Fu Yuan - The Wedding Shop
32 New Market Road Food Centre
#02-1098 and #02-1158
tel 6334-9056

A YOUNG couple who wants to have a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony might find themselves running all over Chinatown to select tea sets and wooden clogs, looking high and low for traditional baskets to hold dowry gifts.

HAVING IT ALL: Sean Lui, owner of Fu Yuan - The Wedding Shop, a one-stop traditional Chinese wedding paraphernalia store.

One fengshui master has decided to make the process easier by setting up a one-stop shop for all kinds of Chinese wedding paraphernalia. 'My clients were always complaining about how hard it was to look for their items if they wanted to observe Chinese wedding customs,' says Sean Lui, who specialises in helping couples select auspicious wedding dates.

His company, World of Fortune, conducts more than 500 wedding date selections a year and also advises on the ceremonial customs. Fengshui reading is a family business which Mr Lui took over from his uncle in 2002. 'We look at the couple's birthdates, note their strengths and weaknesses to find a date that's the most suitable and auspicious,' he says, adding that the customary procedures start before the actual wedding date such as in the exchange of dowries and gifts. As more couples complained about the difficulty of finding traditional wedding items, he saw a business opportunity here.

Fu Yuan - The Wedding Shop has everything from red candle sticks to sewing kits - and all items which are significant in wedding customs. Sewing kits are part of the bride's dowry, to signify that she's adept at domestic affairs; wooden clogs are given by the mother-in-law to her son-in-law, to wish him a successful career. It's a play on the term bu bu gao shen, which means to rise to the top, step by step. Meanwhile, umbrellas (Fu Yuan offers bright red parasols) are used to shield the bride as she's leaving her house to enter the bridal car, and when she's outdoors. 'This has to do with the belief that she might incur jealousy of the gods on her big day,' he says. And the store has brown baskets which Teochews use and black Hokkien baskets as well.

Mr Lui hopes to open a couple more stores in different parts of the island, but decided that Chinatown was a good place to start. Fu Yuan is located in a cluster of textile shops in New Market Centre, above the hawker centre at People's Park. 'In fact, when we first started, we caught the attention of a lot of the parents. But now, the young couples are beginning to come to shop for themselves,' he notes. True to Chinese tradition, the groom and the bride have their own sets with prices ranging from $228 for the groom, and starting from $198 for the bride.

He notes also that although the younger generation don't understand a lot of the customs, their interest is piqued when the history and traditional beliefs are explained to them. 'Then they'll realise that how much is vested in making a marriage union a blessed and lasting one,' he adds.

By Cheah Ui-Hoon

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Strangelets
87 Amoy Street
tel 6222-1456

SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL: Yeo Wenxian and Schirin Taraz-Breinholt are partners of Strangelets, a lifestyle store where offbeat items are the norm.

AT Strangelets, fly guns wittily labelled 'Abuse-Mouche' greet visitors at the door ('mouche' translates to 'fly' in French, while 'abuse-mouche' is also a play on the term 'amuse-bouche', a tiny portion of food served as a palate teaser in a French restaurant). Beetles whose insides have been replaced with vintage watch parts lay bare their mechanical organs from beneath bell jars on a countertop. And a row of Nigerian fertility dolls arranged along a far wall stare blankly across the room.

Such offbeat items are the norm at this Amoy Street lifestyle store, which opened in May. Not all its wares are gruesome, though - you'll also find delicate porcelain boxes in the shape of jam sandwiches, lamps made of aeroplane aluminium (tested to withstand the local humidity) and camouflage-patterned teddy bears hand-embroidered in Africa here. The unifying factor, says co-owner Yeo Wenxian, is that all the products are 'unique and have a bit of humour about them'.

Together with three other partners who hold full-time jobs as interior designers and architects, the former banker regularly travels the globe and trawls the Internet in search of new suppliers and products that 'would work' for Strangelets. Some of the names represented at present include African lighting designer Heath Nash, Brit furniture maker David Restorick, French tableware craftswoman Nathalie Lete (under the brand Astier de Villatte) and the Japanese paperwork duo Postalco.

'The good thing about working with these designers who are also the makers of the products is that they don't compromise on quality,' comments partner Schirin Taraz-Breinholt. 'But it doesn't necessarily make things easier for us - you know artists, they're like 'it'll be ready when it's ready'!'

On how the store selects which brands to represent, Ms Yeo says: 'We're on a mission to find and represent brands and designers that we're excited about, ones that aren't in Singapore and some that aren't even in Asia. 'We look for things that are beautiful, but also for a certain quality of craft, of the handmade. There are only certain shops that communicate a genuine charm - we'd like to capture a bit of that magic.'

