A recently launched collection of one-of-a-kind sweaters plus scarves and hats, Knotti Knits are handmade in Hong Kong of biodegradable wool yarn under the design guidance of Denise Ho, this city’s top stylist. Best friends Hilary Tsui Ho-ying and Dorothy Hui keep the inventory of their three Liger boutiques staunchly independent by actively supporting local talent on the cusp like Jourden and Johanna Ho. To shop more of Hong Kong’s nascent design talents, try PMQ. The colonial Police Married Quarters originally built in 1951 is now home to Ivan Keung’s octopus tentacles and broccoli crowns sculpted as silver jewelry at 794729metalwork.com and Blksheepempire for their not-so sensible women’s flats.

 

Carolyn Kan worked in advertising before taking up silversmithing on an Italian holiday, and one year later won a Singapore jewelry designer of the year award for her lighthearted gold and silver pieces. See how she turns humble objects like a safety pin into bling things at the Carrie K. Atelier inside the National Design Centre. Easy to wear, loose-fitting pieces for men and women at In Good Company are made for Singapore’s tropical context yet light as a feather, they are good to go anywhere. Max.Tan takes the notion of “straight-laced Singapore” far out of the box with his well priced, catwalk ready frocks.

BANGKOK

Any young fashionista in the Thai capital knows Disaya ready-to-wear by Central Saint Martin’s grad Disaya Sorakraikitikul. Her frilly blouses and flirty dresses are favorites of international celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Kelly Osborne. Designers at Something Boudoir think of their outrageously playful creations as “wearable candy” and understandably so with its stylishly dizzy prints and amusing accessories. Two long-time Thailand residents, sisters Anthea and Xenia Viragh are millennials cool enough to work with their mother on Vitalexi, a newly launched line of urbanized espadrilles. Especially popular are the unisex velvet versions, named for popular Thai destinations like Pattaya and Yaowarat.

Born in Myanmar and raised in the United States, men and women’s knitwear designer Steven Oo dresses the likes of Taylor Swift and still found time to open a shop in Yangon soon after the embargo was lifted. While the country is still in its fashion infancy, ones to watch include Vestige, an ethically made-in-Myanmar lifestyle brand helmed by a Parisian designer and the quirky accessories from Yangoods which draws chic inspiration from everyday life in Myanmar.

Inspiration comes to the Los Angeles-based architect whenever she returns to this country where snow-covered mountains unfurl onto black sand beaches. This time, we join her in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital which is definitely having a moment. She has returned to launch GAIA by Gulla, a collection of silk scarves adapted from her celebrated interiors across three continents.

 

These ten wearable works of art are taking up temporary residence with an exhibition at the Asmundarsalur Museum. The modernist masterpiece built in 1934 is located just down the street from the soaring Hallgrímskirkja Church, Reykjavik’s most prominent landmark which like Jónsdóttir’s work took cues from shapes in nature.

 

Going home means revisiting her favourite places like Blue Lagoon where, just forty minutes from the city centre, lava fields meet hot springs known for their healing white mud. “My friends and I wait for night-time, to feel the warm water under a dark sky,” reveals Jónsdóttir about her hometown rituals. “I love that nothing here is manmade, except the Champagne.”

 

 

Reaching even further back, to her childhood, Jónsdóttir recommends tasting the hearty homemade bread at the family owned Sandholt Bakery which first opened in 1920 and sits along Laugavegur, now Reykjavik’s most popular shopping street. Icelanders also love their candy, especially liquorice. “As kids we drank Coca-Cola out of liquorice sticks,” she recalls. “Even now, candy is the aspect of Iceland I can carry everywhere with me, usually in the form of chocolate.“ Design minded travellers like us pick up Opal liquorice pastilles by Nói Síríus, which come in the original Pop Art packages created in 1945 by Icelandic painter Atli Már Árnason.

 

Icelanders do not survive on sugar of course. Jónsdóttir’s friends gather whenever she visits, usually at Snaps Bistro a convivial gastro-pub known for their beef cheeks with Jerusalem artichokes and pickled onions. Jónsdóttir also suggests saving room for the crème brûlée. Another night at Fiskfelagid, Jónsdóttir orders several rounds of the Nordic-Japanese sushi to everyone’s delight.

