The Crowd at Orchard Road: An Essay on Diversity, Desire, and the Urban Theatre of Watching
In front of ION Orchard—Singapore’s glittering cathedral of commerce—the photograph captured not simply a performance crowd, but a cross-section of the city’s social life, gathered on the terraced steps designed precisely for this purpose: to watch, to rest, to be entertained, to linger.
If the knife-thrower is the performer, then the audience is the mirror in which the city sees itself.
This photograph, is an anthropological tableau—an accidental census of who chooses to stop, who chooses to stay, and who chooses to watch.
Race and Cultural Identity: A Gathering of Southeast Asia
The image reveals a crowd that is heavily Southeast Asian in composition. Many appear to be Filipinos—faces marked by familiar expressions, dress styles, and family clustering patterns common among the Filipino community in Singapore. The camera capture mothers, groups of women, domestic workers on off-days, young couples, and children, all present with an ease that Orchard Road affords them on Sundays.
Interspersed among them are Chinese Singaporeans, Malay families, Indian and Bangladeshi workers, and a few Caucasian faces.
This mosaic mirrors Singapore’s multicultural composition—but also the social rhythms of Orchard Road: Sundays attract Filipino domestic workers gathering after church. Evenings draw tourists and residents alike. The festive season (approaching Christmas) amplifies the diversity.
This is not the crowd inside ION’s luxury boutiques. This is the people’s Orchard Road—the public plaza where race blends into convivial togetherness.
Age Range: From Toddlers to the Elderly—A Multigenerational Public**
The crowd spans generations: toddlers yawning in their mothers’ arms, children sitting wide-eyed, teenagers leaning casually, adults filming with phones, middle-aged workers resting their legs, older women gazing with folded arms.
This is not a curated target demographic.
It is a naturally occurring urban microcosm—a rare moment where all ages converge around a shared point of interest.
Gender Balance: Heavily Female, Softened by Family Groups
The image shows a noticeable tilt toward women. This is consistent with Orchard Road’s Sunday patterns: Many female domestic workers come here on their rest days. Women gather in groups for companionship, shopping, church, and strolling. Men appear in smaller numbers, often with partners or children.
Where men are present, they look relaxed—arms folded, hands behind backs, children perched on shoulders. The women, on the other hand, display expressive engagement, holding phones, smiling widely, leaning forward with interest.
It is the women who animate the scene.
Buying Power and Consumption Patterns: Middle-Class, Worker-Class, and Tourist Economics Overlapping
Look at the bags scattered around: ION and TANGS premium shopping bags; Plastic bags with inexpensive snacks; Backpacks stuffed with belongings; Gifts and food containers for the day; Tourist souvenirs
This suggests a stratified yet harmonious range of consumption: Tourists with branded shopping; Local middle-class families after dining or shopping; Migrant workers enjoying affordable snacks and time together; Young Singaporeans casually browsing and filming.
This is Orchard Road’s real economic spectrum, where high luxury and everyday thrift coexist in the same urban square.
Dress and Fashion: Comfort and Occasion in a Singaporean Manner
The fashions here are telling: Women in light blouses, floral dresses, jeans, or athleisure fits; Men in polo shirts, shorts, or cotton tees; Children dressed for comfort; Hijabi women in modest pastel or earthy tones; Domestic workers in practical attire—shirts, leggings, slippers, crossbody bags; Occasionally more polished outfits for Christmas mall photo-taking.
The warm humidity of Singapore shapes the attire: breathable, practical, cheerful.
This is not a fashion-forward crowd, but a comfort-forward one.
Yet within this, individuality shines through—bold earrings, tidy hair buns, bright lipstick, patterned dresses, a sense of dignity carried in simplicity.
Demeanor: Joy, Curiosity, Fatigue, Contemplation—All at Once**
Here is where the image becomes extraordinary.
Within a single frame, one see the full emotional range of being human: Joy – the woman grinning widely, the children squealing. Curiosity – phones raised, heads tilted. Tiredness – women with arms folded, shoulders slumped. Suspension – people pausing their day to watch something unexpected. Civic togetherness – strangers sitting shoulder to shoulder without discomfort.
Some faces show a deep sense of relief of the weekend, others a longing for distraction. This mixed demeanor is the psychology of public crowds: we come as individuals, but we become part of a collective mood.
