Fame & Foresight
Long before the digital age, Lord’s Tailor founder Lee Lee Loh recognised the real opportunity of bringing her children in to build the family business. Her instinct led to the many business transformations that expanded this niche celebrity bespoke business into an international brand.
EY data agree with Madam Loh’s far-sightedness. They show how Gens X, Y, and Z offer family businesses a new advantage. “Gen X, Y and Z are digital natives and are ready to rethink everything,” reports Dr. Astrachan, a leading scholar who has served on seventeen boards of privately- owned family businesses.
To think that we can even take over a company our parents built into something this great… is huge. Instead we put our minds to what we can do in the next ten years that’ll be better than the last.” – Olivia Loh, Retail & Marketing Director
Back in the 1960s, a secondary schoolboy was creating his own kind of disruption. While still attending school, he took an interest in tailoring and started taking orders from his schoolmates. His expertise and reputation self-made skills, he packed up for London and trained under the city’s most renowned tailors. Upon his return to KL, he started his first tailoring shop and very soon began to measure and fit some of the greatest, most famous people of our times: Muhammad Ali, Tun Dr Mahathir, Mel Gibson, Jimmy Choo, Siti Nurhaliza among others.
Founder Robert Loh’s entrepreneurial spirit is not lost on his children. It is these values of their father and their mother’s prudent foresight that they inherit and prosper on.
Today they are reinventing the business and disrupting the market. Their efforts include: Creating an entirely new ready-to-wear segment; Partnering with artisans to develop a line of handmade accessories inspired by local cultures; Collaborating with streetwear labels; And forging alliances with regional retailer Robinsonsand the international film industry, earning commissions to dress the case of Crazy Rich Asians, China’s new blockbuster “Skyfire” and the upcoming Netflix Series The Singapore Chronicles.
