When Lim Teck Yang (BBM 2015) (left) and Travis Ng (BBM 2016) (right) first started visiting master tailors in Singapore, hoping to learn the skills of tailoring, many of the elderly veterans were skeptical: Why would two young graduates from SMU want to pick up such a niche trade? Nevertheless, the pair persisted by showing up consistently, and the masters were eventually convinced of Teck Yang and Travis' sincereity. With a little help from their friends in SMU, and mentors from the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE), the duo are now realising their dream of establishing a menswear brand, Collaro Classic Menswear.
Hi Travis and Teck Yang! Could you tell us about how you met in SMU? How did you come together to start Collaro?
Travis: Teck Yang was my teaching assistant for the module “Creative Thinking”. Thus, in a way, Professor Alan Tea (whom we still keep in touch with until today) was the one who introduced us to each other.
After we graduated from SMU, we kept in touch as we both had an interest in menswear and we wanted to see if there was something we could do in this space. We met for coffee a couple of times, brainstorming for plausible business models, and we settled on starting a custom menswear business.
What sparked your interest and passion in menswear?
Teck Yang: I have always been a lover of well-made classic shoes and have amassed quite a collection over the years. It was natural for me to eventually move into menswear, because I need nice clothes to go together with my nice shoes! In addition, my body frame does not fit off-the-rack sizes well, and tailoring was the only way I could achieve a fit that I like. I really enjoy tailored menswear as it is both an art and a science – blending classic styles, technical drafting details and various fabrics to create unique pieces.
Travis: Fresh out of army, I walked into a menswear store at 51 Haji Lane (Know It Nothing, now defunct) and I was blown away, both in terms of the architecture of the store and also the products they brought in. I decided to take on a part-time job with them, and that was how I got started on my menswear journey.
In my freshmen year, I landed myself an internship with Dylan & Son, which is now a world-renowned tailoring establishment. Like Teck Yang, off-the-rack clothes never fit my frame, and during my internship I saw the glow in the customers' eyes whenever they came down to try their custom-made clothes. Through these experiences, I found that menswear retail was a domain that I really enjoyed.
Tell us about how you got started in Collaro!
Getting started: Besides our prior experience with menswear and men’s tailoring, we took a year to visit various master tailors in Singapore and started learning from them. They found it strange that two university graduates would be keen to learn about tailoring, but after we showed up consistently, they knew we were serious – and that’s when they started to really teach and share as much as they could. We also took some courses with Textile & Fashion Federation (TaFF) along the way, and started selling to our friends and other customers.
Going Full-Time: Fast forward to end of November 2018, we worked at a co-working space for a few months, before applying for IIE’s incubation programme. During that period, we started to gain traction, and that’s also when we decided that we needed our first showroom. Through IIE, we were linked with relevant domain experts, and in our case Shirley made introduced us to Michel, a mentor in the programme.
We managed to secure a cosy loft in Chinatown in February this year, and it greatly improved the customer experience and our internal logistics. However, within 7 months, we grew to a point where we needed a bigger space, as we were not able to comfortably house 2 groups of customers at the same time.
Next stage of growth:
- Incubation Programme: In August 2019, we applied for TaFF’s inaugural “The Bridge Fashion Incubator”, and we were accepted into the programme. During this phase, we are also developing our own technology infrastructure that will allow Collaro to evolve into an omni-channel brand. We hope to be able to share more about this in the coming months.
- New Studio: At the same time, we were on the lookout for a bigger space close to Chinatown MRT. We were lucky enough to secure a shophouse unit which we will share with our friend Ray (who runs an affordable eyewear shop called Foptics). At the new space, we’re very happy to partner with a local shoe brand called The Quarters established by an SMU SIS undergraduate, Ellson Toh. This space will be fully-operational come mid-September.
Teck Yang and Travis (back row, 4th & 6th from left) with the first cohort of "The Bridge Fashion Incubator" programme by Textile and Fashion Federation (TaFF)
What were the dilemmas or concerns you faced when you left your full time jobs to pursue Collaro?
To give up a stable income stream to pursue Collaro was certainly a difficult decision. Travis was a scholar with Enterprise Singapore, and Teck Yang was a Management Associate with SGX. Some of our ex-colleagues even opined if we were taking too big a risk to work on Collaro full-time.
That said, we count ourselves lucky also to have friends who have advised us on the various aspects of our business, from digital marketing (Jason How, BBM 2016), tenancy agreement (Tan Kehua, LLB 2016) to our incubation pitch deck (Tan Wenyun, BSocSc & BBM 2016). Without friends like them, our journey would have been a lot more challenging.
As for what motivated us to take the plunge: we were working on Collaro at the side while we had our day jobs. Collaro was gaining traction and we had good reviews from our initial pool of customers. It was increasingly difficult to juggle both Collaro and our day jobs. At that time in mid-2018, we felt that it was necessary for us to take a stand that we would be able to grow the business a lot more if we did this full time. We thought about how we could inject technology into this business, and realized that we needed extra time to work on it.
Collaro's newest studio space near Chinatown MRT, which can accomodate larger groups of clients
What does a day as co-founders of Collaro look like?
A good mix of the following:
- Appointments with our customers (taking their measurements, advising them on fabric and style choices)
- Operations (processing of orders, liaising with suppliers, notifying customers when their clothes are ready for fitting)
- Content creation for our social media channels
- Sourcing of fabrics
- Prototyping new designs
- Discussing technical details with our craftsmen to improve the fit of our clothes
How do you think SMU’s education has helped in running your own business?
We picked up a combination of hard and soft skills during our time in SMU. Teck Yang’s background in finance and accounting ensured that Collaro’s financials are sound , while Travis’ time with ASMU hosting various guests (students, parents and foreign dignitaries etc.) helped him developed a knack for connecting with and engaging people from all walks of life.
On top of that, we both attended an exchange programme (Teck Yang in Warsaw, Travis in Barcelona), and this helped develop our cultural sensitivity. This is very helpful for our business, as we have served customers from across the globe (from Mexico, Poland and USA etc.).
The friendships and networks we’ve forged in SMU have proven to be invaluable. As we are bootstrapping our business, we are not always able to pay professional firms whenever we need specific advice. It is times like these where we counted on our friends' advice before coming to a decision.
Collaro's brand philosophy is to deliver menswear wtih "Clean Lines, Subtle Details"
What is your vision for Collaro?
To become a quality global custom menswear brand, one that caters to men of all shapes and sizes
Do you have any advice for SMU juniors who might be thinking of entering the same field as you?
Take some time to conceptualize and to do your research, but act quickly and start selling as soon as you can. If enough people are willing to pay for your product, then you can be more sure that you have a viable business.
Visit Collaro.co to view their latest menswear collection.