Residents or Tourists? A Blended Public, But With Distinct Patterns**
From reading the attire, faces, behavior, and bags: Majority are residents—especially Filipinos, Malaysians, Singaporeans, and long-term workers. Some are tourists—likely the Caucasian couples, certain Chinese tourists with shopping bags, and the camera-clicking visitors. Few are hardcore shoppers—this area is slightly removed from the luxury stores, attracting watchers rather than purchasers.
This is the democratic face of Orchard Road—where the expensive and the ordinary meet on equal ground.
The Social Significance: A Stage for the Public Life Singapore Rarely Shows.
In this photograph, the knife-thrower’s performance is secondary. The real spectacle is the people—the diversity, the emotional openness, the ease of gathering in a public space.
Singapore is often portrayed as efficient, orderly, economically driven. But here, the photograph reveals another truth: Singapore is also a city of spontaneous social joy, shared moments, and multicultural presence—not in controlled settings but in open streets.
This is the genius loci of Orchard Road as public plaza:
a place where strangers become audience members, where race dissolves into shared laughter, where the rhythms of work and rest briefly equalise.
In the End, What Do We Really See?
We see a city that—despite its hierarchies and economic divides—still knows how to gather. We see communities finding joy outside malls they cannot afford to shop in. We see families resting between errands. We see migrant workers claiming public space with dignity. We see tourists absorbing the local flavour. We see the democratic beauty of a crowd.
And through the lens, the crowd becomes more than a crowd.
It becomes a portrait of Singapore itself:
diverse, layered, expressive, and always—quietly—human.
The Walk: An Essay on Presence, Clothing, and the Unconscious Signals of the Street
She moves through the frame with a sense of sharpened presence—shoulders squared, steps assured, her figure cutting across the pavement like a line drawn with purpose. Yet what arrests the viewer is not merely her stride, but the constellation of intentional and unintentional signals gathered around her body: the clothes she wears, the fragments they reveal, the plastic bag she carries, and the surrounding urban stage that witnesses her passage.
The first correction one must make is to name the object in her hand accurately: it is a white plastic bag, not a fabric tote. This detail matters. A canvas tote suggests choice, style, and a curated identity. A plastic bag, however, speaks of immediacy—an errand just done, a quick purchase, a utilitarian gesture. Its translucency reveals nothing, yet its crumpled form hints at the ephemeral nature of everyday movement in the city. She carries not an accessory but a necessity, a byproduct of urban flow.
Yet the plastic bag, for all its mundanity, becomes a counterpoint to her outfit:
one fluid and formless, the other structured and deliberate.
Her clothing is the true visual centrepiece of the scene. The top crosses her torso in diagonal folds, wrapping her figure with an architectural tension—as though a designer were sketching lines across moving flesh. The trousers descend in narrow vertical pleats. Together, these forms create a geometry of intersecting axes: diagonals, verticals, slight curves. It is a look that suggests, even in movement, a consciousness of the aesthetic self.
But then comes the rupture: the exposed strip of white at her waist.
The eye cannot ignore it. It is a wedge of brightness, a slice of unambiguous contrast against the dark tones of her outfit. At its centre, the brand name “Pink” sits with casual confidence.
Pink: the youthful sub-brand of Victoria’s Secret.
A symbol associated with campus life, athleisure ease, and Westernised expressions of casual sensuality.
Its appearance here—deliberate or accidental—becomes a cultural note.
This flash of branding does not simply name a garment; it names an identity performance. Whether intended or not, it inserts the language of Americanised youth culture into the visual vocabulary of an urban Asian street. And by appearing in the interstice between top and trouser, it forms a midpoint in the composition— a hinge between concealment and display, modesty and assertion, intention and accident.
One cannot help but ask:
Was this revealing of the waistband purposefully styled, or merely the natural result of motion?
Does she walk with the awareness of that branded flash, or is she oblivious to its communicative power?
Does the city read her differently because of it?
This small wedge of fabric becomes the focal point of a deeper social reading. Contemporary fashion theorists often argue that the body speaks most honestly when it speaks unconsciously—through slipped waistbands, exposed straps, the asymmetry of bags, the tensions between clothing choices and daily chores. Here, the brand “Pink” disrupts the austere elegance of her dark, structured outfit. It announces playfulness beneath intentionality, softness beneath angles, youthfulness beneath composure.
