DECEMBER 16 — Singapore’s iconic Orchard Road has been getting some flak.
Not only are retail sales declining as good old brick and mortar shops face an onslaught from online stores but now its premier retail street is facing accusations that its Xmas decorations look like the illuminations from a seedy Thai beach resort.
Reviews of the area's festive-season light-up have been overwhelmingly negative this year despite most of the strip being branded by the Disney corporation.
From Mickey Mouse-shaped lights to Toy Story placards and Donald Duck statues – the whole gamut of Disney-Pixar's much-loved magical creatures have been brought out to appeal to our hearts (and wallets) but the end result, even to this Disney fan, is pretty lacklustre.
The overwhelming impression is of a fairly generic and cluttered bunch of lights, figures and fair-ground rides flung together without a great deal of creativity or imagination.
Is it Chinese New Year, Xmas or Deepavali? It's hard to tell and no mater how you look at it, magical and captivating in the usual Disney sense isn’t what comes to mind.
In fact, this year's decorations were seen to be so off-message that they drew the ire of Singapore’s National Council of Churches (NCCS).
The Council wrote to the Singapore Tourist Board (the organisation in charge of organising festive lighting) complaining that Christmas is a fundamentally religious celebration and should not be presented simply as an opportunity for branding.
Of course the reality is that Orchard Road’s Christmas has always been unashamedly commercial — to me, that’s always been part of the appeal but the sole-apparent sponsorship by Disney does make the entire stretch look like a giant advertisement — and sadly one without the charm and magic of a real Disneyland.
I think that’s the problem; the decorations aren't really effective from a religious, aesthetic or even commercial point of view and while it might seem like a minor complaint, this is an issue. Why?
Because branding is important. Because retail is important to Singapore and because being a regional centre for shopping and family-based experience is a platform for the Singapore economy.
Singapore decked out in its finest really does need to be beautiful. In its own way, it must equal Paris, London or New York over the festive season.
While we aren’t naturally wintery, a tropical Christmas can be stunning and creative with our own icons — everything from durians to orchids decked out for the season.
But what we now have is a sort of motley imitation, the hand-me-downs from knock-offs of Oxford Road and 5th Avenue.
Beyond just looking nice, developing our own distinctive visual aesthetic is really the key to Singapore rising up the global value chain and becoming a key global city.
We need to look beautiful and different; not Western, not Chinese but modern and South-east Asian. Of course efforts have been made to develop a sort of visible brand.
In tropical landscaping, our public spaces, parks, road side foliage are a model to the world but in terms of architecture and design we just aren’t there yet.
You can pick up a pen or chair and say this looks Scandinavian or even this looks Parisian – but what looks Singaporean? Hopefully not a road decked out with shabby-looking Disney characters.
But seriously it’s a matter that needs some thought.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
