Atelier · Kuala Lumpur · Est. 2016
Made for onewearer at a time.
Womenswear, made to measure. Every garment that leaves this atelier is designed, drafted and fitted for one wearer, to her measurements and to no size chart.
Borneo Fashion Week · 2017
The year the atelier won its Emerging Designer Award.
Statement
Fashion for all
I began in 2016 with a conviction that was unpopular at the time: a woman should not have to shrink to be dressed beautifully. The industry drew a line at a certain size and treated everything past it as a problem to be hidden.
I refused the line. I cut evening gowns, bridal and occasion wear for bodies the runway had ignored, and in 2017 that work won the Emerging Designer Award at Borneo Fashion Week.
Ten years on, the conviction has not moved. I take a small number of commissions at a time, and every one of them is drawn and fitted under my own eye.
Selected work
Pieces
Checkerboard satin gown
2017Runway
Pieced satin panels with tulle and feather shoulders. Shown at Borneo Fashion Week, the year the atelier won its Emerging Designer Award.
Beaded mermaid gown
Evening
Hand-beaded bodice over a fitted mermaid line, finished with layered tulle.
Worn by Cass Chen, Miss Global Malaysia 2017
Tiered bridal set
Bridal
Modest bridal in ivory with silver-grey lace appliqué, peplum bodice and a three-tier skirt.
Songket with floral sleeves
Traditional
Black and gold songket with sheer sleeves, hand-applied three-dimensional florals and scattered crystal.
How it works
The process
A commission is not something that happens in an afternoon. This is the shape of it, honestly stated, so you know what you are agreeing to before you begin.
In detail →- 01
Request
You leave your email and a note. I read it myself and reply personally. If the date is not possible, or what you want is outside what I do well, I will say so plainly rather than take the booking and disappoint you later.
- 02
Appointment
We meet in the atelier or by video. We talk about the occasion, the body, the cloth and the budget. You leave knowing the price. I leave knowing whether I can build it.
- 03
Design & pattern
Sketches, then a pattern drafted to your measurements. Not graded from a standard block, but drafted. This is where a garment stops being a picture and becomes a structure.
- 04
Fittings
First in calico, then in the real cloth. Bodies change, and a garment made ahead of a wedding has to be corrected close to the day. Fittings are not optional.
- 05
Finishing
Hand-work: hems, beading, appliqué, linings, closures. The slowest part, and the part that separates a made-to-measure garment from a bought one.
The atelier
I did not choose this work. I have simply never wanted to do anything else.
The atelier makes womenswear only: bridal, evening, and traditional Malay dress. There is no production line and nothing is made to a size chart. Every commission is drawn and fitted personally, and only a few are taken at a time. What that buys a client is not exclusivity for its own sake. It is attention.
- Founded
- 2016
- Based
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Discipline
- Womenswear · Made to measure
- Sizing
- All sizes, drafted to measure
Recognition
- 2017
Emerging Designer Award
Borneo Fashion Week
Winner, with a fashion design degree scholarship
- 2017
Miss Global Malaysia
Cass Chen
Evening gown for the titleholder
- 2018
Collection for plus-size women
LOKA Malaysia, Nu Sentral
Eleven pieces, covered by Budiey
- 2018
Breaking the wall of fashion discrimination
XTRA
On serving the plus-size market