Douglas Chew, Creative Director for UCCAL tells us about how he found his way from New York, Paris and Milan to the fast paced, ever evolving fashion retailing market.

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About Douglas Chew

Douglas Chew was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and is 44 years old. He is by training a fashion designer, having trained at prestigious Harrow College of Art and Design in London, England, where he got his Bachelor of Art degree in Fashion Design.

Consequently after graduating, he was offered various designing jobs both in Europe and Asia. With his many options, he went to work freelance in Italy, Germany and Hong Kong; eventually leading him to settle in Paris, France; where he worked as Chief Designer and then as Creative Director for the House of Loris Azzaro Couture.

He stayed at Azzaro as the Creative Director for 4 years and in 1988 started his own line of “Couture-A-Porter” - and exclusive and deluxe line of ready to wear, after winning the French national competition “La Ressort D’ Or”.

He started his own line with a boutique, showroom and workshop in the Galeries Des Panoramas in the Rue Montmartre, at the 8th Arrondisement in Paris.

His interest in food and cooking started from his frustration of not being able to relish the food that he was used to from his mother and grandmother; both fantastic and very talented cooks in Malaysia. It was not until he was in London that he started to learn to cook rice and then eventually the other exotic dishes from all the different cultures in Malaysia at the ripe old age of 20.

Learning to cook from recipes and styles over long-distance telephone, he eventually started to experiment and became the great cook that his friends and acquaintances rave about today. Unbeknown to them, he was actually experimenting and trying out the family recipes handed down to him by his mentors!

Today Douglas remains a practicing fashion designer while still experimenting with an expanded archive of Asian as well as continental recipes from around the world via dinner parties featuring an array of exotic styles of food.

Douglas is now stationed in Shanghai, China and is the Creative Director of UCCAL in charge of Kuhle and Jockey brand apparent for the entire China market. He is also currently working on producing his own haute couture collection as well as developing a new TV reality show in Shanghai for Channel News Asia.

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