Bata Shoe (Singapore) Pte Ltd is a member of the worldwide organisation, Bata International. One of the earliest modern shoe sellers in Singapore, Bata opened its first store, Bata Shoe Store, at the Capitol Building in 1931. Today, Bata Shoe (Singapore) Pte Ltd ...

Charles & Keith is a Singapore brand known for its women’s footwear and accessories. Established in 1996 by brothers Charles and Keith Wong, Charles & Keith started out as a shoe store in Amara Shopping Centre. By 2013, the company had grown into an international ...

Robinsons Department Store was founded in 1858 in Singapore by Philip Robinson and James Gaborian Spicer. Regarded as the grande dame of Singapore’s department stores, Robinsons was a shopping destination much loved by Singaporeans. However, following several years ...

John Little, also known as JL, is Singapore’s oldest department store. It was established by John Martin Little in 1842, and was acquired by Robinson & Co Ltd. in 1955. John Little had several stores across Singapore over the years, but has since been operating ...

The first Borders store in Singapore was opened by American book retail chain Borders Group Incorporated at Wheelock Place in 1997. The arrival of Borders brought forth changes in the local book retail business as it introduced new services and store facilities ...

Founded in Calcutta, India by Robert Laidlaw in 1882, Whiteaway Laidlaw was a department store that opened a premier branch in Singapore in 1900. Offering products that appealed to the Europeans and wealthy locals, the outlet in Singapore was located on D’Almeida ...

Shoelast makers made shoelasts or shoe trees, on which shoes were built. A completed pair of shoes were placed on the shoelasts, and the shoes’ uppers were dressed to form a finished product. Shoelasts were made of wooden bases or moulds and carved into different ...

The Robinson’s Department Store building at Raffles Place was destroyed by a fire that broke out at around 9.55 am on 21 November 1972. The fire, which was one of the worst in Singapore’s history, also caused damage to the roof of the Overseas Union Bank next door ...

Trek 2000 International Limited is the Singaporean company that created the ThumbDrive, a thumb-sized universal serial bus (USB) data storage device which revolutionised the way digital data is stored and transferred in personal computers. Headquartered in Singapore’s ...

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was founded in the United States by Harvey S. Firestone in 1900. It was one of the largest producers, purchasers and users of natural rubber. Besides producing tyres for almost every type of vehicle, the company also manufactured ...

Ngee Ann City is a shopping and office complex located along Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping belt that was officially opened on 21 September 1993. A collaboration between Ngee Ann Development and Orchard Square Development Corporation (OSDC), the complex was ...

A household name in Singapore’s retail industry, Metro was first established in Surabaya, Indonesia, in 1953 by Ong Tjoe Kim, a businessman from Indonesia. In 1957, the first Metro store in Singapore opened in a two-storey shophouse at 72 High Street, where The ...

The ez-link card is a contactless multi-purpose stored value card that is mainly used for transit payments on public buses and on the mass rapid transit (MRT) and light rail transit (LRT) networks in Singapore. It is also used for non-transit purposes such as making ...

Traditional cobblers were once a common sight in Singapore. They repaired footwear and provided shoe polishing services along the five-foot-way in front of shophouses and on street pavements. While most cobblers were Chinese, there were also a few Indian and Malay ...

The sampan, known as kolek in Malay, is a small wooden boat, skiff or canoe-like coastal craft typically propelled by oars. Also known as the Chinese shoe-boat, it is a common native craft that sometimes comes with a sail, and is used for fishing and short range ...

Shenton Way begins at the junction of Boon Tat Street, Raffles Quay and Commerce Street, and ends where it meets Keppel Road. It is part of “Golden Shoe”, the moniker given to an 80-acre plot of prime land in the heart of Singapore’s city centre. The shape of the ...

Royal Sporting House is one of the largest sports goods distributors and retailer of well-known fashion labels in Singapore. It was first established in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1935, and incorporated in Singapore in 1977 as Royal Sporting House (RSH) Ltd. Over the ...

Tang Choon Keng (b. 12 September 1901, Swatow, China–d. 3 September 2000, Singapore) was a Teochew who established the landmark department store C. K. Tang in Singapore. Popularly known as C. K. Tang, he was also known as Tang Un Tien and nicknamed the “Tin Trunk ...

Sheng Siong is a Singapore supermarket chain that started out in 1985 as a family-owned provision store. In 2008, it achieved more than S$600 million in sales and was ranked the third-largest retailer in Singapore by sales volume in a survey.

Anastasia Tjendri-Liew (b. 1947, Bangka Island, Indonesia–) is the founder and managing director of Bengawan Solo, one of Singapore’s most successful bakery chains. Under her leadership, Bengawan Solo has grown from a single store to a chain with over 40 outlets. ...