The context amplifies this tension. She walks beside a cartoonish mural—a childlike figure with rounded shapes and exaggerated innocence. This figure, painted onto the built environment, becomes an unsuspecting commentator on her adult poise. There is something almost cinematic in this juxtaposition: the cultivated modern woman passing by a flattened symbol of childhood, as though the city were reminding her—reminding us—of the layered lives we inhabit on our way from one place to another.
Behind her, a man walks, but he is rendered peripheral—dressed in white, blurred slightly, his presence secondary. She commands the frame not because the camera chooses her, but because her figure draws the camera’s unseen attention. Her stride asserts itself as a declaration of place, a form of urban citizenship enacted with each step.
And yet, nothing is overtly theatrical. She is not performing for the viewer; she is performing for herself, for her day, for the errands ahead, for the private momentum that propels her from one corner of the city to the next. This is the psychology of the walk: a choreography of intention and accident, woven together in the fabric of public life.
The photograph captures this with quiet precision.
It asks:
What do our clothes reveal about us when we are not looking?
What unconscious stories leak through the seams and waistbands of our public selves?
What does it mean to walk in a world that constantly reads, interprets, and categorises our bodies?
It is in this interplay—between plastic bag and structured outfit, between exposed waistband and confident stride, between adult presence and cartoon mural—that the city breathes its meanings. Every passer-by becomes a brief essay in motion. Every step writes a line into the ever-unfolding text of urban life.
And in this moment, the camera caught a sentence of that text mid-formation—sharp, honest, and quietly profound.
The Quiet Weight Behind the Counter: An Essay on Gesture, Labour, and the Interior Lives of Lucky Plaza
There are moments in photography where the world reveals itself not through action, but through pause—through the brief suspension of movement in which an inner truth emerges. In this photograph, a woman sits behind a counter stacked with bread and snacks, her hand resting upon her forehead in a gesture at once ordinary and profound. It is a small gesture, almost invisible amid the surrounding clutter, yet it carries the entire emotional architecture of her world.
And perhaps, the real question the image asks is this: What do we truly see when we witness someone in the midst of their quiet struggle?
The shelves in the foreground form a literal barrier, but also a symbolic one—the everyday structures that separate workers from public visibility. Buns and plastic packaging occupy the viewer’s eye before the woman does. This is the design of service economies: the goods come first; the human behind them becomes backdrop. Yet the photograph reverses this order. It asks the viewer to peer through the shelves, to notice the person who is usually unseen, to recognise the emotional life behind the economy of small transactions.
Her hand on her forehead is a gesture known across cultures. Psychologists describe it as a self-regulating gesture—a way the body tries to soothe and stabilise itself under stress or emotional weight. But this simple act, in this setting, becomes something larger. What occupies her mind in that suspended second? Is she counting the day’s earnings? Thinking of her children thousands of miles away? Calculating remittances, rent, or the next shift? Or is she simply tired in a way that cannot be neatly described?
The photograph does not answer. It does something more powerful: it opens a space for question.
A handwritten sign on the wall reads “Phone Charging $2.00,” a detail easy to miss yet impossibly telling. In this micro-economy, even electricity becomes survival. A charger becomes income. This is the ecology of diaspora labour—where small resources become lifelines and where every corner of the shop holds evidence of ingenuity and endurance.
And here, the interior of the shop speaks its own language. Woven plastic panels, a fan oscillating in the dimness, a string of weak LED lights: this is a space pieced together not from abundance but from necessity. It is not polished, yet it functions. It is not elegant, yet it shelters. How many stories live in these makeshift walls? How many hours passed here that the city above never notices?
There is a psychological dimension to this space. It is a place of waiting: waiting for customers, waiting for breaks, waiting for paydays, waiting—perhaps most painfully—for messages from home. In that waiting, time stretches; the mind drifts; the body protects itself through small gestures. A hand lifted to the forehead becomes both shield and anchor.
And the viewer cannot help but ask: What worlds are carried in the silence of such gestures?
What burdens do people quietly bear in the spaces we overlook?
What does it mean to dwell in a city that depends on you but rarely sees you?
