FASHION & MARKET FORUM 2026
In Southeast Asia, fashion industries have shifted from being production hubs to becoming creative powerhouses. However, a critical gap remains: a unified platform bridging academic research, commercial business and creative practice. Since 2021, Fashion & Market has worked on bridging this gap.
FASHION & MARKET FORUM continues this mission by bringing together fashion academics, industry leaders and creative practitioners for a dynamic day of conversation, collaboration and exchange.
Key Event Information
Date: 29 August 2026, Saturday
Time: 10am to 5pm
Venue: Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore
Full-day access passes are available at SGD48 each.
This includes lunch, tea and townhall dialogue participation.
Here is what speakers and attendees are saying about FASHION & MARKET FORUM 2026:
“The forum was a much needed space for fashion practitioners to share their work, thoughts and ideas. As the fashion industry in Southeast Asia continues to grow, the intersections of fashion with craft, heritage, history and language will remain crucial. The fashion future is here and FASHION & MARKET is in it.”
Aqilah Zailan, Founder, Studio Gypsied
“FASHION & MARKET has done a fantastic job bringing together an insightful group of professionals working across fashion, design and adjacent creative industries. The atmosphere was warm, open and genuinely generous.”
Jariel Ann Tan, Founder, VESSELS
“I loved how intimate the day felt - just a room full of curious people sharing their ideas, research, and things they care deeply about. It was such a sincere exchange of perspectives and a lovely reminder of how much we can learn from one another.”
Jien Goh, Associate Consulting Director, WGSN (APAC)
“It truly didn’t feel like a first meeting; we felt genuinely at home! Coming from Jakarta with a few thoughts in mind, we left with a new perspective, engaging conversations, and a renewed feeling that perhaps there are more voices out there that could inspire us to create and build more in the future.”
PEARS Team
“FASHION & MARKET creates room for discourse that challenges the ways we think about fashion in the region. It brings different voices into conversation, and in doing so opens up better possibilities for how we think about the industry, its cultures and practices.”
Pit Firdaus Aris, Founder, Studio Vetyver
“I found the FASHION & MARKET FORUM to be a warm and open space for exchanging ideas among scholars, practitioners, and everyone who values fashion as a space for discourse. The programme and the day’s proceedings affirmed that fashion in Singapore—and perhaps the region—by virtue of the creative and artistic ambitions of its practitioners sustained over great lengths of time, asks for much deeper thinking about its foundational role in the intellectual and aesthetic life of society.”
Samuel Lee, Assistant Curator (Design), National Museum of Singapore
“It was such a joy to be part of FASHION & MARKET FORUM as a speaker, to have the opportunity to share my work-in-progress ideas and research in such a welcoming space. We need more platforms for independent discourse on Southeast Asian fashion. It’s so precious to be able to exchange ideas, ask questions, and learn from likeminded practitioners who understand the nuances of a region that is so often overlooked in global fashion studies and media.”
Weiqi Yap, Assistant Curator (Design), Asian Civilisations Museum
“Thank you for putting together an interesting line-up of speakers from different creative fields. I greatly appreciated the regional focus and discussions on cultural heritage that ranged from the personal to the public”
Kelly Janine, Assistant Manager, Built Heritage, National Heritage Board
“It was a day well spent at FASHION & MARKET FORUM 2026. Hearing from Southeast Asian creators, curators, authors, researchers and designers made one thing clear: many of our struggles are shared, as are the opportunities ahead if we build together.”
