To celebrate International Women’s Day, Harper’s BAZAAR Malaysia puts a spotlight on the Malaysian fashion designers who are making waves with their innovative designs.
Caro Chia studies the female form. In her designs, the body becomes a canvas on which she creates flowing, organic shapes from wool and silk. She takes after the artists she has long admired: renowned sculptors Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, and Mike Sasaki, as well as modern furniture designers Robby Cuthbert and Isamu Noguchi.
Her eponymous brand, founded in 2020, has steadily amassed a global following far beyond her homebase of Kuala Lumpur. “I believe they are women who are seeking to stand out from the group, drawn to art and design and value uniqueness over trends,” says Chia, musing on her clientele.
With a small team and busy schedule, Chia is hard to pin down: “If you look closely at the details in every one of my pieces, they speak for the brand.” BAZAAR manages to catch up with the elusive fashion designer to hear about the brand and her grand plans for it.
Caro Chia
When did you develop an interest in fashion?
Caro Chia: It grew little by little. I was a teenager who simply liked dressing up. Later, I became interested in understanding the whole structure of clothing. I enrolled myself onto a fashion course at INTI University Malaysia to develop my sewing skills. I knew it wasn’t enough, so I insisted on studying abroad at the University of Brighton. There, I visited many art galleries and began to develop a different perspective, one that blended art and fashion. I guess, it became a way to express the ideas in my imaginations; I feel so pleased every time I am able to execute an idea into real pieces.
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- Caro Chia Spring/Summer ’26 collection, ‘A Witted Flowers’
Tell us about your creative process. What is the starting point for your collections?
Every collection started with a core inspiration. For instance, the latest collection, A Witted Flowers, begins with dropping petals; you can see this detail in every look. Our design process starts with draping on the mannequin, then a transfer into patterns, and developing the garments on models to see the final outcome. Most importantly, our team will examine the product and ask, “Does it look like Caro Chia?” It’s a process that is repeated for every single design.
Jersey is an unforgiving, famously difficult fabric to work with. What draws you to working with this fabric so often?
I started using it as my medium since my final graduation collection in the UK and I am actually happy while dealing with jersey! It allows me to create tension and softness at the same time; and it naturally drapes on the contours of the human body. The only difficulty is finding a way to create a nice, delicate finishing to the clothes.
You’re expanding into accessories with your debut bag, Faro. Why did you want to design a bag?
I would say clothing is still our major priority. But throughout the years, I often envisioned what a Caro Chia bag could look like for modern women. It took about more than a year to design and develop many failed bags, yet it only took me one day to design this bag that speaks my language. I always wanted to draw a bag so sleek that it could be drawn completely in a few lines.
What more can we expect from the Caro Chia universe?
We are always looking forward to expanding into other accessories like shoes, but we want to take our time to find the person with the right skills and expertise to execute our ideas. At the moment, we are planning to host our very own Paris showroom for the upcoming collection. It is an exciting moment for the brand!
Caro Chia Spring/Summer ’23 collection, ‘In The Calm World’
Your brand is gaining recognition abroad. As a local brand, how are you navigating this international demand?
We have a few buyer stores that we work with over in the US, the UK, Japan and Korea. We have built great relationships with them over the past seasons! We still keep our operations relatively small because it takes time to meet our standards. We source the most delicate fabrics and our clothes are locally produced.