The photograph answers none of these directly. Instead, it becomes a mirror in which the viewer must confront their own assumptions. Are we willing to look past the shelves of products and acknowledge the human stories behind them? Are we prepared to see labour not merely as service, but as emotional endurance? Are we able to recognise the dignity that persists even in the smallest, most fragile corners of the city?
The beauty of this image lies in its restraint. It does not dramatize hardship. It does not sensationalize struggle. It offers a simple gesture, and within it, an entire social cosmos. The viewer is invited to sit with uncertainty, to dwell with empathy, to lean into the question rather than retreat from it.
In the end, the photograph becomes a meditation on presence—the presence of a woman who holds herself together for another day of work, the presence of a place that shelters the unspoken stories of migrant life, and the presence of a moment where humanity becomes visible through the faintest movement of a hand.
And perhaps this is the real spirit of Lucky Plaza that the lens reveals: that beneath the commerce, the crowds, the noise, lies a world of quiet courage—lived one gesture at a time.
A Place Made of Hands and Mirrors: The Genius Loci of a Lucky Plaza Salon
In the photograph, one encounters not a simple interior, but a world—dense, inhabited, alive with the murmurs of labour and waiting. This is Lucky Plaza, though not the Lucky Plaza of architectural diagrams or commercial maps. It is the Lucky Plaza of lived experience, of ritual, of community-making. Seen through a phenomenological eye, this salon reveals itself as a place, in the richest sense articulated by Christian Norberg-Schulz: a locus that gathers human life into a meaningful whole.
To speak of a genius loci here is not to invoke the mythical guardian spirits of ancient Roman landscapes, but to attend to the spirit that arises from the orchestration of light, objects, gestures, and human presence. The salon becomes an existential structure—one that orients individuals within their world and allows them to identify themselves within it.
The first impression is density. The space is crowded, yet not oppressive. The bodies of workers and customers form a choreography of proximity: shoulders nearly touching, hands brushing past one another, tools passed silently from one station to the next. This is not chaos; it is a rhythm. It is the spatial form of a community that has learned to dwell together in limited terrain. Lucky Plaza is a place where space is not expansive, but shared, and thus becomes a place of intimacy.
Mirrors define the visual field. They fracture and multiply the scene, creating a hall of reflections in which no single identity is fixed nor fully revealed. Norberg-Schulz would say that mirrors do not merely reflect people—they reveal the structure of the world they inhabit. Each reflected fragment of a face or hand speaks to the way life in diaspora is lived: in portions, in intervals, in pieces that must be assembled into coherence. The woman in the right mirror panel, half lost in her thoughts and half illuminated by the salon’s fluorescent glow, embodies this split existence. She sits in Singapore, but her mind traverses oceans.
The lighting of the scene—flat, cool, and unyielding—is typical of interior commercial spaces. But in this context, it conveys a particular atmosphere. It is the light of routine, the light of spaces that never rest and must be perpetually inhabited by labour. Norberg-Schulz insisted that light shapes character. Here, light reveals a world without shadows—a world of exposure, where everything is visible, everything is in use, everything participates in the daily maintenance of selfhood. For migrant workers, whose lives in the city may feel suspended, fragmented, or anonymous, this salon becomes a temporary place of grounding. It offers a predictable brightness, an ordered set of gestures, a moment of being tended to.
Objects play an important role. Brushes, bottles, spray cans, bags, boxes, and wires populate the foreground like small architectural elements. These are not merely tools—they are anchors of habituated life. Their arrangement suggests familiarity and repetition. The workers know exactly where each item must be placed. The customers recognise the ritual of grooming as something known from back home. In this way, the objects constitute a continuity between distant homelands and their current dwelling place.
The salon’s openness to the mall corridor—visible on the left edge—suggests permeability. There is no rigid boundary between interior and exterior. The public flows into the private world of grooming. The private spills outward into the mall’s circulation. Norberg-Schulz valued such thresholds; they are places where the world gathers and redistributes meaning. This salon is not hermetically sealed; it is porous. It invites the mall-goer to see, to pause, to recognise that this is a community for whom the act of grooming is not luxury, but necessity—an expression of dignity in transit.
Most importantly, the photograph captures the atmosphere of care. Hands feature prominently—hands cutting, hands brushing, hands gripping combs, hands holding phones. Hands create the world here. The spirit of the place is shaped by these hands: their tireless work, their practised gestures, their role in sustaining the daily lives of others. This is the existential foothold Norberg-Schulz speaks of. Care is the architecture that holds this place together.
