With a new fourth collection and a new store in-store to go along, the girls of FrüFrü & Tigerlily are back again after a brief hiatus. We get to know a little bit more about the brand’s history, their musical inspirations as well as the whimsical and bubbly trio themselves – Jasmine, Ginette and Cheryl.

How did FrüFrü & Tigerlily begin?

Jasmine: Wow. Flashback to five years ago.

Ginette: Was it five years ago? FrüFrü was my t-shirt label. There was this store that stocked local labels that I had a deal with, and they asked me to design and they would take care of production and pay me for each design. And then the store folded. But he had all these FrüFrü collar tags leftover, so I was excited to make use of them. And Cheryl was making stuff at the time.

Cheryl: Yeah I was making vintage buttons. I was just experimenting with them and selling them at flea markets, and then I gave each of the girls one to see if they liked it.

Jasmine: She was called Tiger lady. *points to Cheryl* (apparently coined by Mark Ong aka SBTG)

Ginette: Yah Tiger lady! So horrible right. So anyway we decided to join forces. And Jasmine was doing Henna tees at the time so she joined us as well. We modified trucker hats and we made accessories. Then Earn (of Surrender fame) said that he wanted to stock our product, which was a massive boost for us yet embarrassing because we had just modified stuff instead of actually making them. Then we thought to ourselves that if other people can make clothes then why not us.

Ginette: We got our first seamstress. And our first dress was super ugly. She made uniforms. What was her name?

Cheryl: Eileen. But we called her ‘best friend’. It was Jasmine’s best friend; she was the only one who could communicate with her. She’s the only one who can speak chinese.

Ginette: It was hard to deal with her because we had different ideas. We would want to do a dress, and she would say no because she thought it was too short.

Jasmine: She turned into our Mom or something. She would make it to her ideals. She did the first collection. It turned out ok. After much haggling.

Are you guys trained fashion designers?

Ginette: We’re not fashion designers at all. We try to draw, but our drawings are atrocious.

Cheryl: Only Jasmine can draw.

Ginette: But still ugly. But it was the best amongst us.

Jasmine: eh!

Ginette: It’s good and bad because we don’t know the rules, but we also don’t know the terms, and in the beginning the finishing of our products wasn’t good.

Cheryl: There was lots of trial and error at the start. We brought alot of our own clothes to the seamstress to use as a benchmark and a visual. It was very impromptu.

Ginette: But I suppose if you’re resourceful in Singapore, you can make anything happen.

Initially we made 12 pieces of each design, and they sold out quick, but that was because it was only a run of 12! But Sid (from Collage) said he wanted to help local brands out and helped us with the production of this current collection, so the production runs are greater.

When did the fashion bug hit you guys (personally)?

Ginette: As far back as I can remember, Jasmine was always making things. I remember her very ugly denim bag.

Jasmine: Which one! Those were my “attempts”. I would cut my checkered shirts and turn it into bags.

Cheryl: Those were the days. Grunge lah, grunge.

Ginette: I used to have an all-girl punk band, so we used to make zines, stickers and a bunch of cool stuff, so I think that has always stayed with us. It basically went from making things to making other things.

We know that the collections are all very music-inspired, what are your personal inspirations that have led to all that you girls have created so far?

Ginette: well my favorite band of all time is the cure, because Robert Smith paints such beautiful visuals with his lyrics and the layerings through his guitar, so the over arching influence for me would be the cure – music that is more melancholic. But recently its evolved to be a little… …

Jasmine: happier?

Ginette: I don’t know; is it happy? Lately we’ve drawn inspiration from Lady Tron. But not electro.

So if there’s one single person you could dress, who would that be?

Cheryl: Karen O. (unison nods)

Do you girls think that Singaporeans have a very biased perception against local labels?

Jasmine: Well maybe four years ago, but people are more receptive now.

Ginette: One thing I think about Gen Y kids is that they’re less critical, and more receptive to new things. Whereas Gen X kids are always going “aiyah cannot one lah!”. But our friends have always been making stuff… the phunk boys, SBTG and all. So I think with them leading the way for us, kids now seem to be more open to local stuff.

