collections that appeared on an actual runway. The 1987 collection for SODA (special guest that year was the French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac) was best remembered for its confident use of wool, sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat, in blue separates and dresses, and some decorated with lace (not, however, his favourite, guipure). It spoke of the mood of the time: feminine, self-assured, and a testament to the professional and social power women were aiming for. In July 1987, a month after the SODA show, Her World wrote that “Andrew Gn’s collection of sexy numbers in blue are classic evening winners“. It isn’t known what happened to those sundown triumphs or if they were ever sold. Curiously, the press then also dubbed Mr Gn “the next Thomas Wee”, even when, aesthetically, both were poles apart.

A snapshot of a Her World editorial in the July 1987 issue, featuring one of Mr Gn’s dresses for the SODA show of that year

Andrew Gn told Vogue SG last month: “I left Singapore in 1987, after my military service.” According to the 2016 book Fashion Most Wanted, he took the time spent serving National Service to ponder the viability of a career in fashion. The Straits Times, in 1991, reported that he did also consider becoming a curator (he told Ms Poole last year that he also “applied to the V&A”) or an auctioneer, even an opera singer (apart from enka, he loved an aria or two, it seems), and a lawyer. In 2005, Mr Gn told the same paper: “I had no choice. At that time, there weren’t classes that I could take in Singapore.” By the time he left, which had to be after the SODA show in June, Mr Gn had some experience under his belt. But it is not known if he had the technical skills—apart from the drawing—to see him become the designer he desired to be, or to be in the same league as his idol Yves Saint Laurent. In 2021, he did tell ST, expanding his thought of wanting to be a household name, “I still don’t know when I can get there, but now that I am making a lot of money with what I am doing, I know I am going to.”

His school years in London, Milan, and New York have been very much covered by the media, although his graduate collections were not mentioned; even illustrations were not shared. One highlight was that in February 1988, his designs were picked by his alma mater Saint Martin School of Art (before it became Central Saint Martin) and Italy’s trade department for a show in Milan and Florence. Two brands, Basile and Maxmara, saw his work and offered him jobs, but he turned both down. Most reports state that the first design job availed to him after he graduated from Domus Academy with an MA was at the atelier of the late Emmanuel Ungaro, whose eponymous line was disastrously revived in 2009 by the American actress Lindsay Lohan as “artistic advisor”, alongside the creative director Estrella Archs. Ms Lohan was relieved of her post after just that single, widely-panned collection. Mr Ungaro himself later called it “disastrous”. However, in that 2022 podcast What We Wore, we learned that Mr Gn was first presented an employment opportunity at Valentino, a brand his mother had worn. He told host Laura Vinroot Poole: “I was offered a job being the personal assistant of Mr Valentino. And I always remember waiting to see Mr Valentino. I mean, he was going from one room to another. He had a boy wearing white gloves, opening the doors for him and it was just incredible.”

Andrew Gn with a model wearing one of his designs on the runway of the Balmain show in 1998. Screen shot: Reuters Screenocean

Perhaps it was too incredible that Mr Valentino had staff waiting on him in that manner. In the end, Mr Gn chose an older capital for a younger one. “I love Rome,” he said, “but it is a smaller city and Paris is so exciting. And I’ve always wanted to live in Paris because I saw Paris the first time on a school trip and I said, ‘The city of lights. It’s so gorgeous. It’s consistently beautiful and untouched by the Second World War. It’s just incredible. I want to live here’.” But it is Paris that would first break him, before making him the success he is today. Members of the local media love to underscore Mr Gn’s appointment at the then 52-year-old house of Balmain in 1997, which resulted in a rapid sacking that he is still reluctant to speak about in considerable detail. ST’s Amanda Chai wrote in a Life Weekend cover story last month that he is “the first Asian designer to nap the top job at… Balmain as its creative director (the top job, some would argue, was held by Oscar de la Renta, who designed the couture collection)”. But she did not note that he was the first to design only one collection before he had to leave, like Lindsay Lohan at his former employer Emmanuel Ungaro, eleven years later. At the time of his dismissal, there were virtually no reports about it here. The closest city to mention it was Hong Kong, where South China Morning Post ran the headline “Going, Going, Gn” three weeks after the news broke in Europe. Fashion editor of the paper at the time, Kavita Daswani, wrote that Mr Gn “has been unceremoniously dumped”. Earlier, WWD reported that it was “confirmed” by Balmain’s managing director then, Georgina Brandolini (who had, in fact, picked him out and hired him), that his “contract was terminated after only one collection”.

It is unimaginable what Mr Gn must have gone though at that time. The dismissal came when his own fashion label was just two years old. But he was seemingly unfazed by what would have been a big blow for many young designers today. He unflinchingly admitted to Prestige in 2020 that the collection he sent out that fateful March Saturday in 1998 “was a flop”, and that he was “was young and inexperienced then”, despite having spent two years at Ungaro. He did tell Business Times (BT) in 2002: “It was one of the worst experiences of my life.” Mr Gn had initially blamed the inexperienced stylist and a clomp of hair that inexplicably accompanied a model’s feet onto the runway, and took on a life of its own. Robin Givhan, in a review for The Washington Post in 1998, wrote, “The Balmain presentation… will go down in the fashion annals as ‘the hair ball show’.” This was a debut already, as WWD described, “widely criticized by the fashion press and ignored by buyers”. While Ms Givhan pitied him as it was his first presentation for the house, she did also say, “Quality control let Gn down. Many of the garments never should have been allowed on the catwalk.” On one of the looks, she asked, “Is the cruel point here to make women look as fat as possible?” (This was before fashion was afflicted by wokeism.)