In many salons, the experience is individual: one sits, one is styled, one leaves. But here, the experience is communal. The women waiting in the background are not isolated figures; they are part of a social fabric woven from shared labour histories, shared hopes, shared remittances, and shared Sundays spent restoring themselves before entering another week of caregiving in other people’s homes. The photograph captures this tapestry in its fullness.
Thus, the genius loci of this Lucky Plaza salon is not grandeur, nor beauty, nor architectural sophistication. It is a spirit of humble resilience, sustained through care, routine, and the bonds of a dispersed community. It is the spirit of a place where exile finds a temporary grounding, where the fragmentation of diasporic life is held together through the rituals of tending to the body.
The photograph, does not simply document this; it reveals it. It shows how place is made not by walls and floors, but by presence, by the shared acts of living and working. This salon becomes a world—a modest yet profound world—where human beings dwell amidst the pressures and demands of urban life, and where the fragile architecture of belonging is built every day, one brushstroke, one snip of scissors, one reflection at a time.
The Salon of Unfinished Selves: A Philosophical Meditation on Lucky Plaza
In the half-shadowed tonality of the photograph, we encounter not a depiction but a disturbance. What unfolds inside this Lucky Plaza salon is less a scene than an event of appearing: an emergence of bodies engaged in gestures both intimate and anonymous, suspended between presence and deferral. The image refuses to be approached as mere representation; rather, it invites contemplation of that which eludes representation—the surplus, the remainder, the trace.
At its centre stands a mirror, but it offers no stable ground. Mirrors usually promise a return: the face comes back to itself, the world verifies its own existence. Yet here, the mirror becomes a site of displacement. The reflected woman is neither entirely present nor entirely absent. Her face—half-returned, half-withheld—reveals the philosophical rupture at the heart of self-recognition:
I see myself, but I am never identical to what I see.
This ontological gap echoes Derrida’s insistence that any presence is always accompanied by its own shadow of non-presence. The mirror in the photograph becomes a metaphor for the diaspora itself: one belongs, but never entirely; one reflects home, but from an elsewhere; one is anchored yet drifting. To be “here” is always to be “not fully here.”
Around this mirror, a constellation of gestures unfolds. The hands of the hairdressers glide with practised precision, yet their craft is never fully theirs. Each motion carries the history of countless repetitions—teachers never shown, apprentices never seen—echoing Derrida’s notion that every action bears the trace of other actions, other origins, other absent presences. The scissors cut, but what they cut is never simply hair; they cut through layers of identity, memory, and the quiet labour that sustains distant families and distant homes.
And what of the woman in the background, absorbed in her phone? Her gesture appears mundane, almost invisible, yet it opens the deepest philosophical wound in the image. Her attention is elsewhere—across oceans, across borders, across time zones. The phone functions as the supplement in Derrida’s sense: an addition that compensates for the absence of what cannot be present, a prosthetic for a homeland that remains unreachable. Her bowed head becomes the silent centre of the image’s metaphysics of exile.
The salon itself—filled with tools, chemicals, sprays, mirrors—embodies an ontology of impermanence. Everything here is temporary. The colouring fades. The cut grows out. The styling collapses. Identity is crafted, uncrafted, and crafted again. Nothing stabilises. Everything is in process. This is the deep truth the photograph brings into focus:
identity is not something one has, but something one continually tends to—an unfinished work, a perpetual negotiation.
Lucky Plaza is often spoken of as a hub of community, a marketplace, a gathering point. But the photograph reveals another layer: it is a threshold where selves are maintained in the face of distance, where labour becomes a form of care, where the mundane rituals of grooming become acts of quiet defiance against loneliness and displacement. The salon is neither home nor foreign; it is a liminal zone in which identities are temporarily held together by fragile gestures.
The philosophical power of the photograph lies in the tension between what is shown and what is withheld. Every figure is both present and partially obscured. Every gesture is both intimate and anonymous. Every reflection is incomplete. This incompleteness is not a flaw—it is the very condition of the diaspora’s existence.
The Filipino women and men of Lucky Plaza constitute a community built not on stable foundations but on traces: fragments of home, fragments of memory, fragments of self carried across borders. The photograph captures this precarious cohesion—this stitching together of lives that must remain open to unravelling.