Chiew Ling Tan, Co-Founder, Nana & Bird
Programme Schedule
Moderated by Rohaizatul Azhar, Fashion Academic, LASALLE College of the Arts
Moderated by Sharrona Valezka, Art Director, Fashion & Market
Sponsors
Partners
We are pleased to share a special playlist put together by Shaokai Teng, Managing Director, Audio-Technica SEA, from his vinyl collection for FASHION & MARKET FORUM 2026:
Anglo-Chinese School Military Band, Anglo-Chinese School Military Band, 1974
Charlie Lim, Daydream, 2026 *sponsored by Audio-Technica SEA
EB Duet, Time After Time, 2022
Fiesta Filipina, Fiesta Filipina, 1978
Jacintha, Fire & Rain, 2018
Kit Chan/陳潔儀, Remastered 重奏, 2012
Linying, Swim, Swim, 2025 *sponsored by Audio-Technica SEA
The Swallows, Lebur Lebur Kaphungaan, 2026 [1966-1968]
Fashion & Market Team
Dr Nadya Wang | Managing Editor, Fashion & Market
Nadya Wang received her PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art. An academic, curator and strategist, she works at the intersection of art, fashion and culture. Driven by a mission to champion regional narratives, Nadya is Founder and Managing Editor of two pioneering online magazines: Art & Market, focused on Southeast Asian art and its global connections and Fashion & Market, documenting the Southeast Asian fashion ecosystem. She also leads Front & Off-Centre, an agency offering communications, curatorial, programming and publication services. In 2025, her monograph Her World, Women and Fashion in Singapore, 1974-1989: Accidental Career Girl to Working Mother of the Year, was published by Bloomsbury.
@nadyawang
Sharrona Valezka | Art Director, Fashion & Market
As Art Director at Fashion & Market, Sharrona leads the platform’s creative direction across digital and editorial platforms, shaping its visual identity and presence. She approaches her work through a cross-disciplinary lens, with a practice rooted in the intersections of fashion and art in Southeast Asia, driven by thoughtful collaboration and cultural narratives. She is also the Art Director for sibling site Art & Market.
@sharrona___
Zea Asis | Content Manager, Fashion & Market
Zea Asis is Content Manager at Fashion & Market. Her work spans literary and affective approaches to art, fashion and culture, attentive to the intersections of looking, intimacy, and language. She published her debut collection of essays Strange Intimacies in 2023.
@zea.asis
Featured Speakers
Dr Angelene Wong | Fashion Theorist, Lecturer & Performance Artiste
Angelene Wong holds a PhD in Art, Design, and Media from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is also a graduate of the MA Fashion Studies program at Parsons School of Design, and an accomplished dance practitioner. Her research explores fashion, performance, and Asia, with her doctoral thesis offering a somatic perspective on fashion modelling practices in late 20th-century Singapore. Wong is the co-author of Fashion, Identity, Image (2022), co-editor of Starring Asian Femininities (2026), and lectures at the School of Fashion, LASALLE College of the Arts.
@angelenewong
Faith Cooper | Founder, Asian Fashion Archive & PhD Student, National University of Singapore
Faith Cooper is a PhD student in History at the National University of Singapore, researching gender and fashion in postwar Singapore. She holds master’s degrees in Brand and Fashion Management from Fu Jen Catholic University, where she studied as a Fulbright grantee, and in Fashion and Textile Studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Her research has appeared in Fashion Theory, International Journal of Fashion Studies, and the Fashion & Race Database. She is the founder of the Asian Fashion Archive and writes the “Fashion & Memory” column for Fashion and Market.
@asianfashionarchive
Jariel Ann Tan | Founder, VESSELS, Creative Practitioner & Educator
Jariel Ann is a Singapore-based designer, creative practitioner and educator working across fashion, design, technology and culture. She is the founder of VESSELS, a 3D printing studio exploring the relationship between digital fabrication and physical objects through modular, playful and culturally resonant design. Her practice spans art direction, creative strategy, design and visual communication, with a particular interest in how emerging technologies can reshape creative production and everyday objects. She works across both commercial and independent creative projects, while developing her own research-led practice through making, writing and experimentation. Her work is driven by curiosity around technology, materiality, culture and the ways people interact with objects.
@jarielann | @vessels__world
Jien Goh | Associate Consulting Director, WGSN
Jien is APAC's head of consultancy at global trend forecasting authority WGSN. She translates cultural shifts into future growth strategies for fashion and beauty brands across Asia. From decoding the new language of youth subculture in APAC to exploring shifting aspirations in luxury, Jien offers insight into how brands can evolve—and inspire—in times of transformation.
