THE RETAIL WHIZ: MAE TAN

Who she is: Mae Tan (seated), the 22-year-old marketing creative breathing new life into Orchard Road, seen here with her posse of staff.

Why know her: It takes a millennial to translate the cult of luxury streetwear to the every man, and Tan is that person. 2017 saw her orchestrating some of the biggest luxury-meets-streetwear launches in Singapore: from the collaborative collection between Surrender and Los Angeles-based artists DRx Romanelli and Cali Thornhill DeWitt (the latter was responsible for Kanye West’s “Life of Pablo” merch), to the pop-up store within Surrender for the highly coveted Louis Vuitton x Fragment collection. Then there’s the standalone store for Virgil Abloh’s Off-White, opened in 2016 under the Surrender Group at 268 Orchard Road – a bold move considering the ongoing retail woes of the “lacklustre mammoth” (how she describes Orchard Road). Will she be its saviour? Only time will tell. What’s next: She’s keeping quiet, but expect an “exciting launch party for an upcoming brand addition to (Surrender’s) curation” come year-end.