SINGAPORE — Like many others before her, former lawyer Melissa Shen, 34, quit a well-paying job to follow her passion — to have her own fashion label. But she had not anticipated what followed after.

In the process of chasing that rainbow, she found herself in working 16-hour days in a clothing factory, hounding suppliers who over-promised and under-delivered, and strained her relationship with her elderly father.

After four-and-a-half years as a lawyer, Shen started feeling restless in her job and thought “there must be more to life than just waiting for pay day”. So, she started to lay the foundation for her exit from the firm she worked at.

“I started doing the groundwork on starting a fashion label and fashion designing and I found myself feeling very much alive when I was sketching and working with colours and textures, even at four in the morning. It was a feeling that I hadn’t felt in a long while,” she said.

Shen quit her job eight months later. “Quitting law meant there was no more easy way out, I just had to grit my teeth and keep moving forward.”

Since then, the road has been bumpy along the way. Some of the problems she faced included dealing with a supplier who delivered her goods one year late, and only after she had staked-out at his HDB void deck because he had been ignoring her persistent reminders and stopped answering her phone calls. Once, the factory she had engaged was not producing the products up to acceptable standards, so she went to the factory to check on the production herself.

She ended up spending almost 16 hours a day at the factory doing quality control. And she did this every day for three weeks.

“I was working longer hours than the factory workers and I was even given the keys to lock up,” she recalled.

“On the bright side, I was really touched when my mother, who is in her late 60s, cheerfully followed me to the factory to help out and to ensure I had my meals.”

Shen’s businessman father, on the other hand, was not supportive initially. He had invested his hard-earned money into her education. “But, over time, especially after he saw me working into the wee hours, he softened and gradually even started helping out with things such as packing the orders and sending them off,” she said.

Fortunately for her, now two years since she left her job, things have started to look up. Shen launched her fashion label Ms Soignée in November last year with about S$100,000 of her savings, and has since managed to break even.

The brand aims to provide high quality, well-made clothing for the modern woman, with a focus on elegant pieces that seamlessly transition from day to night.

Shen’s business is a one-woman outfit. Although she has no background in fashion, she does most things on her own — designing, sourcing, sampling, marketing, building the labels website and even modelling —and gets help with photography and logistics from friends.

FILLING THE FASHION GAP

Shen saw a gap in the market for women looking for clothes that allowed them to easily transition from day to night, without breaking the bank. “Lawyers have some really long days and I was constantly looking for pieces I could be comfortable in for 12 to 15 hours, that I could wear to client events after work and make a good impression, and that made me feel pretty and confident,” she shared. “I wanted well-made pieces that were more affordable than international designer labels. I created Ms Soignée to fill this need.”

Shen takes inspiration for her design from everyday things that she comes across and also does research on the fashion scene almost every night on social media “so that I am aware of what people are loving at the moment”.

“If there are specific details that are popular and I feel that I like them as well, I’ll then try to incorporate them into a design while still maintaining the brand aesthetic, which is feminine elegance.

“There are times when I will also (look up) fashion icons from the past such as Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly to see if I can incorporate some elements that I like from their style into the designs.”

She added: “I get inspired by a lot of things, including the fabric and trims that I see when I go sourcing — colours, textures, etc., and more often than not design ideas come to me very randomly (in the wee hours) while I’m working on other things.”

Shen’s designs are currently available online, from the Ms Soignée website (www.mssoignee.com), and from Tangs online, Sarah B at One Raffles Place and Fang Fong Projects in Hong Kong.

Although Shen has had to change her lifestyle to support this dream, she said the sacrifices have been worth it.

While she used to find happiness from shopping and going on holidays, “now I find happiness in the work I do”.