The Towkay legacy: why Singaporean men dress so badly

Since I have received several requests for another article on fashion, here's one that I have been wanting to do for a while. I have always been aghast at the way Singaporean men - particularly those over the age of 30 - tend to dress badly for the office. It becomes especially dreadful for Singaporean men over the age of 50 and even those Singaporean men who do have money somehow do not know how to buy nice clothes. Why is this the case?

Now there seems to be a uniform for your typical Singaporean male executives: dark formal trousers, long sleeved shirt with rolled up sleeves and glasses. Why is this look so prevalent - particularly the habit of rolling up one's sleeves? Allow me (as the fashion police) to bemoan this horrible habit. You only roll up your sleeves if you have a reason to, for example, to carry a sack of charcoal and you didn't want to get your sleeves dirty. Not wearing your shirt the way it was made to be worn indicates a certain unease in one's clothing, which seems to beg the question, "if you didn't want to cover your forearms, then why did you pick a long sleeved shirt in the first place? Why aren't you comfortable in the clothes you're wearing?" In any case, rolling up one's sleeves doesn't really make one's arms any cooler - it seems that this is a habit picked up in the army, where one often folded the sleeves of the SAF no. 4 uniform. If I may be blunt, the words "squares, nerds and geeks" comes to mind when one thinks of your typical Singaporean men.

Why do Singaporean men always roll up their sleeves?

Well, I think Singaporean men are conditioned to dress in a fairly uniform manner - from a young age, they wear school uniforms then serve national service where they have to wear a military uniform. By the time they finish their national service, many of them have never really known what it means to express one's personality through fashion for that was never allowed in school or in the military. Compare that to countries like Canada and America where they don't have a culture of school uniforms, where students could always wear their own clothes to school.

Furthermore, this is set against a backdrop of a culture of conformity - Singapore isn't a particularly liberal or progressive society, it is a very conservative Asian society. Within that context, many men will be hesitant to dress differently from the boss - dress less casually than the boss and you may risk the boss thinking that you don't take your work seriously enough. Dress more formally than the boss and you may risk the boss wondering if you're dressing up for a job interview elsewhere after work. Thus many Singaporean men ignore all fashion trends and simply default to the way their bosses dress as the path of least resistance and if fashion is sacrificed in the process, well so be it.

Look - they're all dressing like their big boss... 

The perfect excuse that Singaporean men can use is that it is very hot and humid all year round in Singapore, so the fashion has to reflect the climate - when it is 34 degrees at lunchtime, you need to dress sensibly or risk sweating profusely and nobody likes the sweat-stained look. However, this "uniform" by Singaporean males hardly reflects the climate at all. If climate were to determine attire in Singapore, then we'll all be walking around in shorts and T-shirt - but instead, all buildings are air-conditioned, so one cannot use climate as an excuse.

Perhaps to answer this question, we need to look to other cultures and find the answers there. In Europe, the aristocratic men have always had plenty of money to spend on fashion and for a long time, their fashion have always reflected their wealth and status in society. Since it only really gets hot in the summer months, for the rest of the year - clothes also served a far more basic purpose of keeping one warm, apart from declaring one's social status. Modesty about one's wealth is a fairly modern value - yes perhaps in the last 20, 30 years, some politicians have been keen to avoid ostentatious displays of wealth (especially during times of austerity), but this is going against the grain of centuries of the rich expressing their wealth through fashion. Times are changing - well, at least in the West. It does come across as very bad taste to blatantly show off one's wealth in more social contexts.

It is frowned upon to show off one's wealth in the West.

Is there such a tradition in Singapore? No, Not really. I'm casting my mind back to my childhood and the stereotypical image of the rich Chinese Towkays who were your typical rich Singaporean businessmen who have made their fortunes back in the 1970s and 1980s. The images that come to mind include these huge Mercedes Benz cars, big gold rings (and other forms of expensive jewelry like gold chains), even gold teeth so the Towkay could literally show off his wealth by simply flashing a smile. These are far more blatant expressions of wealth - ironically, the Towkay's fashion sense, once you get past the golden adornments, isn't that different from his less wealthy Singaporean peers. After all, it is not easy to tell the difference between a S$20 pair of trousers and a S$200 pair of trousers - but a flashy gold Rolex is an instantly recognizable symbol of wealth. When a Towkay wants to show off his wealth, he is not subtle.

