How a stylist tailored a fashion designer’s outdated Singapore home for the 21st century
- Designer Ee-ling Fock, of The Missing Piece, knew the three-storey terrace had good bones and could be artfully modernised
- But it took the vision of interior stylist Priscilla Tan to unlock its potential – and convince her husband
Traditional cheongsams can be exquisite expressions of elegance, but their limitations are clear to anyone who has worn one: they are restrictively narrow in parts, oppressively warm in humid climes and overly formal for everyday life.
The same could have been said about the house that former scientist Ee-ling Fock and her radiologist husband, Eric Ting, bought in the central Singapore suburb of Novena in 2018. The outdated home, she realised, could be tailored for the 21st century, just as she had artfully modernised the Chinese dress for her home-grown fashion label, The Missing Piece.
Built in 1997, the three-storey corner terrace house they had lucked upon was graced with good bones and towering cathedral ceilings – a prerequisite for Fock. But it was dark, with an entrance leading directly into the lounge room that narrowed the living area and made it almost inhospitable. Additionally, the bathrooms were oddly disproportionate to their respective bedrooms and not at all suitable for the couple and their three children, 10-year-old Jamie and eight-year-old twins Alana and Cameron.
“When my husband first went to see the house, he was hesitant, he had doubts,” says Fock, adding they were keen on the area because of its good schools. “But I knew it would go like that.” Finger snap.
A subsequent visit with their prospective interior stylist, Priscilla Tan, quickly changed Ting’s outlook.
“Her energy is so infectious,” says Fock. “At that first meeting she suggested completely changing the layout of the house, transforming it. By the end of that day my husband was so fired up.”