In its stillness, the image whispers a truth both gentle and unsettling:
we do not live in identities; we live in the spaces between them.
This salon, with its mirrored fractures and tactile rituals, becomes a philosophical site where the human condition reveals itself—not as unity, but as a field of shifting relations, a dance of partial presences, a play of reflections that never fully align.
The photograph is thus neither documentation nor narrative. It is an invitation to dwell with the fragility of being, with the quiet ache of distance, with the perpetual incompletion that defines the migrant, the worker, the self. In this way, the camera has not captured Lucky Plaza; it have exposed the trembling architecture of existence itself.
Before the first keynote address echoed through The State Room at Shangri-La Singapore, the atmosphere was already charged with anticipation and joy. The Phoenixus Women With Impact Extravaganza 2025 opened not with speeches, but with an immersive experience — one that invited every participant to reconnect with her sense of beauty, creativity, and purpose.
A Celebration of Self-Expression
Guests began their afternoon exploring the beautifully curated Booth Experiences & Pre-Event Networking segment — a lively constellation of brand and charity partners, each offering more than products or services: they offered transformation.
At the TONI&GUY x K18 booth, participants experienced a moment of rejuvenation — the tactile luxury of having their hair styled and revitalised by professional hands. Laughter and conversation mingled with the soft hum of hairdryers, as women emerged from their chairs renewed, their reflections in the mirror glowing with newfound confidence.
Across the room, the PaoPao Label corner — with its statement sign “Modern Oriental Fashion” — beckoned with an invitation to rediscover style through culture. A draped pao pao cape or modernised cheongsam instantly transformed many visitors; it wasn’t merely about changing clothes, but shifting presence. The garments’ fluidity and structure seemed to echo the event’s deeper message — that empowerment often begins with how one feels within one’s own skin.
Beauty Meets Purpose
Intertwined with these moments of personal transformation were stories of social good. Partner organisations such as Daughters of Tomorrow, Babes Crisis Support, Image Mission, Katsukin Takamura, and NTUC Women’s Wing reminded participants that beauty and empowerment are inseparable from compassion and community.
Every booth — from handcrafted fabrics to hair artistry — became an expression of how creativity can uplift lives. Guests were not simply consumers; they became participants in a shared narrative of giving and transformation.
The Human Canvas
Photographers captured candid portraits of women in motion — hair being styled, fabrics chosen, laughter exchanged. These frames now immortalise that sense of becoming: women turning mirrors into portals of rediscovery.
One participant, caught mid-laughter after her styling session, perfectly embodied the theme “Ignite from Within — Making Impact That Lasts.” The pre-event was more than a warm-up; it was a ritual of transformation — a collective preparation for deeper reflection and dialogue to come.
Guiding the Afternoon– Emcee Petrina Kow
The afternoon unfolded under the poised and luminous guidance of Petrina Kow, a seasoned voice and presentation coach whose calm charisma set the tone for the entire event. With her signature warmth and clarity, Petrina carried the audience through the transitions of the programme — from heartfelt introductions to moments of reflection and laughter — holding the room with her resonant voice and effortless grace.
A former radio host and the first Singaporean certified in both Fitzmaurice Voicework and Knight-Thompson Speechwork, Petrina brought her theatre-trained presence and deep understanding of human expression to the stage. Her ability to engage, uplift, and connect gave rhythm to the afternoon, embodying the spirit of the event — authentic voices rising together in harmony.
Whether she was inviting the Guest of Honour to speak, introducing the distinguished panel, or leading applause for the inspiring booth presenters, Petrina reminded everyone that voice is not merely sound — it is the echo of purpose. Her art of presence transformed the programme into a seamless, soulful journey of words, stories, and shared conviction.
Panel Dialogue: “Ignite from Within – Making Impact that Lasts”
Guest of Honour:Ms. Yeo Wan Ling Panelists:Sharon Phoong-Wong, Sim Hwee Hoon, Moderator Kay Poh
The afternoon’s conversation opened with Guest of Honour Ms. Yeo Wan Ling, Member of Parliament for Punggol GRC and Assistant Secretary-General of NTUC. With calm strength and humour, she spoke about the philosophy of “Flow like water,” echoing Bruce Lee’s timeless words:
“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
Ms. Yeo reflected on her own journey — once working overseas, then called back to Singapore during pregnancy. She shared how that pivotal moment reshaped her perspective on leadership and womanhood: that success is not defined by static strength but by the capacity to flow — adapting, nurturing, and yet advancing with quiet power. Her message resonated deeply: women can lead meaningfully while caring for family, and society must continue to enable that balance.