Something of an Iceland design ambassador abroad, the statuesque architect peruses the feminine frocks emblazoned with fantastical prints at Hildur Yeoman, a favourite of Bjork’s long-time stylist Edda Gudmundsdottir. On Jónsdóttir’s wish list are whimsical knits from Steinunn Sigurdardóttir, who spent years working with Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Tom Ford at Gucci before returning home to open her eponymous boutique inside a converted warehouse in the old harbour area known as Grandagarður. While Jónsdóttir slips into something chic, small fishing boats sail in with the day’s fresh catch.

Local friends led us to Gyoza Bar, a quirky lounge and eatery lodged on the second floor of a traditional Chinese shophouse. Take one of the 15 seats at this intimate address and order off a

menu comprised only of Japanese dumplings and French Champagne, presented masu style in wooden sake cups. We were even more surprised to find The Horse’s Mouth nestled beneath The Forum shopping centre along Orchard Road. Push aside the curtain, open an unmarked door, and descend the staircase to enter this low-lit Japanese izakaya bar. Did you get lost? Ask for directions at Uma Uma ramen restaurant.

Liquor fuelled clandestine addresses lurk everywhere around Singapore these days. Boat Quay is home to the seemingly humble Ah Sam Cold Drink Stall. Don’t let the name fool you, this kopitiam old time coffee shop with its shabby chic décor and unpretentious atmosphere is actually an intimate cocktail bar opened by local celebrity mixologist Sam Wong. His signature spin is sips made with home-grown ingredients like soya bean milk, chin chow and Milo. Meanwhile, The Secret Mermaid swims in an even more unexpected location, the bowels of Ocean Financial Centre along Collyer Quay. Look for the eponymous logo, behind which are walls lined to the ceiling with an impressive bottle collection of rare, handcrafted spirits imported from America like Batch 206 vodka and Sparkle Donkey tequila.

The diversity of buildings which house these hush-hush rendezvous spots frankly astonishes us. The former Singapore Traffic Police Headquarters, Red Dot Traffic Building is by day a museum showcasing commercial design excellence from around the world. After dark, those in the know drink retro-inspired concoctions at Hopscotch. Our favourite tipple here thus far? That would be the Golden 933 mixed with cereal butter rum and named after a perennially popular Chinese radio station. Even Singapore’s renowned National Galley hosts one of these stealth addresses, its rooftop reinvented as the oh-so sleek Smoke & Mirrors. Fear not that the elevator only ascends to the 5^th floor. Exit here and ride the escalator up one more level, where unfettered views of the grassy Padang and the architectural landmarks of Marina Bay await you, as do creative sips inspired by artworks hanging in the galleries below.

Singapore’s underground revolution actually started in the most incongruous of places, a barely-lit store-front in Chinatown which appears on first glance to be a library. See that lonely soul seemingly reading in front of an oversized bookshelf? He’s no bookworm, but rather the gatekeeper to The Library. Tell him the password (which you’ll find on their Facebook page and changes weekly) to open a hidden compartment within that faux furnishing. Step into this hall of mirrors where everyone is imbibing cocktails with playful monikers like Shrub-a-dub-dub and Singa-Songa-Sanaree, a tropical take on sangria made with sparkling wine, apricot brandy, freshly squeezed lemon juice and lime.

Before launching his design practice wHY in 2004, Yantrasast worked seven years for Tadao Ando on high profile projects like the Fondation Francois Pinault pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Yantrasast credits the Pritzker Prize–winning Japanese architect with teaching him the value in collaborating. In contrast to the stereotype of the celebrated architect complaining that his genius ideas get watered down through compromise and clients, this one says emphatically, “the cross-pollination of people and ideas is so crazy exciting to me.”

Yantrasast’s popularity with art world clients also speaks to his appreciation for creative outliers. “I am drawn to unusual people,” observes Yantrasast, “people with uncommon ideas, challenging thoughts.” He sees museums and gallery spaces as something more dynamic than a series of walls. From wHY’s first completed project, the LEED gold certified Grand Rapids Art Museum, Yantrasast has built environments which encourage lingering and interacting with the built environment as part of the art experience.

