Kan’s foray into jewellery design began in 2008 when she decided to take a year-long break from her job as managing director of M&C Saatchi Singapore. She tried her hand at several ventures, including running a supper club and importing boutique champagnes. Then, she packed her bags, flew to Florence, rented an apartment and studied the language. There, she met a silversmith who took her under her wing. “I could not speak Italian and she could not speak English. We mostly communicated by pointing at objects,” she recalls. She worked in her mentor’s tiny atelier, learning how to forge silver pieces. “She would show me a piece she made and point at certain tools to show me how to make it,” Kan says. Her first piece was a dome-shaped ring with a lot of holes. Her mentor raised an eyebrow — it was certainly not a conventional design. But Kan could not care less. She had found her calling. “I’d never felt as much joy and satisfaction as I did the moment I finished making that ring. It was something I knew I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” she says. For the remainder of her time in Italy, she wandered down alleyways, making friends with local artisans. “I would spend my days getting lost and just barging into a designer’s studio,” she says. When she returned to Singapore, Carrie K was officially born. She converted her kitchen into a workshop- cum-retail space. She also enrolled in a two-year jewellery design course at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Nafa). In 2010, her brand was voted Jewellery Design of the Year by Elle Singapore. Local retailers such as The Society of Black Sheep at Marina Bay Sands started stocking her jewellery and US and Japanese brands followed suit. Last year, Carrie K bagged the Designer of the Year award presented at the Singapore Fashion Awards, giving it more opportunities to tap Asian markets. Today, Carrie K is sold in eight countries and the label has appeared in global fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Chinese actress Angelababy is a fan.
Kan is the best advocate for Carrie K. She wears the label’s jewellery religiously, switching from one collection to another. But there is a set of rings she never takes off. Her husband, Chiew Huan Chong, made them. “We often bounce ideas off each other. One day, I told him I wanted to create something using Morse code. He quietly went off and made [these]. [The rings] have my initials and his.” The Morse Bling collection was the couple’s effort at creating a secret code for lovers. Chiew, who used to work in the aluminium industry, is head of production at Carrie K. He had also taken a two-year jewellery-making course at Nafa at the same time as his wife. “I never thought I would enjoy being with someone 24 hours a day, always discussing stuff, but I guess we complement each other. Whenever I come up with a hare-brained idea, he comes up with the engineering for it,” Kan says. Her Reborn collection, one of her quirkiest, was launched in 2011. It stars the unsung heroes of everyday life such as nuts, bolts, safety pins and nails. “They remind me of the unsung heroes in my life; without them, my life would fall apart,” she says. Her mother, an optometrist, is one such person. She was one of Kan’s biggest supporters when Carrie K was started. “Being a jewellery designer is very good. Whatever you cannot sell, you can melt down and make into something else,” her mother had said. Giving back to society
Now that Carrie K is established, Kan wants to help local designers. It was hard for her — even with 12 years of experience in events management, sales and advertising — to strike out on her own, let alone someone fresh out of school. In 2011, Kan founded Keepers to showcase homegrown designs and products. Keepers is housed in the same premises as her atelier. Three years later, she organised a 16-month pop-up space, Keepers: Singapore Designer Collective, with the help of the Textile and Fashion Federation. The space took up 4,300 sq ft at Orchard and showcased a diverse range of home-grown creations from hundreds of designers.