Quite appropriately, Strangelets is named after the definition of the word - that is, a theoretical amount of matter that is a 'catalyst for wonderful things to happen', explains Ms Taraz-Breinholt.

Indeed, from a $5 Japanese origami set to a $5,000 wheeled Bookinist chair from Germany that serves as a bookshelf and is fitted with niceties such as bookmarks and a magnifying glass tucked away in one arm ('they knew at this price level, people who bought the chair would need a magnifying glass to read', says a chortling Ms Yeo), there is plenty here to set off sparks in shoppers' hearts. From next month, Strangelets will also begin selling jewellery made by two American designers, Kiel Mead and M E Moore. Of course, in keeping with the store's concept, these aren't your usual accessories: There are delicate forget-me-not rings that resemble thin silver ropes tied around one's finger, brass pea pods strung on matching necklaces, and the piece de resistance . . .

'Don't be grossed out,' warns Ms Yeo as she opens a small plastic container in the shape of a semi-circle. Inside, something is glinting and we lift it out - it's a solid silver orthodontic retainer hanging from a silver chain. Yeah, pretty weird. But like everything else in this quirky store, it's pretty wonderful too.

By Audrey Phoon

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Hide & Seek
22B/C Hong Kong Street
tel 6536-7475

AFTER the customer manages to track down this hard-to-find location and climbs up two flights of very narrow steps, he or she would want it to be a worthwhile trek - that's what fashion designer Keith Png wisely thought, when he first took up the two-level shophouse space just opposite Central Mall for his studio.

So he made Hide & Seek into a concept store, all the better to carry a multitude of design-led products - ranging from fashion to home decor. Hide & Seek is also one-stop beauty studio as Png designs made-to-measure dresses (which cost about $1,000). You can also book make-up artist Clarence Lee for a session ($350).

The boldly coloured store with its nooks and crannies has an edgy, underground look, and it's a treasure trove of apparel, shoes, bags, jewellery, even home accessories - basically, anything quirky. Besides Png's own ready-to-wear label Koops, there's local fashion labels Trioon (casual/work wear), Swirl (work wear/retro prints), JR Chan (jackets/vests) and Pouf; Ribbon Rabbit is a shoe label by a local graphic illustrator, and Lile Aux Ashby is a local jewellery line. A group of freelance photographers have also transferred their abstract photos into T-shirt designs - exclusively available here.

There's Beverly Hills' skincare brand Leaf & Rusher products, used by celebrities; make up by Hollywood make-up artist Julia Hewett, and also Taiwanese pop star Jolin Tsai's nail colour range. Other special fashion finds there include golf label Lyle & Scott's fashion range, as Png had designed its Fall/Winter 2007 and Spring/Summer 2008 collection for the Asia market; then there are Dr Denim jeans from Sweden, Threadless tees, and soon, Koops Men by Png.

By Cheah Ui-Hoon

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Notfound
35 Haji Lane
tel 6299-0096

Claudia Chong, co-owner of Notfound which offers a luxe selection of glam labels.

KAMPONG Glam isn't the sort of place you'd expect to find, well, glam labels. But it's precisely this incongruity that drew partners Ti Kwa, Claudia Chong and EM to set up Notfound along Haji Lane in July - they believe 'the best stuff is always hidden in a hole on some narrow side street'.

So buried amid the shish kebabs, textile reams and vintage knick-knacks in this historical area is Notfound, a signless, quirkily decorated double-storeyed space fronted by a glass door with a bit of driftwood for a handle, and a life-size Mao Zedong mannequin in its window display.

Inside, you'll find a luxe, current-season selection of accessories and clothing for men and women - buttery soft leather clutches by Kooba, sleek Tory Burch totes, togs from Helmut Lang, and shoes by Givenchy and United Nude. The store also carries a variety of more under-the-radar international labels such as Abahouse, Tomorrowland, F-troupe, Idol Radec and Generra, some of which are not available in Singapore. 'We find it exciting to introduce new lines to an unfamiliar but receptive audience,' says the Hong Kong-based Mr Kwa, who has years of experience in the fashion industry under his belt.

What makes these fashion-forward treats even more desirable are the tags: Notfound prices its wares at 30 to 40 per cent less than what you'd get them for in a department store. Explains Mr Kwa: 'Many shoppers may not realise that the average mark-up on a piece of designer clothing or a handbag can be anywhere between five to 13 times the cost of production.

'Notfound is of the belief that quality fashion doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. We get our goods at realistic prices because we have a small, nimble set-up and direct relationships with fashion houses and manufacturers. Then we pass all our cost savings to the customer - we want to offer anyone interested in fashion an inspiring resource.'

By Audrey Phoon

This article was first published in The Business Times on Sep 27, 2008.