El Khemie transforms officewear into a six-look story of after-hours creative freedom.
By day, Kassandra Lim works as an architect in Singapore. At night, the 34-year-old turns the tension between corporate life and creative freedom into clothing, a duality that has now taken her independent label El Khemie to London Fashion Week.
Singapore Architect Makes London Fashion Week Debut
Lim presented El Khemie’s second collection on September 19 at the Flair Fashion Ignite Collective Runway during London Fashion Week. She was one of eight international emerging designers selected by British incubator Flair Fashion, joining participants from countries and territories including the United Kingdom, France, Kosovo, Hong Kong and China. The show took place at One Great George Street in Westminster.
Six Looks Reimagine the Corporate Uniform
Her six-look collection, The Department of Nocturnal Affairs, follows the imagined liberation of a worker after leaving the office. The collection riffs on the pinstripe suit, with the familiar corporate jacket gradually transformed into pants, a minidress and evening gowns. The first look features a damaged suit with one sleeve missing, accompanied by silk panels dyed with coffee and tea.
Coffee and Tea Become Natural Dyes
Lim used coffee grounds, Peranakan butterfly pea tea and chamomile tea to create dusty gold, brown and blue tones across the collection. The materials carry personal meaning because coffee and chamomile accompany her long working hours, while butterfly pea tea recalls a childhood fascination with its changing colors. The designs also feature playful elements including mushroom-shaped buttons and a plush bunny necktie.
Architecture Led Her Toward Fashion
Lim has worked as an architect for nine years and previously worked in urban planning. Her move into fashion began after she enrolled in a part-time diploma course at Singapore’s Textile and Fashion Industry Training Centre, eventually leading to a master’s degree in fashion design at London’s Royal College of Art. She has since returned to architecture in Singapore, where her current retail-design portfolio includes the shopping component of the planned Changi Airport Terminal 5.
El Khemie Becomes an ‘Anti-Corporate Meditation’
Lim describes fashion design as an “anti-corporate meditation”, although she does not view her work as a rejection of architecture itself. El Khemie launched in November 2025 and has sold fewer than 50 pieces from its first retail collection. Lim said she sees the project more as a fashion laboratory for experimenting with natural dyes and ideas than as a conventional commercial label.
Kassandra Lim’s London Fashion Week appearance shows how a Singapore creative is using architecture, office culture and personal experience to build an independent fashion identity without abandoning her primary profession. For Singaporeans, her work adds another local presence to an international fashion platform, while Indonesian designers and other Southeast Asian creatives can follow how an independent regional label is experimenting across disciplines and materials.
Sources: Straits Times (2026) , FZINE (2026)
Keywords: Kassandra Lim Fashion, El Khemie Singapore, London Fashion Week 2026, Singapore Fashion Designer, Anti Corporate Fashion, Department Of Nocturnal Affairs