@ji3n
Junel Che Fujinuki | Marketing Manager, Audio-Technica SEA
After 13 years in Japan, Junel has returned to Singapore as the Marketing Manager at Audio-Technica South East Asia. She is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of consumer and professional audio marketing across the region through innovative partnerships in lifestyle, sports, and the arts—driven by the belief that sound should be more than just audio.
@audiotechnicasea
Nur Aqilah Zailan | Founder, Studio Gypsied
As a Malay Singaporean of Javanese descent, Aqilah unpacks identity and memory through batik, a cloth synonymous with the peoples and cultures of the Malay Archipelago (Nusantara). With a focus on Javanese batik, Studio Gypsied designs womenswear that intuitively connects the wearer to an identity—an act of coming home.
@aqilah.zailan
Pit Firdaus Aris | Founder Designer, Studio Vetyver
Studio Vetyver is the interdisciplinary practice of Singapore-based artist and designer Pit Firdaus Aris. His practice works across garments, objects and spatial installations. Each project is developed through research, material exploration and making, approaching the garment as one of several mediums through which questions of body, material and space take form. Studio Vetyver develops collections as ongoing bodies of work that examine the cultural structures, spaces and material conditions that quietly shape how we inhabit the world.
@studiovetyver
Rohaizatul Azhar | Fashion Academic, LASALLE College of the Arts
Rohaizatul Azhar is a Malay Singaporean fashion lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore. Passionate about Malay culture, decolonisation, and critical thinking in fashion, he specialises in cultural studies in fashion and social media for Fashion. A trained journalist with over a decade of experience, he has also written numerous fashion news and features and interviewed fashion icons and celebrities.
@ryanstarr
Samuel Lee | Assistant Curator (Design), National Museum of Singapore
Samuel Lee is a curator and writer. He completed his MA in Art History and the Humanities from the University of Chicago and is part of the team at the National Museum of Singapore building up the design collection. Samuel's interests span fashion, architecture and contemporary art. His recent curatorial projects include AMAZÔNIA: Photographs by Sebastião Salgado (2024) and the revamped Singapore History Gallery (2026).
Try Sutrisno | Editor-in-chief, PEARS Magazine
PEARS is an Indonesia-based Independent printed fashion magazine that explores social issues through the lens of fashion, art and visual culture. Their first issue was released in 2020. Since then, the edition has been released annually, with the last one focusing on the nature of glamour. They actively participate in art book fairs and work with bookshops and distributors across Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand.
@pearsmag
Wang Zineng | Founder, Art Agenda & ANNEXE
Wang Zineng is Founder of Art Agenda, a gallery and advisory that specialises in Southeast Asian modern art. It has spaces here in S'pore and in Jakarta and is in the midst of establishing a third space in Manila.
In 2025, he established ANNEXE, an auction platform that runs innovative online auctions. Zineng has nearly two decades of experience in the art market, with a focus on Southeast Asian art. He led auction sales at Christie's from 2011 to 2016 and has also consulted and worked for National Gallery Singapore, S'pore Art Museum and National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum.
Weiqi Yap | Assistant Curator (Design), Asian Civilisations Museum
Weiqi Yap is Assistant Curator (Design) at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Trained as a fashion journalist, her writing has been published in the International Journal of Fashion Studies, Fashion Theory, Vogue Singapore and Fashion & Market. Currently, her curatorial research explores contemporary fashion practices in Asia and their intersections with popular culture and the everyday. She previously ran Fashion on Display, an independent fashion curation studio and experimental gallery, where four exhibitions were staged in its one-year run. She holds an MA in Fashion Curation from the London College of Fashion.
@fashionondisplay
Xingyun Shen | Writer & Co-Founder, clothes press
Xingyun Shen is an independent fashion writer and researcher based in Singapore. Her research focuses on the affective dimensions of dress, particularly garments associated with grief, mourning, and memory. She is the co-founder of clothes press, an initiative committed to publishing and circulating observations of everyday wear practices.
@yunsq | @clothes_press
