Aik Beng Chia Lenses A S/S 2024 Fashion Story In His Childhood Playground Of Haw Par Villa

Consider this editorial showcasing Spring Summer 2024’s key runway looks the result of fate a few times over.

Six years ago, we commissioned Aik Beng Chia – more popularly known as ABC – for his first fashion editorial. It was a time when iPhone photography was burgeoning and the then 50-year-old was among its leading local names with his delightfully offbeat, colour-saturated documentary of everyday life here.

We stayed in touch after (mostly through the occasional DM), but never got round to another collaboration. In that time, he continued to broaden his already-impressive portfolio with even more big-name clients and exhibitions, as well as an infectious enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and what it can do for image makers.

Then late last year, I bumped into him at the airport in Hong Kong – he was in the city to give a lecture; I was there for a family holiday. Standing in line at immigration meant our exchange stayed brief, but it was enough to remind me that we should work together again soon.

Fast forward to March this year, when contributing fashion director Damian Huang and I discussed revisiting the idea of shooting at Haw Par Villa – a location that we had used for a single picture in our December 2023 editorial that explored the places making Singapore a truly cool cultural hotspot post-Covid-19 pandemic. And we both instinctively knew the person to lens it this time had to be ABC. What we didn’t know was that this 1930s-built theme park – fabled for its eclectic statues and dioramas depicting scenes from Chinese folklore and updated with attractions such as Hell’s Museum – was ABC’s childhood playground.

“I grew up in a kampung on Zehnder Road that’s behind Haw Par Villa, so after school every day, my friends and I would head there to play hide-and-seek. As you can imagine, it was really fun,” he told us. “This also means that I’m very familiar with it and while a lot of the artefacts have been moved around or changed up, shooting this story on site teleported me back to the past. “Ask me to describe Haw Par Villa, and I’ll say it’s magical, nostalgic and one of a kind. Whenever I have photographer friends visiting Singapore, I always tell them to not miss it because where else can you find a place like it?”

So here is our second fashion editorial shot by ABC and, as it turns out, it’s his second fashion editorial ever. Guess the best kind of collaborations are really meant to be.

STYLING DAMIAN HUANG PRODUCTION DANESSA TONG STYLING ASSISTANTS DANESSA TONG & PANG JIA WEI HAIR & MAKEUP MANISA TAN, USING KEUNE AND TOM FORD BEAUTY MODEL KE QING/MANNEQUIN STUDIO LOCATION SPECIAL THANKS TO HAW PAR VILLA

This article first appeared in the April 2024 Art Book edition of FEMALE