Hidden inside the Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur, it has almost everything going for it. Beautiful branding, elegant interiors, thoughtful graphics, and shelves curated with obvious care. There was even a tiny book section. Almost sold out, but the handful of books that remained were wonderful, including the one featured in this newsletter.

What struck me wasn’t what was there.

It was who wasn’t.

I was the only customer in the entire supermarket.

I took my time, wandering through the aisles, looking at the displays and admiring the details. Nobody came in. Nobody left. For that brief moment, it felt as though the whole supermarket had been designed just for me.

And it made me think. I have always believed that good design works. Beautiful spaces matter. They make us stop, look, and appreciate the world around us.

But perhaps beauty alone isn’t enough. Perhaps even the most beautifully designed places need something more.

A story. A community. A reason for people to make them part of their lives. A shop, a café, a supermarket, or even a fashion brand can have wonderful interiors and beautiful products, but without soul, they’re simply pretty rooms waiting for someone to walk in.

Good design opens the door. People keep it open.

Perhaps that’s the missing ingredient. Not another renovation or a new logo, but little rituals and familiar faces. The butcher who knows your name. The coffee you always order. The recommendation for a good book. The feeling that this place belongs to you, and you belong to it.

Just across the road is another supermarket(Isetan), full of people. It may not be as carefully designed, but over time it has built habits, trust, and loyalty.

Those things can’t simply be bought. They have to be earned.

I hope this supermarket succeeds. I’d hate to see a space this beautiful disappear. It has enormous potential and, with a little luck and the right story, perhaps it will find its audience.

It was also a quiet reminder for me. Whether we’re building a supermarket, opening a shop, or creating a brand, beautiful design is incredibly important.
But beauty is only the invitation.

It’s the story that makes people stay.

And then there’s Cad.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s absolutely becoming my next model.

Cad is an artist. The way she prepares the youtiao, or chakoi, is honestly mesmerising to watch. Every movement is precise. Every piece gets the same amount of attention, the same amount of love. It’s the exact same energy you put into design, into painting, into making something beautiful with your hands.

The whole place carries that feeling. Cad stands behind the counter furiously making fresh golden youtiao while somehow still smiling at everyone walking through the door, making the entire space feel warm and alive at the same time.

I had my first beignet with coconut and gula Melaka there and honestly… worth breaking your diet for.

The space itself is full of tiny details. A little poster here. A little clock there. A random Mona Lisa on the wall. Nothing feels overly designed, which is probably why it works so well. It feels human. Clean, pretty, welcoming, and full of personality.

And maybe that’s also what I love so much about Penang itself.

It’s a happy place. So many places there feel genuinely happy. People are happy to see you. You get the biggest smiles everywhere. People say good morning. They’re interested. Present. Warm. Nobody feels like they’re rushing through life.

We just spent the entire weekend shooting with Penang models and honestly, none of them seem to have any intention of leaving the island. And I completely understand why.

It’s a happy island filled with happy people, and you can feel it in everything. The food they serve. The shops they open. The way they live.

Whatever I always say is true:
what happens in Penang, stays in Penang.

And I absolutely love it there.

But Milan, like any honest city, doesn’t let you pretend. Brutalism has always been described as raw concrete and hard edges, but what it really stands for is truth. Structure exposed. Nothing hidden. And that is exactly what Milan revealed to me, not in its buildings, but in the reality of trying to build something there while running a business here.

You can’t stretch yourself across continents without the right foundation. You can’t build something lasting on something that isn’t stable. So I pulled back. Not because the dream changed, but because it needed to be built properly.

It has now been almost two years since I stopped travelling. A self-imposed pause. No constant movement, no romantic back-and-forth between cities. Just staying still long enough to face what actually needs to be done. Building a team that can stand on its own. Creating structure where there wasn’t enough. Putting in place what brutalism, in its truest sense, demands: a solid base. I underestimated that part.

Opening stores is visible. It feels like progress. Building a team is slower, quieter, and far less glamorous, but it is the only thing that makes everything else real. And so Milan shifted.

It is no longer a place I go to. It is a place that lives in how I see. I spent three months there over the course of a year, walking without urgency. Courtyards hidden behind heavy doors. Markets where form follows function without trying to impress. Tables, textures, small details that carry a certain weight because they are not overdesigned.

There is a kind of restraint in Milan. A confidence that doesn’t need decoration. And within that restraint, there is also imperfection, surfaces that age, materials that show use, edges that are not corrected. That same honesty that we see in batik, where nothing is ever exactly aligned, where the hand is always visible. That connection stayed with me.

It made its way into this collection, not as something literal, but as a way of working. Less correction, more acceptance. Less control, more trust in the process. Letting things be slightly off, slightly raw, because that is where character comes in.

The dream is still there.
To have a home there, not just a footprint.

But next time, it will stand on something stronger. A team that can carry the business without me needing to be everywhere at once. A structure that allows growth without collapse. Something that, like brutalism at its best, is honest in its construction and built to last.

Some dreams don’t disappear. They just wait until you are ready to build them properly.

Instead, we stare at Instagram, answer WhatsApp messages we could perfectly reply to after landing, and convince ourselves that being “reachable” at 35,000 feet somehow means we are winning at life. Always one step ahead. But perhaps, occasionally, it’s not such a bad thing to be one step behind.

Which is exactly why Going Places, the in-flight magazine by Malaysia Airlines, deserves a little more credit.

Because surprisingly, it’s actually a really nice magazine.

Not the kind you politely flip through during turbulence before returning to your phone. Properly nice. The design is beautiful, the photography is thoughtful, and the articles are genuinely interesting. Someone clearly cared while making it, which already makes it slightly revolutionary these days.

And yet hardly anyone opens it.
It just sits there quietly in the seat pocket while we continue watching strangers reorganise their kitchens on TikTok or typing messages that can almost certainly wait another two hours. Which is a shame, really. Because Going Places is full of the sort of things that make travel exciting in the first place. Beautiful resorts. Great restaurants. Places you suddenly want to visit. Small discoveries you probably would never have searched for yourself because the algorithm was too busy feeding you things you never asked for.

There is also something strangely comforting about reading a physical magazine on a flight. You slow down a little. You turn pages. You pause. You accidentally discover something interesting instead of being told what to look at next.

So the next time you fly, maybe look up from your phone for a moment.

You don’t necessarily have to talk to your neighbour. Let’s not get too ambitious.

But at least open the magazine.
It’s actually worth your time.

And as a small side note, we are especially proud this month, because Nala Designs happens to have an ad featured in this bi-monthly issue as well.