Lyssa Tan

Turning Things Around

As creative director of Caccina, Lyssa Tan sets the direction in which the furniture maker forges ahead. Last year, its furniture appeared on the runway of KL Fashion Week in a funky interiors-themed fashion show.

However, behind Caccina’s shiny upholstery, wherein materials are imported from Germany and Italy, lies a sorrowful tale that claimed two lives. It was a raging fire that engulfed the factory and turned livelihoods into a pile of ashes. One of those lives lost belonged to her relative. “During the aftermath of the incident, we felt despair, angry, unjust and lost,” she recounts. To compound the misery, the factory was not insured at the time.

But it was to her uncle’s quick wit, they embarked on the journey to swiftly pick up the pieces and start again from scratch. “The first thing my uncle did was to buy a calculator,” she says. “These people needed us to be strong so that they can be strong. These were the thoughts that kept us going.” Keeping their emotions in check, they began to work out the losses, accounts receivable and payable while prioritising the responsibilities and planning for production to resume in the shortest amount of time.

Moving forward, the company will venture into furniture customisation. “I believe that having the choice to customise one’s own furniture gives us an edge over our competitors,” she says, adding that she hopes the local furniture industry as a whole can one day be on par with its European counterpart in terms of quality, aesthetics and comfort but still competitively priced.