UNDERSTORY came from thinking about what lies beneath the surface.

In a forest, the understory is the layer beneath the canopy. It is beneath the tallest trees, beneath what first catches your eye and where life is still moving. It is where moss spreads across fallen bark, and young branches reach sideways towards light. Mushrooms rise from soil shaped by rain and time. Nothing there competes for attention, yet it is often the richest part of the landscape.

We kept returning to that idea while designing this collection –
What does strength within look like?
What does resilience look like?

UNDERSTORY explores that space through tailoring, colour and print. A sharply cut blazer woven in soft denim featuring fluid threads. Wrap skirts folding into themselves with softness and structure existing together. Masculine lines meeting retro femininity. Pieces that feel grounded, but never heavy.

The mushroom motif became an unexpected study throughout the collection. At first, we were drawn to them visually, their strange silhouettes, glowing undersides, colours that almost do not look real. But the more we looked, the more they began to feel symbolic of the collection itself. Mushrooms grow from what has fallen. Beneath them runs an unseen network carrying nourishment and connection across distance, bursting with abundant life.

Many of the prints reflect this tension between shadow and brightness. Coral against deep black. Citron emerging through moss green. Sapphire blue appearing like filtered light through wet leaves after rain. The palette moves between humus brown, cedar charcoal, faded violet, acid yellow and dusk blue. Colours that feel rooted in earth, yet almost luminous against it.

Singapore lingers inside the collection too. We are a city built in layers. Growth happening beside concrete, beneath flyovers, after heavy rain. Things flourishing in places never designed for softness. I think there is something very Singaporean about learning how to expand within constraint, how to remain open and alive even in density.

UNDERSTORY is for the woman who understands that not everything meaningful arrives loudly. Some things deepen before they bloom. Some forms of strength are built slowly, beneath the surface, long before they are seen.