I know that quite a number of my younger readers weren't even around in the 1980s (crikey now I feel old), so let me paint you a nostalgic picture of Singapore back then. Let's go back to 1985 and meet Mr Tow, a Towkay was 50 years old in 1985 and was born in 1935. He was born just before WW2 and has spent his early years surviving the brutal Japanese occupation of Singapore. His family lived through very hard times and had lost everything in the war. When the war was finally over in 1945, he was able to resume his education for a short while but was forced to find work to support his family a few years later after his father died.

Singapore was a very different place when Mr Tow was a child.

Mr Tow worked for a businessman who ran a hardware store and soon learned the tricks of the trade on the shop floor. As he was dealing with customers directly, he learned what their needs were, which products were most in demand and how much they were spending on these products. Over the years, Mr Tow was careful with money, saving up to start his own business - by the time he turned 28, he was able to open his own hardware store and with the knowledge he had accumulated over the years, his hardware store was extremely successful and before long, he was able to open another one - by the time he turned 50, Mr Tow had a chain of hardware stores across Singapore.

Someone like Mr Tow never had any formal education nor would you consider him "posh" by our modern standards, but then again, we forget just how westernized my generation has become because we're judging someone like Mr Tow by very modern standards rather than seeing him within the context of his local culture.We may say, "Mr Tow doesn't appreciate high art, never mind going to the opera or the ballet, the closest he has been to the theatre was watching his daughter's primary school play - thus he lacks cultural refinement." Whilst that may be true, the bulk of Mr Tow's peers would have never ever been to the opera either - whilst going to the opera, ballet or theatre would be far less of a big deal for younger Singaporeans who have had the benefit of a great education that Mr Tow never had.

Mr Tow has never been to the theatre.

Allow me to be blunt: the typical Singaporean Towkay in the 1980s was neither posh nor classy - he wasn't highly educated and typically didn't speak much or any English. He was the kind of businessman who thrived on pure business acumen and is a self-made man, creating a business empire out of nothing. So whilst he may not know his Shakespeare from his Chaucer and he may dress like a taxi driver, he can walk into any car showroom in town and buy the most expensive car available. Such is the kind of "new wealth" that one associates with many booming Asian economies - contrast this to "old wealth" that we are more familiar with in the West, where the wealth has been passed down from generation to generation, managed carefully to ensure that there is always enough to leave a legacy.

There is much snobbery in the West amongst the aristocrats - those in the upper class will use subtle pieces of information such as your accent, the way you dress, your knowledge of certain cultural bookmarks and the things you talk about to determine if your place in society, ie. your social class. It is a subtle code of conduct that the upper classes use to differentiate themselves from those who have not had the wealth to buy them a refined upbringing. This kind of British class-based snobbery in Asia is rare - snobbery in Asia is based purely on wealth and it doesn't matter if your family has had that wealth for ten generations or ten weeks. It is only amongst those Singaporeans who are rather anglicized who have adopted this notion of social class.

The British have a very clear concept of social class.

This is why men in the West, particularly those who work in certain industries like banking and law, are very mindful of the way they dress because they want to make sure they send out the right signals when it comes to telling others what their social status is. However in Singapore, nobody cares because those rules simply do not apply in Asia - or at least, a totally different set of rules apply. It's bizarre to me at least, being the guy from Ang Mo Kio who has spent half his life in Europe, because Singapore may have the trappings of a very westernized society on the outside - but it has well and truly rejected the British concept of social class despite being a former British colony. It is simply a cultural concept that just doesn't translate very well into a Singaporean context.

Hence what Singaporeans have is a far more egalitarian approach to fashion - whether you're the super rich Towkay or a taxi driver, you dress pretty much the same way. It is like an unspoken rule that Singaporean men have chosen to obey, maybe because both the millionaire Towkay and the humble taxi driver have had to wear uniforms at school and during national service and they have that shared experience. So whilst the modern Singaporean executive may conform when it comes to the way he dresses, he would gladly splash out on an expensive branded accessory - like a watch or belt which may cost a lot more than all the other items of clothing he is wearing. In this day and age, this luxury accessory can be high tech: such as a mobile phone, extremely expensive wallets, pens and bags from Louis Vuitton - that is his way to say, "I'm rich, I can afford to spend thousands of dollars on this Rolex watch and Louis Vuitton bag. Hey everyone, look at me, look at my symbols of wealth, I can afford this expensive item!" This is the modern day equivalent of the Towkay's gold teeth - somewhat less tacky but still a long way to go if you want to be classy.

