After weeks of renovation and revamping its boutique in Singapore, Faber-Castell relaunched the boutique last Friday, 24 July 2015. More than 60 guests turned up at the reopening event, and I was very honoured to be one of those invited to it!
I rushed down from work to the event at Ion Orchard, and very unfortunately missed the opening speeches. I arrived in time, though, to the beating of drums and clashing of cymbals, as the lion dance troupe danced in celebration of the reopening ceremony. Lion dancing is a traditional Chinese dance, very popular among the Chinese community to celebrate special occasions, business openings, and other ceremonies. The sound was deafeningly happy. It was indeed a joyous occasion!
There was a registration booth where you could drop your namecards and write well-wishes in a guestbook provided. There were also goodie bags for the attendees.
On another table, a local calligrapher, Susan Lui, wowed everyone with her elegant swirly calligraphy on cards holding meaningful quotes. You could get a personalized card, for example getting your name written, in the ink of your choice. Faber-Castell inks were featured and you could choose one or more inks for the writing.
Congratulatory flower stands lined the corridor, making the place look very welcome and colourful!
In the boutique, a sketch artist sat silently drawing her sketchwork of the Marina Bay skyline, now an icon of Singapore. It was very fascinating and impressive to watch the sketch slowly forming right under your very eyes!
My favourite part of the store had to be the door handle! It was in the shape of a Graf von Faber-Castell Classic fountain pen, carefully engineered to the exact same proportions as the actual pen. Such is the precision of German engineers. This door handle came in a pair. It is unique and cannot be found in any other Faber-Castell boutiques in the world. I wondered if the nib writes if you tried placing ink inside the pen… 🙂
One of the new and refreshing elements in the store was the coloured squares mounted on the wall. It features squares of the wide range of colours in the Faber-Castell palette.
The boutique also has display cases and windows featuring the premium writing instruments. One special feature was the SG50 Snakewood Limited Edition writing set. The set was designed to celebrate Singapore’s 50th birthday (SG50) this year.
Delicious snacks were also served, together with Castell wines (yes, Castell of Faber-Castell owns vineyards too!). It was indeed a very enjoyable evening. Below is a picture of me with Mr Tan Fong Kum, the owner of Aesthetic Bay, a local pen retailer, which is located right beside the Faber-Castell boutique. The Faber-Castell boutique is a collaboration between Aesthetic Bay and Faber-Castell Singapore.
It was a very pleasant evening, and once again I felt really happy to be invited to the event. I wish Faber-Castell and Aesthetic Bay more prosperous times to come! If you have time, do head down to the boutiques to have a look!
More photos below, or you can also check out Inky Passion’s news release.
I am the founder of this website.
Chemist by day, slacker by night, fanatic of stationery all the time.
I write with my left hand, but can also do the same with my right hand – it just won’t look very pretty.
The pen door handle is actually the Classic, not the Snakewood model! Notice the fine fluted lines going down the barrel! Lovely, I still dream of getting a wood GvFC Intuition Pernambuco.
O… thanks for the correction!
Didnt noticed the door handle was a pen!!
Cool post.
Nice! I’m a big fan of Graf von Feber-Castell and would love it if they opened a boutique in Toronto. For now I have to spend all my money at Montblanc which I guess isn’t such a bad thing
Oh where is the nearest boutique to you?