It takes a lot to juggle it all, but Shelly Ann is a fashionista, mother and entrepreneur. Prestige SingaporeHaving read the July 2024 issue of , I can’t imagine it any other way.
Shelly Ann’s Instagram account makes her life seem idyllic and glamorous, with photos of her family and fashion shows in exotic locations. Prestige Singapore When I spoke to the fashionista and mother of three in June, she had just returned from the Chanel and Louis Vuitton cruise shows in Marseille and Barcelona, respectively. She married an Indonesian-Chinese businessman in 2014 and moved to Jakarta, only returning to Singapore in January this year.
She cheekily writes on her social media platform profiles that the images she posts should not be taken at face value. “My real life is sweeter than my Instagram life,” her bio reads. We can imagine Shelley wrote it, but she winks knowingly. If so, it’s all down to her entrepreneurial spirit.
In real life, Shelley is involved in numerous businesses both locally and in Indonesia. She and her husband are invested in more than 10 companies, but she is most involved in a construction company, an outdoor advertising business and a clothing line. “I love creating things and building brands,” the 37-year-old says with a beaming smile.
Business Tips
Indeed, Shelley’s attractive looks belie the restless mind of a woman on the go (she appears in our shoot looking like a modern-day Barbie doll in a pink tweed Chanel mini dress and white bouclé pumps), and her business acumen was clear even before she graduated from the Singapore Management University with a degree in mass communications.
For example, while working part-time as a commercial model, she avoided certain jobs, such as car shows. But when she found that many of her fellow models were interested in these jobs, she became a freelance model agent. In the early 2000s, as a college student who saw an opportunity in e-commerce, Shelley created a website to sell bird’s nests from a company founded by her maternal grandfather.
Fresh out of school, she was the first employee at a real estate startup that specialized in selling Malaysian properties to Singaporeans. “I grabbed the chance to learn something new,” she says. Through hard work, Shelley was promoted to general manager, overseeing nearly 20 staff members by the time she retired four years later.
Then she took a breather, and Shelley is very Type-A, and that breather led her to start her own business. While vacationing in San Francisco, she was inspired by food concepts and started her first food and beverage business, Sushi Burrito. She expanded the business with her partner, running three restaurants here, with a fourth being opened by a franchisee in Jakarta. She eventually gave up the business as it was too difficult to run from Jakarta where she was based, but she fell in love with it.
“I’m interested in any business, it doesn’t have to be a restaurant, it could be anything,” sums up her entrepreneurial approach today. She is a shareholder in HG Works, a construction company specializing in residential projects. She met its founders a few years ago when the company was renovating her apartment in Singapore.
“I saw the passion the owners had for their business, exactly the same as when I was running my own business. They wanted to do more landed projects. I knew they could do it well, so I decided to help.” She has invested in the company and also helps with branding, marketing and finding the right clients.
After Shelley joined the company, HG Works secured its first major client, socialite Jamie Chua, who wanted a major extension and renovation to his home. “Jamie is very meticulous, so everything we did for her had to be perfect. She paid attention to detail and gave us lots of feedback, so we learned a lot working on this project.”
In all their ventures, Shelley and her husband emphasize strategy over execution, working with partners to avoid being involved in the day-to-day running of things: “Our business works with or without us, but it moves forward and grows because of us.”
In Jakarta, the couple runs an outdoor advertising company in partnership with another business. The company, 8Infini, has more than 20 digital and static billboards across the city, and counts blue-chip companies like Samsung and Disney among its clients. Shelley is always thinking about ways to help these companies move forward. “We want to have more of our own brand, so we can advertise it using our own billboards,” Shelley says. “That’s how we synergize our businesses.”
Love of fashion
But it’s not just cold, hard numbers that matter to this savvy entrepreneur, even though as a child he enjoyed counting money for his parents, who ran a shoe store and later a camera and electronics company: “It was my job to count the money before putting it in the bank. Now it’s all credit cards. It’s not fun anymore.”
Shelley describes her clothing line, By Gesa, as a “passion project.” “It’s not a lot of money, but it’s certainly lucrative,” admits the fashionista, who loves Chanel ready-to-wear and Dior haute couture. But the label, which she launched in Jakarta in 2018 with Indonesian designer Liza Yu, reflects Shelley’s belief that clothes help “bring out your personality and show who you are.” By Gesa specializes in custom haute couture evening dresses, bridal dresses, and ready-to-wear. Many of the bespoke pieces feature intricate hand-beading and embroidery, following Indonesian traditions. Clients include socialite Kim Lim.
The brand is housed in a four-storey shophouse alongside Yu’s other clothing brands. Both brands employ more than 20 staff who produce the clothes. Yu doesn’t sew the clothes he designs himself, but Shelley, who can sew, does the beading and embroidery on some of the pieces.
“When I lived in Jakarta, I was quite involved in the business,” she enthuses. “It was fun; there was a big fabric market in the city and I used to choose everything myself.” Now that she’s back here, she’s not as involved as before, but she continues to design for her bespoke clothing line, By Gesa.
Mommy’s Duties
Though work is clearly her driving force, Shelley doesn’t consider herself a “full-time working mom.” She sees herself as spending half of her day with her kids, taking them to and from school and extracurricular activities. “I know what it’s like to give 100 percent to a job, but right now I just don’t have the time,” she says.
She is happy to be back in Singapore. It’s not that she dislikes life in Indonesia, but she confesses that it was a culture shock at first. “I’m a very vocal and outspoken person – it’s totally different to what’s expected of an Indonesian woman. My husband is an only son and I have five sisters. It took us a while to get used to each other, but it got better after our first child was born.” She has two daughters, aged eight and four, and a 10-month-old son. “Our kids play together, so as we spend more time together, my sisters-in-law understand me better. I’ve also started to tone down my outspokenness,” she says, laughing.
It will be a while before her children are grown and independent. For now, she is happy juggling her duties as a mother, “manager of all her business ventures,” and, of course, a VIP attendee at fashion shows in exotic locations. She is living the dream life, which is much busier and more fun than it looks on Instagram.
Fashion direction: Johnny Khoo
Art Direction: Audrey Chan
photograph: Joel Law
Fashion Styling: Jackie Ann
hair: Grego Use Kane Hair Cosmetics
compensate: Keith Bryant Lee Use Dior Beauty
Photo courtesy of: Kevin Kung
Fashion Assistance: Isabella Teo
position: Grand Hyatt Singapore Presidential Suite
Notes:
The information in this article is accurate as of the publication date.
