Over the past few months, we’ve had the privilege of running three very different shops in Singapore. Each one taught us something new about business, about people, and about ourselves.

And one lesson stood out above all others.

A shop has to know your name.

We’ve made the decision not to renew our Tanglin store, and at the end of June we’ll be closing its doors. From the 15th until the 28th of June, we’ll be having a clearance sale, with wonderful bargains and plenty of surprises. We’d love for you to come by and help us celebrate the end of this chapter.

The funny thing is, I don’t see this as a failure. I see it as an education.

Tanglin gave us the opportunity to test a new market and to understand what works and, equally importantly, what doesn’t.

Beautiful interiors matter.
Beautiful products matter.
Good design always matters.
But they’re only part of the story.

A successful shop needs something much harder to create. It needs people. It needs consistency. It needs warmth. It needs the feeling that someone is genuinely happy to see you walk through the door.

It needs to know your name.

As a business owner, I also have to take responsibility for the decisions that didn’t work. We learned some difficult lessons along the way, particularly about the importance of having the right people representing the brand every single day.

Those lessons weren’t cheap.
But they were valuable.

Today, we have an incredible team, and we’ve decided to focus our energy where we can make the biggest difference. Great World and TANGS are becoming exactly what we always hoped for: neighbourhood shops where you’ll be greeted with a smile, where someone remembers your favourite print, and where the experience is every bit as important as the product itself.

So this isn’t really goodbye.
It’s a decision to slow down, consolidate, and build something stronger.
Will we return to Tanglin one day? I certainly hope so.

But next time, we’ll know that a beautiful shop is only the beginning. The real magic happens when the people inside make you feel like you belong.

After all, the best shops don’t just know what you bought.

They know your name.