How Malaysian culture inspires a Dutch designer
- Raised in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Holland, Lisette Scheer’s third-culture upbringing influenced her outlook
- She returned to Kuala Lumpur as an adult and launched Nala Designs
Trade winds: I think a lot of Dutch people have a sense of travel. It’s in the blood. My parents married in Amsterdam in 1969 and moved to Singapore as a young couple. My father got a job with Hagemeyer, a trading company. I was born in Mount Alvernia Hospital, Singapore, in 1970, the first of five children. After two years my father was transferred to Malaysia.
Capital village: Kuala Lumpur was super small, more like a big kampong (village) than a capital city. The area where the twin towers stand today was the Selangor Turf Club, a cricket ground and racecourse that was surrounded by traditional residential buildings. There were no malls. Everyone knew each other. And it was safe, too.
I remember I went to school on a pink minibus. You just jumped on and jumped off again. It was also a time before the internet. My father would finish work every day at five and go and play polo. In those days it was just different. That kind of lifestyle isn’t possible any more.
City of lights: In 1979, we moved to Hong Kong. I loved it because we lived right by the beach in Stanley. I went to Quarry Bay School, which was great. It operated under the British system so we’d have cold milk every Friday and daily assemblies.
My parents gave me a lot of freedom. I would take my pocket money to Stanley Market. I remember it vividly; I would scour the stalls and buy little Chinese ornaments. I suppose even at that age I had an eye for precious things. I remember we took the ferry to Macau, which was a real adventure. But for my father the work-life balance wasn’t what it had been in Malaysia. He told me later it was crazy and in 1981 we moved back to Holland.