Rapper Yung Raja is known for his sartorial style – a savvy mix of hip-hop and high fashion. So, it is no surprise that the 26-year-old has his own fashion label. In August, Peace Oeuvre launched its first collection, Verdure, comprising T-shirts, hoodies, bags and accessories. Raja co-founded the label with his good friend, creative director Darren Chan.

“It’s not just a clothing brand,” he says. “It’s a fashion label that explores free expression of our love for art. “The logo encapsulates love and peace, subtly stating our brand identity. We wish there’s peace in your heart forever.”

The brand, he adds, stands for diversity, and every item is designed to be worn by people of any gender, race, nationality or age. The pieces are available online at peaceoeuvre.com and at Spades Room in MacTaggart Road. Prices start at $10 for a bandana and $159 for a hoodie. The brand has received orders from countries such as Japan, India, Malaysia, Brunei, Australia and the United States.

Peace Oeuvre is not Raja’s first venture into fashion. When he was 17, he started a multi-brand label in Osaka, Japan, with his Japanese friend Daisuke Koto. It became the sole distributor of Dutch streetwear brand BYB Amsterdam in Asia. He was too busy to travel frequently to Osaka to attend to the label after becoming a full-time musician and is no longer involved in it.

For Peace Oeuvre, Raja takes pride that the designs and garments are all made in Singapore. “The ability to create everything in-house allows us to have a certain amount of freedom in the thought and execution of our products,” he says. “From hand-stitched hoodies and the exploring of different mediums, we keep an open mind when it comes to our inspiration and see what aligns with our ethos naturally.”

Mandopop star JJ Lin wants to open a store in Singapore again for his fashion brand SMG. The Taiwan-based singer started his label in 2009 with an outlet in Ann Siang Hill which later moved to Cineleisure mall in Grange Road. Called Smudgestore, the outlet closed in 2013 as Lin found the location no longer suitable for the brand.

Today, SMG has two stores, which launched in the last two years, in Shanghai and Taipei. The brand is also available online. “It’s my dream to reopen SMG in Singapore,” says Lin, 40, in an e-mail interview. “It’s always at the back of my head, so it’s just a matter of finding the right time and location.”

He is often pictured in the brand’s streetwear, which includes T-shirts priced at NT$1,280 (S$62) as well as hoodies and jackets.SMG, which stands for Still Moving Under Gunfire, shares the same name as his e-sports organisation, which he co-founded in 2017. “As the name suggests, the brand boldly urges everyone to persist in the face of adversity. For the same reason, you’d notice our designs are, more often than not, military-inspired.”

Lin, who released his first English album, Like You Do, earlier this year, serves as the label’s creative director. For each collection, he leads his design team by coming up with the main concept, usually inspired by verses from the Bible, as well as the colours and styles. “SMG is the avenue for me to share various concepts and stories visually, when music isn’t the best medium,” says the singer, who is Christian.

In the brand’s early days, his fans formed the bulk of his customer base, but he notes that it is more diverse now. This is thanks to collaborations with major brands such as entertainment giant Marvel, bagmaker Herschel Supply Co and sportswear company Reebok.

“I guess I am fortunate that SMG sustained well enough – and probably long enough – to this age where more and more people are into streetwear.” Lin wants to grow SMG into a lifestyle brand. Its stores also offers coffee and food such as kaya toast. “I hope it will not just be a fashion apparel brand, but also a place of respite for some,” he says.

Pop singer Haven, 18, has always loved designing and customising her own clothes. As a child, she would cut up her jeans and tops so she would have unique clothes to wear. On the cover of her new single, Easy Girl Easy Boy, she is wearing a graffiti-painted gown she conceptualised.

At the end of the year, she will launch a streetwear label, Obsess, which will offer T-shirts, hoodies and twinsets. She plans to market it on social media platforms such as TikTok, where she has more than 300,000 followers.

The idea to start her own brand was planted earlier this year during a conversation with a friend about fashion. “As artistes, fashion is very important. What we’re showing to our audiences makes us who we are,” says the singer, whose real name is Teo Cher Win. “If I can’t find clothes I want to wear, I’ll make my own.”

