For our annual art issue in Jan 2017, we teamed up with street photographer Aik Beng Chia for a guerilla photo session in Little India just before Deepavali (just imagine the crowd). The man — known popularly by his social media followers as ABC — shoots almost exclusively on his smartphone and we managed to steal some tips from him ourselves during the shoot.

This particular shot was taken at a traffic crossing and we had to make a few dashes up and down the road the moment the green man comes on in order to capture the right moment the model and pedestrians cross each other.  Sometimes, good luck and timing are what makes a good photo. And that’s another tip from ABC.

Our first meeting with Dua Lipa happened in 2017, behind the door of a hotel room of the JW Marriott Hotel Singapore South Beach. Her face was still fresh and dewy from a beauty mask session. She was friendly and possesses a sense of youthful confidence,

Later in the day, she worked the camera like a pro for photographer Stefan Khoo for our July 2017 cover shoot. Little did we know that we were witnessing a pop star right on the cusp of Gen Y and Z who would go own to be a Grammy winner two years later and become one of the biggest stars on the planet.

Shot by New York-based fashion and portrait photographer Ace Emir, this psychedelia-inspired editorial for the Oct 2017 issue features a dream cast of fresh faces in fashion: Cue Carissa Pinkston, Olesya Ivanischeva, Kylie Vonnahme and Ruby Tuesday.

A good photo should make you stop while you’re flipping the pages of a magazine. This image, which was lensed by the talented Cameron Postforoosh for our Feb 2019 Women Who Rock Issue, did that for us. After all, who wouldn’t stop in their tracks at the sight of a girl dressed in Chanel sticking through a giant sousaphone?

Dec 2018 was the Joy Issue and we decided that one of the best pleasures in life is the ability to revel in being home. So to showcase that idea, photographer Harper Smith and stylist Anna Katsanis took model Maggie Lane to a mansion in New York for this spread. Located near the famous Fire Island, the house an ’80s-era building that is also rumoured to have hosted the daughter of President Bush for a reception.

One of our frequent collaborators Chuck Reyes scouted for a gang of cool senior models around Paris for this lovable spread in Sept 2018’s Make A Stand Issue. The point of it all was to show that style – and swagger – is ageless.  We couldn’t agree more.

We lucked out on this amazing location — a former Chinese opera house-turned-hotel – while looking for a restroom during a separate shoot we did in Chinatown early last year. We knew we had to return there some day for a shoot. Indeed, the all-red interiors (from the carpets to the furniture to the walls) made the perfect backdrop for a Pre-Fall 2018 leopard story in the August 2018 issue by experimental London-based photographer Nicole Ngai. Sadly, the hotel has since closed down.

To toast some of the up-and-coming female creatives to know for our August 2018 issue, we turned to the female gaze of photographer Lenne Chai. The idea was to envision portraitures of these strong and cool women like models Mei Yue and Jean Yong and the actresses Cheryl Tan and Shu Yi Ching in the middle of the desert. To create that image,  Chai brought in over 100kg of sand and four assistants with shovels.

Photographer Sarah Silver brought a smile to our faces for the Oct 2019 issue when she transformed a studio into one joyful set — filled with backdrops of the sky, flou-coloured sky backdrop and shiny drapes. That big glorious hair and smile on model Clare Crawford were the icing on the cake.

We all know Nathan Hartono as a music dynamo. (Come on, have you seen his videos and Instagram?) So what better way to channel all that energy and spontaneity than by making him dance with the models for this fashion editorial by Munkong for the music issue in Feb 2017?

We’ve watched 18-year-old Iman Fandi in the shadows of her footballer brothers, model mum and soccer legend dad. So it was a coming-out party of sorts for her to land her first solo cover gig for Female’s Nov  2018 issue. Lensed by Stefan Khoo, this young Fandi definitely showed off her modelling chops.

When we got Danish photographer Oliver Katibi Stalmans to interpret his gypsie-meets-mystical aesthetic for Pre-fall’s sculptural tailoring and florals, we never expected him to take model Madison Stubbington for an outing in New York City’s Chinatown. This shot, taken in front of a Chinese jewellery store, is brilliantly surreal.

The brief for our art issue in Jan 2017 to Ipoh-born photographer Gary Chew was simple: Bring the works of great masters to life in the present day. The result happens to be one of the fun and most imaginative time we had on set. This shot was Chew’s whimsical interpretation of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

The August 2018 issue celebrates an all-Asian theme and cast of model and newsmakers. So when it comes to showcasing the trendiest boots of the season, we thought it would be funny to have photographer Zaphs Zhang capture the model posed in the quintessential Asian squat. And just for laughs, let her slurp on instant noodles too.  In all, the model scarfed down two cups of instant noodles.