BRANDON AND JULIEN LEO
It was a quiet, misty saturday morning in may. we were in Brooklyn, right at the corner of John Street and Adam Street, and we’ve got quite the view. Mae Tan, and twins Brandon and Julien Leo are nailing this issue’s cover shot, in front of the majestic dusty‑blue Manhattan Bridge, which is shrouded in fog. The three Singaporeans are old friends, who haven’t seen each other in a while— the Leo twins have been studying in New York City for the past two years, while Mae will be moving over in August. Both their families are influential retail players in Asia, but these scions have dropped everything to make their own way here.
MARCHING TO THEIR OWN BEAT
Brandon and Julien are the 23-year-old twin sons of Tina Tan‑leo and Lionel Leo, prominent names and entrepreneurs in Singapore’s fashion retail scene during the 1990s and early 2000s. Mum was most noted for founding fashion retailer The Link Group, and bringing in the Gianni Versace brand onto our shores in the late 1970s. She’s now focused on Privato, a company that curates luxury trunk shows for top private customers. “Dad’s company is One Road Capital, which works on various projects related to China’s Belt and Road initiative,” explains Julien, the younger of the two brothers. While they used to help out with Privato trunk shows, now they’ve got music on their minds and are working hard to make a name of themselves in the notoriously tough industry. The twins are studying at the Gallatin School of Individualised Study, a college within New York University (NYU) that offers them the flexibility to create their own interdisciplinary course. There, they blend music, film, acting and business courses. Outside of school, they create music together under the name Sky 2, which is derived from their Chinese names Tien You and Tien Tong ( tien means “sky” in Mandarin), as well as with a larger musical group called Kin Collective. “We are releasing an EP under Kin Collective at the end of this summer, along with a music video or two,” reveals Julien. “We take data analytics classes in school, so we use the data from putting these new tracks on Spotify and Youtube to understand who our audience are, and shape our future projects accordingly,” affirms Brandon.
DOUBLE TAKES
The twins bring bromance to a whole new level. It may be no surprise how in sync both of them are with each other— after all, they do live together, go to the same school and create music together. When we first meet, I could only tell them apart by their hairstyles. They seem so identical beyond their looks too: same musical heroes, mannerisms, and very adorably, the way they encourage each other when they nail a picture during our photo shoot, with their secret handshake. But by the second day, I realise that they are, in fact, each other’s yin and yang. In music, they specialise in very different but complementary roles. They play to each other’s strengths and finish each other’s sentences. “Before moving to NYC, we gave ourselves a self-imposed deadline to release a few songs. Because we were so consumed by that project, the fact that we were relocating didn’t hit us until we stepped on the plane,” explains Brandon. “So when we arrived, we were extremely homesick for the first couple of months.” Then they started soaking up the vibe of the city. Julien reveals, “I love this city. With every couple of blocks, New York is a different town with different people and establishments. Walking that extra block or taking a scenic route always results in a new discovery.” “Here’s the thing about New York too. Everyone is hustling. They say it’s a city of dreams, but that happens only if you put your heart and soul into it,” says Brandon. They are currently living in the Hell’s Kitchen area in Manhattan with their older brother, Sean, who just graduated from the NYU Stern School of Business with a double major in accounting and finance, and suggested to Mae that she should move into the same neighbourhood. In fact, they started marking out available apartments in their building for her almost immediately after this Singapore Tatler photo shoot ended.
“We take data analytics classes in school, so we use the data from putting these new tracks on Spotify and Youtube to understand who our audience are, and shape our future projects accordingly”