Designer Spotlight: Aijek’s Danelle Woo
PUBLISHED January 20th, 2015 04:00 pm | UPDATED January 20th, 2016 11:32 am
When we met Danelle, it was at the new Providore cafe just a few steps away from the Aijek racks in the newly-revamped Tangs department store. Bubbly, friendly, and dressed in one of her free flowing creations, she looked fresh as a daisy despite – as we found out later – her extremely hectic schedule.
Born and bred in Singapore, Danelle is the founder of Aijek, a local fashion brand whose effortless feminine aesthetic is the result of years of experience travelling and wardrobe revamps. A self-taught designer and professed ‘everyday woman’, Danelle was a joy to speak with and we got to know a little more about her through this interview.
Tell us a bit more about Aijek. Why ‘Aijek’?
I started Aijek 4 years ago. It began in Shanghai, in my home office. I had been travelling for the past 15 years, and every time I had to move, I threw out boxes of clothes. It just didn’t make sense. When I was living in Korea, I bought all these bomber jackets and cute skirts that fit my wardrobe when I was living there, but I threw out 90% of it when I moved to Shanghai.
I realised that there were centrepieces in my wardrobe that I kept returning to – your classic blacks, the things that really fit you, the no-fail dresses. I wanted to create something that was a middle ground between high street and high fashion, to give people more exclusive fabrics and styles to choose from, but still remain accessible in terms of price points.
When we were choosing a name for the company, I wanted something that didn’t mean anything, but that was still really close to my heart. My name is Kejia, and I flipped it around to form Aijek. A lot of people know me by Danelle, but they don’t know my Chinese name, so it was very intimate. I have a lot of customers come up to me and call me Kejia now, because they understand, and it really warms my heart.
Why don’t you tell us about your design process? How do you get your inspiration?
For the new spring collection 2015, we went on a buying trip to New York, and I had a chance to go to Ace Hotel. It is just gorgeous, and I was so inspired by the interior and the colours. I thought of how a woman would feel wanting to go there for different occasions. What she would be wearing, walking up that staircase, what would she be feeling, who would she be with?
Then I do my drawings, and consult my excellent paper pattern-maker, who has over 20 years of experience and has done pattern-making for Calvin Klein and all these wonderful brands. He comes in and helps get them made. We fit our prototype on at least 8 to 10 different girls with different body types to make sure there are no fit issues before we approve it.
The factories that we work with in China also manufacture for Maxmara, Jill Stuart, Nicole Miller, some of the best brands in the world. They know the QC process that we want, the workmanship – it’s not easy to sew silk, you need a specific set of skills. A factory that does cotton won’t know how to do silk garments. So I think that’s really the backend of being a designer.
How do you think your designs can relate to the everyday woman?
I feel like I am the everyday woman. I wake up in the mornings, and I have nothing to wear. I’m the woman who keeps going to wear the same things after you’ve bought a million other dresses. I’m the same woman who’s not a size zero, who’s not a supermodel, not the right height, not the right size, and disproportionate. I try to create a garment that helps me become the woman that I want to be. Because how do you accentuate a waist when you don’t really have a waistline? So when I start designing an outfit, no matter how much I love the design, it will always have to go back to how practical it is. It has to be forgiving, but still special enough that they wouldn’t have it in their wardrobe. Plus, comfort.
If you could dress anybody, dead or alive, who would it be?
Laughts How about you? For a start! I think that when women get dressed, there has to be a twist, something that expresses their own individuality. That’s why everyday women are the ones who inspire me, because they are the ones who make the outfit happen for themselves.
With our dresses, a 25 year old would go for the same dress as somebody who is 55. They would wear it in totally different ways and look amazing. It boils down to the cut and the feel of the dress. We have a dress that I started making 7 years ago, when this was just my hobby, and we’re still selling it today. We change the colours every season, and it’s still our bestseller at Tangs.
I also like it when a customer is really hard to dress. How hard is it to dress a supermodel? Everything looks good on them. But if you’re trying to dress a 56 year-old lady… We had someone like that and we dressed her in a white pair of pants that was structured and sharp, along with a lace top, so she looked amazing for her daughter’s wedding. Situations like that really touch me.
Since you design for a lot of markets, do you think that, seasonally speaking, your designs would be any different if you were only designing for a Singapore market?
At the moment, we are starting to design a full winter collection, which is quite new to me, because the whole palette and fabrics are completely different. But I think what is important is that your clothes are trans-seasonal. Someone who is able to wear a lace dress in summer would be able to match it with something else to get them through autumn. This was my wardrobe when I was living in Korea, and it was negative 15 degrees in winter. I had to match it with some other things that were warmer, but still, these were the things that I wore and brought back to Singapore.
So you’re a self-taught designer. What made you decide to go into fashion?
I didn’t decide to become a designer. I felt like I had no other choice. I had given up my career for 10 years for my husband and all that travelling. I taught English in Korea, designed bags in Hong Kong, PR in Shanghai, doing something new everywhere I could go because I felt like I had to keep learning, and I never really got into a line that I loved. When I had my son, I wanted to have a more flexible schedule, so I quit my job. And it was just succeed or nothing. I had to put in a lot of hard work.
Plus, when I was 17 years old, I used to work in Pois at Scotts Shopping Centre, a tiny shop that was packed with beautiful gowns from Europe. I was 17 years old, selling Herve Leger, Isabel Marant, and all these brands that are really huge today. I learned a lot about construction, about fit, about how a garment should cling to a lady’s body, so it was a really good training ground. Every vacation was spent there because I was addicted. In Shanghai, I went to Zara to learn the fast-fashion backend operations of things. I thought these two sides were really fundamental in my setting up Aijek, because merging high street and high fashion is what I think Aijek is really about.
Where do you think the local fashion design industry is headed? Do you like what’s going on in the industry right now?
I do! I was just telling someone that Keepers would not have been possible if it had been 5 or 8 years ago. You wouldn’t be able to grab that big handful of Singaporean designers who have carved out a path for themselves. The world has become so much larger, and the barriers to entry in fashion are also coming down. Singaporeans are now so much more international, and they find opportunities, and there’s so much room for creativity right now. I’m very proud to see this big achievement.
Do you have any advice for young local designers who are just starting out?
I really think that if you love it and you believe in it, anything is possible. I didn’t have anything, I don’t have that education, I haven’t had as much experience as some other people. But honestly, if you’re driven, hard work brings you a very long way. And you have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to go all the way, you have to keep taking the failures, and keep making mistakes. I make mistakes all the time, and I think that’s the best way to learn. And you have to be brave.
Last question; what do you see for Aijek in the future?
My plan is to go back to China, it always has been from day 1. We started out in our home office in Shanghai, and it has become my second home. I want to go back and start my flagship store in China and help the middle market get dressed. I feel like there’s a big gap now, especially with independent designers. There’s no structure and channels to distribute a brand in China. The multi-label stores are very limited, and it’s either you’re in a big department store, or you have to have to have deep pockets to open up your own shop. We’re hoping to get enough support to launch our own flagship there. I hope that we can get there soon.
Aijek is stocked at a number of boutiques in Singapore and overseas, including Trixilini, Tangs, and Keepers. For more information, see their website here.
Written by Colette W.
