It’s amazing how far Joe Chia has travelled as a designer fresh out of Raffles Design Institute just a few years ago. Nowadays, he’s hardly seen without his real-life partner, Melissa Deng, also the co-founder and operations director of the Joe Chia label, at his side whether at runway shows or tradeshows and fashion showrooms around the globe in Milan, Paris or Ho Chi Minh.
Being able to develop a definitive style aesthetic is perhaps Joe Chia’s biggest strength as a fashion practitioner. Chia has a great eye for his kind of fashion, described on his website,
joechia.com, as “embodying classic, timeless and experimental pieces to be worn for years and having a distinctive attention for details and functional qualities, whilst maintaining a strong connection to urban roots”.
With multiple awards like Asia’s Most Influential Designer during the Malaysia Fashion Week 2014 and collaborations with world-class brands like Chivas, Honda, Sony, L’Oreal and Shu Uemura, UT Japan (UNIQLO), G-shock, Reebok and Schwarzkopf, we have no doubts that the sky’s the limit for Joe Chia.
The designer shares with us his captivating journey.
How is your fashion business doing?
We started almost four years ago during late 2012 very humbly. I had a rack at Victor Goh’s Telawi boutique selling the outfits I had drafted, cut and sewn by myself. Then I saved some money and got a little studio-cum-workshop in Pudu. I’ve since moved next door with two floors and bigger working space. It’s still a long journey for me and I can only say that we have had a very blessed beginning. Also, social media has helped people understand more about what the Joe Chia label is about. We have a very small team of eight people including myself. When we tell our overseas contacts how ‘big’ the team is, they always ask if I were serious.