Speaking about the Gen Y thing, it seems that there are alot more kids open to the idea of fashion design as a career path. What else can be done to encourage this locally?

Ginette: I think for retail, rental in the central area is very expensive, and I don’t know if the Government is doing enough to help, but then again, I won’t lay it on them because if you really do want to do something you should be able to get your ass off and be resourceful enough. It could also be how Singapore has always been – we’ve always relied on imports, on american television and british music.

What pieces in your collections are near and dear to your hearts?

Jasmine: We always have a favorite in every collection.

Ginette: We have one signature skirt that we always reproduce.

Cheryl: The curtsy skirt. But we tweak it every season and reproduce it in different styles.

Ginette: One of my favorites is the “Republica”. It was a dress made of this vintage fabric that we found in a very limited quantity, and we could only make six pieces.

You guys have respective day jobs. How do you juggle day jobs and running the label?

Cheryl: Find time lah. If you want to do something well you make time for it.

Jasmine: That’s why we’ve produced collections only on a yearly basis. Haha.

Ginette: I think it helps that there are three of us. I think if you do it alone, you have nobody to laugh and joke with. We split the jobs too, so it eases the workload.

Who’s the main designer?

Cheryl: There’s no main designer, it’s all three of us.

Jasmine: Ginette is the puppet master.

Ginette: I’m the bossy one.

Cheryl: Ginette’s the impatient one.

Ginette: Both of them are more chill.

Any plans for menswear?

Jasmine: We wanted to, initially.

Ginette: On the website we had two sections labelled “bad girls” and “bad boys”, and the guys were always asking where the “bad boys” stuff was. We just weren’t sure how menswear worked. The sample sizes were built to me.

Cheryl: Which is like, extra small. Maybe we can look into mens clothes in the future.

Jasmine: Maybe, yeah. But now we’re just being selfish. We just want to make clothes for ourselves.

Ginette: And we don’t really want to do graphic tees.

Jasmine: Let everyone else do it. It’s overdone.

What fashion trend do you think has been overplayed in Singapore recently?

Jasmine: Vintage? But’s that’s kind of over. Blogshops.

Cheryl: Yeah too many blogshops.

Ginette: Studs. Get it out of my face yo.

What do you think of blogshops?

Jasmine: Overkill man.

Cheryl: Although we kind of started as a blogshop as well.

Ginette: What I like is that girls are doing things themselves. But the stuff they sell tend to be all the same. They’re not doing a good job being buyers. Or the photoshoots aren’t done well. We’ve always tried to do good photoshoots, even without a budget. You just have to be resourceful.

So you guys were like, blogshop pioneers.

Ginette: I supposed at that time there wasn’t even the term blogshop. We were just selling stuff online.

What’s been the most memorable moment of the brand?

Cheryl: Every FrüFrü & Tigerlily event. Especially the buying trips.

Ginette: We went to try and buy fabric from Thailand and bring them back ourselves. Wow, hell.

Jasmine: I remember that. Crazy.

Cheryl: We were still making 12 pieces of each design back then.

Ginette: Basically whenever we get together there’s laughter.

Cheryl: Sometimes we talk rubbish more than we talk about FrüFrü & Tigerlily.

Jasmine: But crazy ideas pop out from that.

People tend to not use the accents in “FrüFrü” when they type out the brand name. What’s your take?

Ginette: We’re very anal about it. Like, Oh my God, so annoying. Haha. One thing I don’t understand is when people think we have two labels. FrüFrü AND Tigerlily.

Where do you see FrüFrü & Tigerlily in 5 years?

Ginette: What is this, a job interview? Haha. We want a store of our own I suppose.

Cheryl: Flagship. That’s the in-word right. Everywhere is “Flagship” store.

Ginette: Flagship, as if we have other stores like that.

Jasmine: To sell internationally. Or to move with blackmarket to another place.

Cheryl: And make bags and shoes.

Jasmine: Yeah, one whole empire. We rule.

FrüFrü & Tigerlily is located at blackmarket,19 Jalan Pisang