Following her, Sharon Phoong-Wong, Founder and CEO of Motherswork, spoke with the wisdom of an entrepreneur who has built her brand through empathy and endurance. She reminded the audience that “a business is never just about oneself.” Every enterprise, she said, is a living ecosystem sustained by its people — employees, families, and communities. Sharon shared how, through the growth of Motherswork, she discovered that true leadership is found in nurturing others to thrive alongside you — a principle that continues to shape her business ethos.
Sim Hwee Hoon, President of YWCA and seasoned Independent Director, brought a deeply personal reflection. Despite her professional achievements, she revealed that there was a time when she felt a quiet emptiness — success without purpose. It was only when she realigned her path toward service and faith that she rediscovered meaning. Her words, filled with humility, reminded all present that fulfilment is not found in the titles we earn, but in the lives we touch.
As the discussion drew to a close, moderator Kay Poh guided the conversation toward a collective insight: that impact begins within — in self-awareness, courage, and compassion. The panel ended with an uplifting call for solidarity: women empowering women, lifting one another through mentorship, friendship, and purpose-driven action.
Celebrating Purpose through Partnerships
As the afternoon flowed seamlessly from dialogue to discovery, the event culminated in a vibrant showcase of the Booth Experiences & Partner Presentations — each representing not only excellence in craft but also a commitment to community and empowerment.
From beauty and fashion to social impact and mentorship, every partner brought a distinctive voice to the room, echoing the theme of “Ignite from Within.”
TONI&GUY x K18
Bringing artistry and science together, TONI&GUY, in partnership with K18, demonstrated how transformation begins with care. Guests experienced on-the-spot hair consultations and styling, discovering how the right touch — whether through repair treatments or creative design — could restore both confidence and vitality. Their segment reminded everyone that beauty, when rooted in wellness, becomes an act of empowerment.
Poplin: Creative Wellness Reimagined
At the Poplin booth, creativity met mindfulness in the most tactile way. Founded on the belief that wellness begins with self-expression, Poplin blends artistry, reflection, and play to help individuals reconnect with their inner calm. The founder, passionately engaging with participants, shared how each Poplin experience—whether through journaling prompts, creative kits, or mindful exercises—serves as an invitation to pause, breathe, and rediscover joy through the act of making. Designed for modern minds seeking balance in a fast-paced world, Poplin transforms creativity into a form of gentle therapy — a reminder that well-being, like art, is a practice of being fully present.
PaoPao Label
PaoPao Label, with its modern oriental fashion sensibilities, blended heritage craftsmanship with a playful contemporary edge. Their presentation of capes and outerwear inspired by traditional forms invited women to reimagine identity — as fluid, layered, and ever-evolving. PaoPao’s message was clear: to wear beauty with meaning, and to celebrate one’s roots with pride and creativity.
Katsukin Takamura
From Japan came Katsukin Takamura, offering artisanal creations that married precision and artistry. Their showcase reflected the subtlety of Japanese aesthetics — simplicity, harmony, and the beauty of restraint — qualities that spoke to the deeper discipline behind all acts of creation and leadership.
NTUC Women’s Wing
Representing advocacy and policy, the NTUC Women’s Wing reaffirmed their mission of uplifting women in the workforce, ensuring fair opportunities and nurturing career resilience. Their presence connected the conversations of the day to the broader movement for gender equity in Singapore — bridging inspiration with action.
Daughters of Tomorrow (DOT)
The team from Daughters of Tomorrow shared heartfelt stories from their community work, helping underprivileged women access livelihood opportunities. Their message was both humble and profound: empowerment begins with trust, and the courage to take the first step.
Babes Crisis Support Services Babes spoke about their compassionate work supporting young women through unplanned pregnancies, providing care, counseling, and a non-judgmental space for growth. Their presence added emotional depth — a reminder that empowerment also means compassion for those in vulnerable transitions.