LV are doing very well in Singapore.

Therein lies the juxtaposition - on one hand, the men do conform when it comes to dressing a certain way, on the other hand, they seem pretty keen to show off their wealth by donning very expensive branded accessories. Why the contradiction? I find this puzzling - but I suppose there is a sense of "follow the leader" here. If the big boss, the Towkay, is dressing a certain way, then the younger men will emulate his style without raising any philosophical questions about the apparent contradiction. For me, the question is not so much philosophical, but a more straight forward one concerning fashion: why spend so much money on a watch or a pen when you can spend that money on nice clothes? I would gladly wear a cheap watch and spend that money instead of beautiful shirts and suits - but then again, that's not what Singaporean men do. They will spend relatively little on very plain office wear and splurge out on a Louis Vuitton wallet or Gucci belt. I don't get it - it just doesn't make sense to me.

I suppose the answer lies in the purpose of fashion in each subculture - in the West, such an ostentatious display of an expensive accessory would be dismissed as 'bling': a desperate attempt to show off, but in Asia, many sales executives might feel obliged to show up at business meetings armed to the teeth with branded accessories because they fear they won't be taken seriously or "look cheap" if they do not show that they can afford such expensive luxuries. Turning up in a shirt with the wrong kind of collar at a meeting could instantly send the wrong kind of message to a client in London, but in Singapore, I hardly think anyone would notice the collar on your shirt - people simply do not judge others that way. (But yes, I would. Gosh, that makes me very unSingaporean by that token.)

Would you notice the kind of collar on his shirt?

Every society values something different within their culture - take the Japanese for example, who place so much emphasis on being polite. Honorific speech in the Japanese language will confuse most learners of the language as they take being polite to a whole new level! Conjugating a verb wrongly during a business meeting in Tokyo may cause grave insult and result in a multibillion yen deal falling through. Likewise, in South Korea, they place as much emphasis on not just being polite but showing respect to your elders, such as in the way you hold your cup in their presence or how you pass an item across the table. This complex Korean system of showing respect through your body language (especially with your hands/arms) is neatly explained by Simon & Martina of EatyourKimchi here.

Now in Singapore, there isn't there equivalent of honorific speech in Japanese culture - the business language is English and it is a very relaxed, informal form of English. The Korean complex system of showing your elders respect through body language does not exist in Singaporean culture either. On the surface, it does seem like Singaporeans are far more laid back and informal then their northern Asian counterparts - but perhaps, simply, a different set of rules apply in the Singaporean context and it makes perfect sense to the locals.

Here's my interpretation: they say imitation is the best form of flattery and whether or not younger Singaporean men are doing it deliberately, they are showing respect to their elders (think older Towkays) by simply dressing as badly as them, thus creating a culture where bad dress sense is normalized or at least the average level of style is kept so low that nobody is going to say, "he drives a Mercedes Benz, he has a gold Rolex, he has all that money but he still dresses like a taxi driver. Aiyoh, oh dear. All the money in the world can't buy you class."

I can't possibly work in a place where I had to conform with my peers.

Maybe it is the ultimate gesture of respect - one that I would never offer my boss. Heck, I dress so much better than my two bosses and they're totally fine with it because they value different things: a Towkay in Singapore may value a "yes man", someone who is very good at taking orders without asking any stupid questions, someone who will just do as he is told and there are plenty of businesses which do operate like that (though that does remind me very much of the military where "yes sir" is the standard answer). However, there are businesses where your boss will expect you to bring something to the table, rather than be spoon-fed instructions on an hourly basis. Thus there are businesses where quirky individuals are allowed to be as quirky as they like - whilst in other businesses, trying to express your personality at work may be interpreted as disrespect to the big boss.

Hence in Singapore, most (though not all) men simply default to the mode where they show their bosses respect by imitating them. I doubt this is a conscious decision actually, it is more a case of, "if everyone in the office dresses like that, I had better conform or else I may risk not being seen as a team player. I don't want to stand out for the wrong reasons. And if the Towkay (and everyone else on the team) wears an expensive watch, then I need one too."

Conforming with everyone else may just make you miserable like them.