Photograph of the first Colette window featuring the Andrew Gn brand, as shown in the exhibition

That Mr Gn was not bitter (at least he didn’t show it) about the harsh criticism levelled at him attested to some measure of mettle. One writer told us, “When I read that Robin Givhan piece so many years ago, I thought it would be hard for Andrew to survive the heat, but looks like he did.” In the BT story from 2002, Mr Gn said, “The experience made me realise how important it was to make it on my own. In six months, I pushed my label harder than I ever did. Business kept getting better and I’ve never looked back.” He would intermittently open up, progressively revealing more to the press: “They (Balmain) were disorganised and controlling” or “it was nothing more than a convenient financial arrangement”. And finally, last year, he thought “the clothes were good. And, looking back, there were some great ideas in it (sic),” as he recounted to Ms Vinroot Poole. The financial settlement from his cancelled contract helped bring in the money needed to take his label further.” Fashion may be merciless,” he said to BT, “but I was and am always full of guts and would never let anything go to waste.”

While the departure from Balmain might have been distressing for him personally, his eponymous label was not affected too badly. By then, his line was already stocked at Harvey Nichols in London and at some multi-brand stores in Japan. And, there was Colette in Paris and the window display that Mr Gn is especially proud of, and has frequently reminiscenced. Replicated, although not faithfully, in a corner of the Contemporary Gallery on the first floor of ACM is that Colette window, with four looks (not identical to the original) from the Andrew Gn autumn/winter 1998/1999 collection. The rue Saint-Honoré store, founded just a year after Mr Gn’s label was born, was known to push what was acceptable for retail then. Throughout its 20-year reign of influence (until it closed in 2017)—featuring more avant-garde labels and, later, even street wear brands, Colette led with considerable charm. It is, therefore, understandable why Mr Gn still has an attachment to the store that featured his unchallenging, lady-like clothes.

Merchandise to remember the exhibition by for sale at Supermama The Museum Shop

Concurrently, another episode was just as memorable and suggested that Mr Gn was not ostracised by the Paris haute monde despite the stunning fall-out with Balmain. According to Tan Siok Sun, writing in the catalogue that accompanies the retrospective, Mr Gn “encountered” Yves Saint Laurent’s English-born “muse” and the brand’s accessory and jewellery designer Loulou de la Falaise “around this time” (she must have been in her fifties then). It is not clear if “encountered” meant having met her in person, and making her acquaintance. If he did, he would have been connected to the second ’70s and ’80s fashion icon—a remarkable achievement by any standard! He did tell Vogue China back in 2021 that he “认识 (renshi)” or know Tina Chow in London when he was a kid—his parents had regularly brought him to the restaurant Mr Chow. That these two women appeared in his orbit may point to an earlier fancy that yearned for them to wear his clothes. But, both of them, with their own particular offhand style, were unlikely to have been drawn to Mr Gn’s more formal clothes. He informed Vogue China readers that Ms Chow had “paired her couture dresses with clothes from Marks & Spencer, and she wore them with a very relaxed, very sexy attitude.” Most of his customers in the US, those who attend the trunk shows that he has been bringing to them, are unlikely to dress with such insouciant élan.

The connection to his homeland, while not the stuff of legends, was sporadically felt through his increasingly international reputation and the occasional participation in fashion events here. In 2007, he got into a Singapore Fashion Week exhibition, Fashion Shares, that featured 50 pieces of garments by celebrities and designers. Mr Gn’s contribution was a T-shirt that sported an apple with the word ‘Hope’ on it, and was eventually selling for S$39.90 at Tangs. There was also the first come-back of sort, 2003’s The Local Hero Returns, closing show of the Singapore Fashion Festival at the St James Power House that featured 40-odd looks from his spring/summer collection of that year. Mr Gn, to the dismay of those who paid S$200 a head to attend, did not show up due to the SARS outbreak of 2002—2004. Even with that show, and, by then, seven years after his label was founded, his clothes were still not sold here. Mr Gn told Chinese website 中国设计之窗 (zhongguo sheji zhichuang or China Design Window) in 2007: “I have been friends with Tina Tan-Leo (陈丽音, former proprietor of the now-closed Link and current owner of private shopping service Privato) for many years. She always asked me to come back for a fashion show. But the timing just didn’t work out.” The Link had reportedly been courting Mr Gn for years, but he was constrained by time to do any real retail here. It could also simply be due to the lack of a sizeable market in this part of the equator to make it worth his while to sell here. The Singapore son, who, as a boy, would tell his mother, “Mom, you might wish to turn the green silk into a tailleur, rather than a cheongsam… and make it less fussy” (as told to the podcast What We Wore), is now running an international fashion business. And, as ACM tries to show, not punching above his weight.

Note on dates: They may vary. The Straits Times, for example, has in the past stated that Mr Gn left Singapore for London in 1986. That is not possible if he was here for the SODA of 1987

This is the last post of our three parter on AGN at ACM

Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World runs from now to 17 September 2023 at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Admission fee is applicable. Photos, except when indicated: Chin Boh Kay