Photo by Noa Griffel.
“Welcome home.” That was the first thing Tory heard upon arriving in Singapore. “It really did feel like such a homecoming,” said Tory. “I can’t believe it had been ten years.” The reason for her visit last week was to celebrate the new T Monogram pop-up shop at Wisma Atria – a shopping mall on Singapore’s famed Orchard Road – but also to meet some of the city’s women entrepreneurs. She spent an afternoon at Mud Rock, a ceramics studio founded by Ng Seok Har and Michelle Lim, and even made a vase with her son Henry. One evening, she visited a hawker center and met with Madame Lai Yau Kieuw and her two daughters, who run Ji Ji Noodle House, a third-generation business founded by Madame Lai’s mother in 1965. Lastly, Tory’s love of rattan took her to Chen Foon Kee, one of the city’s last rattan craftsmen, where she set her sights on a beautifully made peacock chair – a superlative souvenir.