Singapore’s Jubilee Year Celebration is just around the corner. To be exact, it is less than ONE month away! Every local brands peppering the streets of our beloved homeland are doing their part for SG-50! But I feel only a few can push the SG50 ambience to another level and I have to say one of them is UNIQLO (One of the key brands under Fast Retailing Co. Ltd, a leading Japanese retail holding company) with their recent launch of ‘UTme!’!
Even the launch of UTme! couldn’t get away from the sacred number 50 this year! So how is UTme! linked to the number 50 then? Basically, UNIQLO curated > 50 (to be exact, 55) stories from local artists, personalities & businesses all made available for viewing on a dedicated microsite entitled “UNIQLO Streets Tales” (www.uniqlostreettales.com.sg) from 4th July2015. The whole gist was to capture the essense of being SINGAPOREAN! Remind us of why we ought to stay proud to be one! 😉
The 2 key highlights to the UTme! launch were a celebratory event held outside Bugis+ & the UTme! phone app!
First up, the Launch Event!
It was held on the 4th July & very well-received by key media icons around Singapore! We saw many esteemed guests such as Mediacorp Artistes Rebecca Lim & Desmond Tan; well-known industry personalities to name a few like Daniel Boey, Willin Low, Willy Foo & Clarence Lee; homegrown companies Awfully Chocolate, Breadtalk, Jumbo Seafood, Tiger Balm as well as many others.
Crowd start to stroll into the shop right after opening speech & game session at the stage ended. This isn’t any normal stroll but one down the beautiful memories of how our heritage came about.
Every bits and pieces of our heritage were plastered on the T-shirts which were showcased within the shop while the crowd break into discussions on what truly define themselves as Singaporean.
With this, it brings me to the second highlight : the UTme! phone app! For this, guests had a choice to choose between readymade T-shirts with the logo of unique businesses, humour, slang, imaginery and nostalgic imprinted on them OR they could bring their own unique stories to “life” by printing them on a T-shirt via the app! One thing in common for both is the fact that there is simply ZERO difficulty for the crowd to strike a chord with those delightful vignettes pepeering around the shop that night!
Anyone in an UTme! clothe is going to feel even better knowing this: The proceeds made from the sale of UTme! T-shirts between 4 Jul to 10 Aug will not be part of the company’s balance sheet but instead donated to Community Chest! Furthermore, funds raised will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Government under the Care & Share Movement, led by Community Chest! With this, UNIQLO got us remembering 1 simple fact: In this well-developed society of ours, we shouldn forget about the less fortunate!
Very much convinced by their noble cause, M & I did our part to pay it forward that night by designing a shirt through the UTme! app (FOC to download in Google Play and iTunes)! It is a hassle-free process & let me briefly take you though how we completed our shirt that night!
Here are the steps of what to do after you got the app running:
1)Launch the app and select a design method. You can choose to ‘Paint'(Draw using paint tools), ‘Typography’ (Type your own message) or ‘Photo'(Take or use an existing photo).
After which, you can play around with multiple interesting visual effect on the selected picture/message eg. ‘Splash’ (scatter the ink), ‘Glitch’ (split the image) or ‘Mosaic'(convert the image to mosaic patterns) to your pleasure.
Finalize the T-shirt design by saving it in your phone or tablet. Proceed to the counter to submit your design for instant printing and obtain a receipt to make payment at the cashier. After 10 mins, collect your T-shirt fresh out from the oven literally!
Each shirt costs SDG 29.90 for adults and $24.90 for kids. I think it is a relatively reasonable cost for all the freedom in the world to craft your own identity onto a shirt & for a good cause 🙂
Now you know one good avenue where you can do a part for yourself & the society! Make your memory of SG-50 a meaningful & colourful one this period!