Image Mission Image Mission highlighted their commitment to helping women rebuild confidence through professional image coaching and employment support. Their segment resonated strongly with the day’s theme: that self-presentation, far from vanity, is an act of reclaiming identity and possibility.
Together, these partners created a living mosaic of purpose — where style met substance, and commerce met compassion. Their stories wove a collective truth: that beauty, empowerment, and leadership are all part of the same radiant continuum — one that begins with self-belief and flows outward to transform communities.
Group Photo & Collaboration for Good
It was a moment to recognise that every collaboration, however small, becomes a ripple in the larger movement for change. Laughter and camaraderie filled the room as everyone — attendees, partners, speakers, and committee members — gathered for the group photo. The image that emerged was not just of smiling faces, but of a living network bound by shared values: to lead with purpose, nurture with empathy, and give back with grace.
Moments of Nourishment and Connection
After an afternoon rich with insight and inspiration, the interlude of refreshments became a tapestry of laughter, conversation, and quiet reflection. Plates filled with delicate bites, each crafted with care, provided more than sustenance — they invited pause, grounding the intellect in sensory delight. In the soft glow of the corridor, old friends found one another again, while new connections sparked over shared stories and sweet indulgences.
Amidst the hum of voices and the gentle clinking of cutlery, the spirit of the event — Ignite from Within — found new expression. Here, nourishment extended beyond the table. It was emotional and communal: a replenishing of energy, a celebration of presence. The act of sharing food became a metaphor for collaboration — reminding everyone that leadership, like a meal, is most meaningful when it is savoured together.
The culinary presentation itself was a quiet triumph — art on porcelain. Each dish, elegantly composed, reflected the sophistication of the gathering: from jewel-toned desserts to savoury morsels that balanced texture and aroma with finesse. The attention to detail mirrored the event’s theme — beauty with purpose, pleasure with meaning. It was a visual and sensory feast that reminded guests that creativity, like nourishment, flourishes when shared with heart and intention.
Final Session: “Phoenixes in Flight” — Stories of Impact
As afternoon light softened the room, Kay Kutt guided the audience into the final segment — a resonant sharing titled “Phoenixes in Flight.” This session brought to life stories of courage and transformation from within the Phoenixus Network: women who had faced their own summits and valleys, yet emerged with renewed strength, clarity, and purpose.
Each narrative was a testament to the power of resilience — from climbing literal mountains to overcoming inner ones. Through laughter, reflection, and moments of quiet awe, the audience witnessed what it truly means to ignite from within and soar. In these stories, the spirit of Phoenixus — of rebirth, leadership, and sisterhood — found its purest expression: not in perfection, but in perseverance, purpose, and grace in motion.
Closing Reflections — The Fire Within
As the evening drew to a close, a quiet radiance lingered in the air — the kind that remains long after the applause fades. The event had not merely convened women of influence; it had gathered souls united by purpose. Beneath the chandeliers and soft hum of conversation, something invisible yet profound had taken root — a shared awakening, a rekindling of inner fire.
From the opening words to the final embrace, Women with Impact Extravaganza became more than a celebration; it was a living tapestry of courage, grace, and transformation. Every voice that spoke, every ear that listened, added its own thread to this evolving story of sisterhood. Together, these women proved that leadership is not a solitary climb but a collective ascent — one where hands reach out, hearts stay open, and visions take flight.
In the glow of that moment, the message of Phoenixus shone with renewed clarity: We rise by lifting others. And as the lights dimmed over the State Room, each woman departed with a spark — a promise to carry the flame forward, to ignite change wherever life would next take her.
End Notes
Inspired and created a Song.
IGNITE FROM WITHIN
Verse 1
In the golden light of Shangri-La, we came from near and far,
Hearts alive with dreams untold, each woman her own star.
We found our power in laughter’s glow, in mirrors that reflect the soul,
A touch, a word, a spark begun — becoming once again whole.
Chorus
Ignite from within — let your fire begin,
Let beauty and purpose dance under your skin.
We rise by the hands that reach out again,
Together we lead, together we win.
Ignite from within.
Verse 2
From flowing silk to silver thread, from courage softly said,
We dressed our hearts in hope and light, and wore our truths instead.
Through voices calm, through wisdom clear, through stories brave and true,
We learned that love and strength appear — when the heart says, “I see you.”
