Monica Millington was only 14 years old when she met the boy who would eventually be her husband. Her journey in life then led to her creating a labour of love: Menswear brand Tropick, whose boardroom-to-beach concept is making waves. Options sits down for a chat with this Texan lass to discover a love story that transcended time and space.
Monica Millington, founder and creative director of Singapore-based menswear brand Tropick, was only 14 when she met the boy who would eventually become her husband. It is this same boy, who — one decade and two continents later — inspired the creation of Tropick, whose ‘No Sweat’ men’s classic work shirt is creating waves in the industry. Slender, gorgeous with blonde hair and blessed with a smile that lights up a room, Millington — who hails from Texas in the US — had initially conceived the idea for a shirt which would suit her heat-averse British husband, who struggled with the humidity and heat of the tropics. What emerged was the Tropick “No Sweat Shirt”, which is made from a hybrid blend of nylon and elastane to recreate the cooling, moisture-wicking, wrinkle-resistant and sweat-resistant features of athletic wear but with the comfort, style and luxe feel of a classic men’s shirt. “It started as a joke between me and my husband, when I first moved to Singapore back in 2017. He is very hygienic, but he is also very sweaty,” she says, laughing. “It became a running joke that we should get his tailor to make him a shirt out of Nike Dri-FIT material.” That joke later seeded an idea which took shape when she wanted to leave her corporate job to focus on more creative work. “The conversation became less of a joke, and more of a [realisation] that no one else was doing it out here,” she adds.
Entrepreneurial spirit

Love story
In 2005, when she was 14, Millington’s family went on a trip to a resort in Mexico — the same holiday they would take pretty much every year. “So every summer we went to this same resort in Mexico with my family for a week. Me and my sister, we would always kind of look out for cute guys. We definitely fancied ourselves a bit like Mary Kate and Ashley (Olsen), in a movie, having a holiday boyfriend,” she says, laughing. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were child stars. At the height of their fame in the late 1990s, the twins were teen icons who starred in a number of romantic comedies. “On one of the last of these trips we went on, when we were checking in, there was a cute guy in the lobby. And we were kind of like, “Hey, check him out”,” Millington recalls. Later that day, as they were at the pool, they saw him there as well. “I went up and bumped into him ‘accidentally’,” she adds. She introduced herself, found out his name (Tom), and this sparked a lovely summer romance between them. “I didn’t see my family for the rest of the trip because I was off with Tom, the cute guy from England. And we had a super romantic, super innocent relationship at 14, and we spent the whole week together. When we were saying goodbye, I was crying and we had this huge tear-filled goodbye.”Sustainable fashion
