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.

Now, after an unforgettable three years, we are preparing for a different season. NALA will remain at Kasturi, but in a much smaller and far more intimate 2,000 sq ft space within the building itself. Which also means that a large part of what currently exists simply cannot come with us.

So beginning this Saturday, we are opening the doors to BYE BUY, a month long sale filled with archive pieces, samples, hidden gems, last pieces, beautiful mistakes, and objects we have loved for years. Part clearance, part treasure hunt, part goodbye to a space that gave us more memories than we could ever fit into a newsletter.

We are also looking for someone who may want to share this extraordinary 10,000 sq ft space with us moving forward, while NALA retains a smaller 2,000 sq ft footprint within it. A restaurant, café, gallery, bookstore, creative studio, or another beautiful retail concept could feel very at home here. The temple behind the building, which has been our landlord throughout this journey, has been incredibly supportive over the years, and we would be happy to connect the right tenant directly.

This weekend will also mark another goodbye, as Ghostbird Coffee will be serving their final coffees in the space, with Sunday being their last day here. So if you have not visited in a while, this feels like the moment to come by. Have one last coffee, wander through the store one more time, and take in this strange and beautiful chapter before it changes shape. The sale itself will continue until the end of June, but this weekend feels like the closing of an era.

And while this chapter is becoming smaller physically, something else is quietly growing behind the scenes. A new location. A new energy. A new universe that we cannot wait to share when the time is right.

BYE BUY
The Big to Beautiful Sale

Starts Saturday, 30 May
Until 30 June
Kasturi Walk