In a burst of inspiration, she spent a whole night coming up with six designs. She does not have an art background. Her inspiration comes from museum visits and keeping up to date with major fashion events such as the annual Met Gala in New York. Her designs, she says, reflect Gen Z’s perspective on fashion.

A lot of them feature skeletons because it is something “that’s inside all of us”. An artwork of a television stuck in a skull is her take on how “the media is an everyday part of our lives”. She makes each clothing item by hand through silkscreen and other printing techniques, and plans to price them from $40 each online.

Most of her start-up capital comes from her savings, though she had some financial help – as well as business and marketing advice – from her artiste manager at music company AOR Global. She has long-term plans for her label. “I want to put out more collections in the next few years and, hopefully, have a pop-up store.”

When home-grown fashion brand Akinn was looking for a personality to work with on a collection centred on sustainability, founder and designer Wykidd Song turned to singer-songwriter Inch Chua. The 32-year-old is known for her music and theatrical work inspired by nature and environmental issues.

The result of the collaboration is Akinn 2.4: Kind Earth, a collection guided by a concept based on one of the singer’s songs, trees. It comprises 11 unique pieces made with comfortable and earth-friendly fabrics such as viscose and tencel. Inch, who has no background in fashion design, says: “When Wykidd reached out to me, it couldn’t have come at a better time as Akinn’s direction was in line with my recent new releases and my love for exploring different creative forms.”

The colour palette reflects nature and warm summer hues, says the singer, who won the Best Sound prize at last year’s Life Theatre Awards for theatrical music production ‘Til The End Of The World, We’ll Meet In No Man’s Land. The designs, which are also inspired by Inch’s music heroes – such as Canadian folk legend Joni Mitchell and American singers Debbie Harry and Stevie Nicks – also take into consideration the musician’s daily activities.

For example, the clothes do not get in the way when she needs to sling a guitar. “It means a lot to me to be a part of producing a line of clothing that I know will last and is made with so much intent and purpose.” Her favourite item in the collection, which Chua describes as a “childlike pinafore”, has a similar theme to her upcoming album, Childish, which is expected to be released next year.

The collection, with prices starting at $169, will be available for pre-order on Akinn’s website from October 15 and can be purchased later in the month at the Akinn showroom in Thye Hong Centre and stockists Design Orchard and Trixilini, a boutique in Scotts Square.

In 2019, Melvin Ong, a musician in the metal and underground music scene, fell off a 2m-tall stage after slipping on a puddle of water. It left him paralysed from the shoulder down. During his time in hospital – which included 100 days in the intensive care unit – the former frontman of metal band Hrvst thought long and hard about how he was going to make the most of his life. He came up with the idea to start an apparel brand.

“I don’t expect my parents to be supporting me all the way,” says the 30-year-old, who lives with his retiree father; mother, who works in human resource; elder brother, who runs a management consultancy; grandmother and helper.

Dipping into his savings, he launched online store Green Spell on his birthday in May last year – 10 months after the accident. All 50 pieces of the first item – a T-shirt emblazoned with the brand’s logo – sold out in 1 1/2 days.

Ong, who also worked in video production before his accident, oversees all operations, using eye-tracking device Tobii to operate a tablet to send e-mail and make video calls. He worked with the brand’s partner and a friend, who did the designs and logistics. Both have left the brand and Ong is looking for replacements. In the meantime, his father and brother are helping with deliveries and other logistics. His friends also chip in as models on Green Spell’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

The brand has sold out half of its T-shirt designs – prices start at US$30 (S$41) – since it started. It also sells caps, keychains and ashtrays. Apart from locals, customers also come from countries such as the United States and Germany.

In a good month, Ong makes $2,500, which help pay for his medical expenses. He has not abandoned his musical pursuits, though, and writes lyrics for his experimental/noise band The Human Experiment. He also uses his business to do good. Last year, he released a Covid-19 Relief T-shirt priced at US$39 and donated all proceeds to migrant workers here who were affected by the pandemic.

Ong has plans to release more merchandise and grow the overseas market. “I don’t want Green Spell to be known as the brand run by a paralysed person,” he says. “I want people to buy because they like my stuff.”

This article first appeared in The Straits Times