He may be dubbed Singapore’s godfather of fashion but it took the pandemic to reignite Daniel Boey’s passion for the industry. A tireless champion of the local scene, Boey has been conspicuously absent from fashion for the past few years – though that’s not quite how he sees it. “I was never actually away from the fashion scene. Other aspects of my work simply took centre stage because there were more exciting projects that [meant] we could stretch ourselves creatively,” says the famously outspoken Boey. That includes his creative agency producing the Singapore Fintech Festival for three years, while he has also written four books since 2014 and been immersed in dog shelter work and fundraising, in part inspired by his adoption of a shelter dog. “Fashion events – and especially fashion weeks of late – have mostly swung away from focusing on the creativity and work of the designers and veered towards a circus of celebrities, champagne, parties, red carpet and outrageous street style . It was more about getting photographed than about the actual pieces on the runway,” he says. When the pandemic hit, Boey began to take stock of how various industries were reacting to the crisis. “I saw how the theatre industry was banding together, the music industry was creating digital showcases for themselves and how corporations and businesses were migrating to the virtual world to conduct their businesses,” he says. At the same time, Singapore’s relatively small fashion market was facing a potentially devastating downturn amid a plunge in consumer spending and the sudden decimation of the tourism industry. “I worked to find a way to translate fashion and lifestyle events into a digital model without losing too much of its essence and I thought perhaps pulling it all back and hosting a fashion event on the internet would bring the focus back on the designers and their work,” he says. Over the course of Singapore’s “circuit breaker” period of temporary Covid-19 measures, Boey conceived The Front Row, a virtual fashion festival, to offer local brands a digital platform in a time when brick and mortar shopping was greatly curbed. “With the forced lockdowns, the change in people’s shopping and digital habits, and the strong push towards environmentally friendly practices, the virtual world is going to play a very important part in the future of fashion. This, coupled with travel restrictions and limitations of physical events, will ensure that the world of fashion retail and events will change,” Boey says. The Front Row, which will run from August 20 to 29, will feature a range of virtual fashion shows and presentations in the form of motion editorials, short fashion films and animations, and interactive workshops. While digital runways have not taken off in a big way in the past, current times may change this. Daniela Monasterios, a fashion lecturer at Singapore’s Lasalle College of the Arts and co-founder of fashion collective Mash-Up, suggests that a range of presentation formats will help keep audiences engaged. “Perhaps digital fashion festivals would have to think more in terms of taking the fashion film approach rather than just a documentation of the usual fashion show,” she says. “To be successful, the digital presentation should push the medium, for example through film and music. It cannot rely on just documenting a traditional format like the fashion runway into video form. There should also be some sort of anticipation, perhaps time-sensitive streaming, or allowance for direct interaction with the brand.” Instead of picking big names in the industry to draw eyeballs, Boey took a different approach. “We wanted to give an opportunity to smaller fashion businesses and under-the-radar designers who were quietly doing great work and were not household names – but deserve to be,” he says. Labels on the line-up, which Boey selected based on word of mouth and referrals, include cult favourites such as Africa-inspired OliveAnkara , menswear brand Graye, contemporary womenswear label Ginlee Studio and State Property fine jewellery. The Front Row will also feature guest collections from Southeast Asian designers and is supported by show producers and event contemporaries from the region and beyond. Boey hopes this will not only allow participants to widen their customer base but also give rise to “future collaborative opportunities”. This new generation of designers have the bandwidth and versatility to adapt, the skill set to pivot their business and the tenacity to deal with obstacles Daniel Boey Monasterios says that Singapore, being a small market, needs to leverage its unique position in the region. “Southeast Asia is a very technologically savvy region, and I do believe that it would be good not just to market Singaporean brands but to create a collective movement that celebrates this region.” To bring together a fashion community with the mettle to ride out the ongoing crisis, Boey selected brands with an online business model as well as a “sustainable, inclusive and responsible” ethos – values which have become particularly relevant to the times. For instance, Ginlee Studio has recently introduced an order-on-demand initiative to enable it to better monitor demand and reduce unnecessary waste. “This is a good chance to shake the current model in which fast-fashion brands operate and it will go on to not only benefit us but also the environment,” says co-founder and designer Gin Lee. Boey is impressed by the label’s creativity and grit. “This new generation of designers have the bandwidth and versatility to adapt, the skill set to pivot their business and the tenacity to deal with obstacles. That is as important as creativity, design and construction skills.” Many other younger Singapore-based brands have been proving their business acuity by niftily rolling out collections that appeal to the current consumer mindset. For example, designer Amos Ananda Yeo launched a collection of streetwear-inspired outerwear including jackets, trousers and a bucket hat with a shield made with lightweight, medically certified polythene fabric for his eponymous label. Designers taking part in The Front Row have also risen to the occasion. One success story is OliveAnkara, whose founder Ifeoma Ubby rapidly stepped up production of colourful accessories such as headwraps, scrunchies and earrings to enliven Zoom call wardrobes. “In uncertain times it is good to guarantee that style and quality will not be compromised,” Ubby says. She also produced masks made with the brand’s distinctive African fabrics and committed to donating 10 per cent of proceeds to local charities. Her efforts have paid off. Turnover, she says, has been even better than last year, with the brand achieving the same revenue by June as it did for all of 2019. She is currently aiming for 150 per cent growth this year. Designers are also adapting to the new reality of conducting business digitally. Priscilla Shunmugam of womenswear label Ong Shunmugam , who is currently riding out the pandemic in London, debuted new pieces from her diffusion line Om via a series of Instagram Live sessions. Jyoti Singh, founder of size-inclusive brand Jo Kilda , has taken it on herself to personally respond to customers’ WhatsApp and email enquiries to ensure she stays connected with her clients. “Since I am the designer, who better than me to have on hand all the details that matter to customers?” Singapore’s Textile and Fashion Federation, the industry’s trade association, has also pitched in to amplify the various designers’ digital strategies. In June, the federation – which also manages the retail and incubation space Design Orchard – launched OneOrchard Store, an online platform featuring a range of local designers. “Through this e-commerce platform we hope to support Singapore-based designers by providing additional exposure for their business,” says federation president Wilson Teo. “With the looming uncertainties of the future of retail, companies need to look for other avenues to continue their business. The upside of digital engagement is that brands are able to reach a larger target audience – regionally and internationally – more easily.” The site, which features 26 brands with more to come, has been seeing a “steady increase” in traffic, Teo adds. Of course, the onus remains on brands to differentiate themselves in an endless sea of online retailers. “Being online does not replace the need for good products and a good product story,” Teo says. “Brands also need to be consistent in brand image and not forget that service remains key to consumers’ experience with them.”