In 2012, Hong Kong lifestyle label Goods of Desire, known as G.O.D., announced its first flagship outside Hong Kong: a 6,000 square foot store on the second floor of The Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street, in Clarke Quay. The opening was slated for the end of June that year.
The store was meant to bring the brand’s clothing, furniture, homeware and gifts to Singapore, all with a distinctly Cantonese sense of humour.
A Hong Kong favourite arrives
Douglas Young and Benjamin Lau founded the label in 1996. By 2012 it had a following among Hong Kong’s design-minded crowd for its cheeky take on local culture. The name is a play on the Cantonese phrase for “to live better”.
The brand’s approach was to avoid the obvious. Instead of covering products in generic Oriental symbols, it took pieces of everyday Chinese and Hong Kong life and reworked them with wit. Cream cracker tins, 1950s newspaper advertisements and rustic mailboxes turned up as bags, tea sets and even underwear.
The Singapore licence was held by a local company, LifeStyle Scene Pte Ltd, according to details released around the launch.
What was on the shelves
Several signature lines were expected at the Clarke Quay store:
- Cushions and clothing made from newspaper-print fabric.
- The Double Happiness dinnerware set, engraved with the Chinese character for happiness, xi.
- The Yaumati stationery series, including a pencil case modelled on old-school Chinese ballet flats.
- Products carrying the Delay No More slogan, which sounds like a Cantonese profanity.
That last collection was the brand’s best-known provocation, and it raised an obvious question about why the label would choose rule-conscious Singapore for its first overseas flagship.
Young’s answer, given in 2012, was that Singapore’s mix of colonial past, cosmopolitan present and Asian identity made it an ideal first stop. He called it a long-held dream to show the world the Hong Kong he knew.
Making it local
Once the shop was running, it added touches aimed at Singapore. These included a tongue-in-cheek book-cum-catalogue called The “Xi” Paper: 69 to 6.9 Million, a version of the DelayNoMore tees with “lah” added, and a panda motif.
What happened next
The Singapore chapter was shorter than the launch suggested. Listings and the Clarke Quay’s own history put the opening in mid-2012, with one account placing it in July, though the plan had been the end of June.
By April 2015, Inside Retail reported that the company had closed the store after three years and was leaving Singapore. The shop had run under a three-year franchise agreement with Far East Organisation, which said there was not enough profit to justify an extension.
Young told The Straits Times that the challenges in Singapore mirrored those in Hong Kong: rising rents and costs, and sluggish retail demand. He added that the brand had built an 18-year reputation at home, while in Singapore it was a new name, so success came more naturally in its home city.
Goods of Desire continues to operate from Hong Kong, where its official site, god.com.hk, lists the brand’s home base. The Clarke Quay shop closed in 2015, 14 years before this year’s date would suggest any chance of a visit, so Singapore shoppers no longer have a local flagship to browse.