California’s City of Angels has already seen Yantrasast create exhibitions and interiors for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and California Institute of the Arts. This year his team will complete at least five projects across the sprawling metropolis including the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles in the cultural hotbed of Downtown L.A., the Decoding Asian Urbanism exhibition at L.A.’s Architecture + Design Museum, which explores urban innovations transforming Asia’s booming cities, an as yet unannounced downtown private social club for the arts and the US West Coast flagship of Christie’s auction house in Beverly Hills, a 5,400-square-foot, two-storey space with an undulating curtain of pearlescent white aluminium.

 

The most the hotly anticipated project for this soon-to-be ‘starchitect’ must be the Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation. Historic by L.A. standards, the windowless 1961 Scottish Rite Masonic Temple along Wilshire Boulevard near the suddenly hip Koreatown provides Yantrasast with the opportunity, “to foster a synergy between the historic building, contemporary art and the urban environment.” We eagerly await the late spring opening of this new cultural foundation from the co-founders of Guess Jeans. The 100,000 square foot heritage building has been entirely reconceived by Yantrasat to display the Marcianos’ collection of 1,500 contemporary art works including painting, sculpture and photography. Along with works by established artists like Takashi Murakami and Mike Kelley, we eagerly await the chance to admire works from up-and-coming artists like Oscar Tuazon and Danh Vō whose recent emergence in the contemporary art world reflects Yantrasast’s own spectacular rise.

“I woke up hearing swallows and I slept to the sound of aunties playing mah-jong,” recalls this product of China’s One Child Policy, born in 1980 and raised in a siheyuan traditional courtyard house along the narrow hutong lanes of Dashilar, a neighbourhood three miles south of Tiananmen Square. “Life was spent meandering the hutongs, seeing and speaking to everyone. Now so much of that is lost, as people drive everywhere and human interaction is so little.”

Amidst Beijing’s dramatic changes, Chen appreciates the pockets of old Beijing which remain. She considers Ritan Park (6 Ritan North Road, Chaoyang District) “a walk back in time,” for its crimson lacquered pavilions and the older locals who gather here for tai chi and ballroom dancing. “You still hear the sound of mah-jong here.”

While many of Beijing’s hutong have disappeared, Chen recommends heading to Wudaoying Hutong near Beijing’s Lama Temple, for modern, vegetarian renditions of Chinese classics, like sweet-and-sour mushrooms at King’s Joy (2 Wudaoying Hutong). “The setting is over-the-top with a misty moat encircling the dining room but the produce is organic and locavore.”

Her other Beijing dining haunts also hark back while looking ahead. The Home is a sleek 12-seat restaurant a light-filled courtyard near the Drum and Bell Towers. Chef-owner Yang Zhanwen prepares innovative Chinese dishes like the stewed puffer fish and mala lobster which Chen swears by. In a courtyard dwelling near the National Art Museum of China similar to the one where Chen grew up, Susu serves rustic Vietnamese dishes like clay pots rice bowls and pho.

 

Chen’s highly digitized photography, often mistaken for graphic art, has captured and chronicled China’s cultural transformation, as well as challenged traditional notions of beauty. Though she has shot Rihanna, Nicole Kidman, and Fan Bingbing, China’s biggest female box-office draw, Chen also incorporates Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in her spreads for Chinese fashion magazines. “There is no absolute beauty or ugliness,” says Chen who regularly shoots Lu Yan, known as “the ugliest model in China”. Lu has leveraged her international modelling career to launch a clothing line. Chen was an early fan, purchasing Comme Moi’s bold statement coats at Dongliang, a tightly curated, multi-brand Beijing emporium focused exclusively on Chinese designers.

 

Though her hometown has changed irrevocably, Chen appreciates the creative ways Beijingers have given new life to these vestiges of old. One of her after dark favourites is Yugong Yishan, a 19th century Chinese warlord’s house turned live music venue where Chen met her husband. “Its still one of the best places in town,” she says, “to hear Beijing’s burgeoning indie musicians like Subs and SMZB.”