She was in italy on holiday after an “early retirement” following a decade in financial trading, when someone asked her if she was a fashion buyer. Yeo Shuyi wasn’t one, “but I bought a bunch of stuff anyway, called my friends and family when I got back, and sold everything at a home party”. And they kept asking for more. “I’ll take it,” one can almost imagine her customers saying; la prendo in Italian, as she named her little business that she “ran for fun”. She added an online store—“only when the website started taking off did I suddenly realised it’s a real business”—then a store in Dempsey, and recently a second jewellery-focused boutique in Takashimaya D.S. Nine years on, La Prendo carries over 70 brands from Europe and the US including Vionnet, M2Malletier and Chiara Ferragni, many sourced on buying trips that take up half of Shuyi’s year. The woman she buys for? The sophisticate, who really doesn’t need more of anything, but sees the value and quality of a product, and its relevance to her life. “It’s never about the brands, but the design. I’m drawn to things with good craftsmanship, and that have an intriguing underlying story.” The same philosophy applies to her wardrobe, which naturally includes an array from her store’s brands. “But not every brand is my style, which is more simple and understated, with details in the fabrics and construction.”