Mannequins lining the dance floor and shoes neatly arranged on bar counters… An outsider might think this a strange sight at one of Singapore’s most popular clubs, but if you’re clued in, you’d know that Zouk was transformed into a retail mall for The Fashion Uprising, a shopping bash organised by Chic Kiss Love (CKL) on Jul 22.

About Chic Kiss Love

Launched this year, CKL’s a fashion enterprise that aims to unite the crème de la crème of local online fashion retailers and catapult them to greater heights.

So exclusive is CKL that retailers are included by-invite only with “quality, customer service and aesthetics” as the criteria in their selection of online shops.

The first of its kind, CKL acts as “marketing arm of these labels”, Ngeow Jiawen, their marketing director, tells UrbanWire.

The 24-year-old who co-founded CKL also hopes that this alliance will strengthen the participating online boutiques such that they will be able “to compete with other international online labels”, such as ASOS.

UrbanWire’s two cents? It’s about time that online shops here start thinking globally, given their immense success in Singapore since its emergence in 2005. For example, LiveJournal one of the popular hosting sites for blogshops, reported that the 50,000 or so local blogshops under them raked in S$96 million last year.

The 12 Participating Labels

Currently, CKL houses 12 online labels:

Click on any of the links to the online shops above and you will find that most of them have developed clear, strong identities and even have their own in-house labels.

Coupled with the appealing website designs and idiot-proof online checkout systems, these labels are years ahead of the run-of-the-mill blogshops out there and deserve to be in a class of their own.

Local online boutiques like The Closet Lover have great website designs

Websites for local online boutiques are as good or even better than that of giant online retailers like ASOS

From the quirky to the girly labels, CKL has managed to bring together different online shops together and 24-year old Serene Chow of Momoteapots agreed, “The mix of labels here are quite different.”

Although they may be different, one of the founders of Hungover Sundays, 29-year old Sofie Chandra, told UrbanWire, “I think that [CKL] is a fantastic platform for networking as well as sharing of databases for all the blogshops.”

She’s also hopeful and positive about collaborations with the other participating labels.

Founders of the less than a year old label Hungover Sundays (from left) Daphne Wee, Dawn Lu and Sofie Chandra

Maybe hopes of collaborations between online retailers may materialize with some of the label owners such as 26-year old Brianna Wong of The Closet Lover and 26-year old Jamie Low of The Stage Walk being actual friends.

With the help of CKL, perhaps we might even see some of these participating labels schmoozing with giant, global fashion retailers like ASOS in the future.

The Fashion Uprising

Making a baby step towards that direction, CKL organised The Fashion Uprising to announce the alliance between the 12 online boutiques. The fashion carnival saw an impressive turnout of over 6,000 people who were raring to shop ‘til they drop.

Shopaholics queuing up on a Sunday afternoon to get their fashion fix

Not to be mistaken for the typical flea market, the bazaar was set up to resemble a mini-mall, with each label having its own spacious booth and *gasp* actual decent changing rooms!

A shopper, Jeremine Poh, 24, said, “This is definitely more organised than flea markets.”

Karmaine Tan and Tan Yu Ling, both 19, also appreciated the fact that the event was held at a fully air-conditioned location.

 Fashionable duo spotted at the event, Karmaine Tan (left) and Tan Yu Ling

The only similarity The Fashion Uprising shares with a typical flea market were the inexpensive clothes on sale.

Attendees got to feel and try on affordable clothes that ranged from past collections to self-designed clothes, as well as new collections that have yet to be released online.

Hungover Sundays’s collection

Self-designed dresses by Dressabelle

Hollyhoque, arguably the crowd favourite, was hounded by fans like 25-year- old Chixuan Gan, who made a beeline for Hollyhoque the moment she arrived and ended up spending 2 hours there.

Hollyhoque fan, Chixuan Gan (left) and friend

The crowd at Hollyhoque’s pop-up store          

Although the bazaar was well organised, the much-promoted fashion show with the ‘longest runway in Singapore’ was a bit of a disappointment as we expected an actual fashion show resembling the one at Audi Fashion Festival.

Models representing the 12 labels

As it turned out, the runway was just a 650m long pink carpet that snaked from one corner of the club to the other and more often than not, some of the attendees would cross the runway during the fashion show despite the best attempts of the ushers who tried keeping the crowd off the runway.

Still, it was a good effort and no one’s complaining if mere mortals like us get to walk on the same runway and live out our model aspirations that died a horrible death after we outgrew America’s Next Top Model, the reality TV series.

The owners of the labels seem to be pleased with the event too. Joelle Pang, 27, one of the founders of Dressabelle, said, “The team has done a very good job! They have so many sponsors, so many freebies, so many goodie bags…I think whatever that can be done has been done.”

Joelle (right) at her pop-up store, wearing her label’s self-designed dress

Expect more from Chic Kiss Love

Although there’re only 12 labels currently and the presence of notable online shops like Modparade and The Scarlet Room are sorely missed, Ngeow told UrbanWire: “One day CKL wants to house all reputable and strong labels and both webstores are definitely labels we would want to have on board.”

Keep your eyes peeled as CKL has lined up something special for you this December. Let’s just say you might get the chance to shop for your Christmas and New Year outfits in a 3D online shopping mall! We can’t wait!

 

[Photos courtesy of ChicKissLove, Nur Izdihar Zainudin, Webcada and adidasassignment]