Furthermore, there is an absolutely massive generation gap between someone like Mr Tow and myself. When it comes to fashion, I use very modern standards. I would use the internet to access information about fashion, I would do my research online. With my laptop, I can easily find out what the trendiest K-pop idols are wearing this week in Seoul or shop for bargains online from retailers who ship worldwide. The fashion industry has gone very high tech - your older Singaporean Towkay would be clueless about Instagram, Flickr, Twitter and Tumblr. So it is understandable why your older Towkay's taste in fashion may be frozen in time (say 1985), but this still doesn't explain why much younger, internet-savvy Singaporean men are seemingly oblivious to any notions of fashion.

Back in the 1980s, before the age of the internet, fashion trends were slow to spread - Singaporeans in 1985 would learn about foreign fashion trends through imported magazines, TV programmes and movies. However, in the 2014, with the help of social media, many younger Singaporeans are now a lot more aware of international fashion trends. Besides, a lot more fashion in now available in Singapore: back in 1985, the places you could shop were far more limited: OG, CK Tangs, Robinsons and Metro were the big names back then and there were also more down to earth options in the HDB estates. Nowadays, Singaporean teenagers have a pick of H&M, A&F, Bershka, Pull & Bear and countless other foreign fashion labels who have set up shop in Singapore. So the fashion is available - you just have to go shopping on Orchard Road, the information is there - you just have to go online: but in spite of all that, Singaporean men are still so badly dressed in 2014. Tsk tsk - Singaporean women don't seem to have that problem!

ION Orchard - a glitzy mall in Singapore.

Will this trend persist in the coming years? I don't think so actually! Firstly, if Mr Tow is still alive today, he would be 79 years old and he would definitely be retired. The people in top management today (between the ages of 55 and 64) would have been born after 1950 - that means that most of them would have at least had a decent education, unlike Mr Tow whose education was unfortunately interrupted by the Japanese invasion in WW2. Yes, I am drawing a correlation between snobbery and education (and Singaporeans are oh so obsessed with academic achievements) - this is so clearly an controversial issue in Singapore today where people would readily discriminate against those who are not as well educated as themselves. So much for Singaporean becoming an egalitarian utopia. Towkays like Mr Tow would become increasingly rare with time as those who do become rich in Singapore today tend to be those who are highly educated and received a lot of help from their parents rather than those who have started with nothing but struggled against the odds. With better education will come more cultural refinement and (hopefully) that will improve one's fashion sense; and Towkays like Mr Tow will eventually become extinct.

Our attitudes as a society are also evolving very quickly - this was probably something that most older Singaporeans did not anticipate. Since the main language of instruction in all Singaporean schools is English, this meant that a whole generation of Singaporeans have grown up with English as a first language as their Asian mother tongue as a second language at best. This meant that much of the media they consume and their sources of influences are in the English language, from the West. Thus an undergraduate in Singapore today may pick someone like Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs as his role model, rather than fashion himself after the nearest local Towkay. 

Tom Daley is a role model for loads of young people around the world.

Change is also coming to Singaporean society in the form of a large expatriate work force, bringing with them a different set of values and work ethics to the work place. A young Singaporean graduate today may end up working for a British or Swiss boss instead of someone like Mr Tow and would be in a very different kind of environment compared to his peers who do choose to work for a Towkay like Mr Tow. Many Singaporeans who were educated abroad and have worked abroad may bring back a totally different management style, encouraging a different kind of office environment where workers feel far less of a need to conform with everyone else in the company.

Lastly, this influx of foreign competition into Singapore turns up the heat on the locals - perhaps back in the 1980s, you could get by if you simply kept your head down, be a yes man, conform and blend in; there was less competition back then and there were enough jobs for everyone. But as the population increases towards 6.9 million, you could no longer just conform and hope to get by - no, you will need to work harder than your peers, prove that you are better than your peers and rise above the competition by standing out from the crowd rather than just blending in. Perhaps it will be this new 'competition' factor that will finally change the culture of conformity in Singapore.

Will it be the density of population that will be the catalyst for many social changes?

But for now, I think such changes are still at least 10 if not 20 years away, at least. Social changes like that usually take a rather long time in Singapore. That's it from me on why Singaporean men dress so badly. In part two, I shall prepare you for the day when you decide that you can no longer just conform but will need to outshine the competition: the first step about going into corporate battle is to waltz into the office looking so much better than everyone else (Limpeh's art of war). I will offer some simple tips as to how you can look just a bit smarter than everyone else in the office. If you have any questions on the issue of men's fashion, please feel free to leave a comment - thanks for reading.