Cover New Bahru in Singapore is now complete with 62 brands across food, retail, and culture (Photography: Finbarr Fallon)
New Bahru in Singapore is now complete with 62 brands across food, retail, and culture (Photography: Finbarr Fallon)
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After a phased build-out spanning nearly two years, The Lo & Behold Group's New Bahru reaches its final form—62 brands, a restored 1960s textile factory, and a refreshed School Hall that now anchors one of Singapore's most purposefully assembled lifestyle destinations
The thing about New Bahru is that it has always been more about process than fanfare. Since opening in 2024, the creative cluster at 46 and 58 Kim Yam Road—built across the former Nan Chiau High School campus and the adjacent Tai Wah Garments & Knitting Factory—has expanded in careful, measured phases. The Factory Block, the final piece of that assembly, opens this month. With it, the development reaches 62 brands spanning food and drink, retail, wellness, enrichment, hospitality, and arts and culture.
“We’ve been very deliberate about what would complement and grow our existing ecosystem,” says Wee Teng Wen, managing partner of The Lo & Behold Group. “This final milestone sees New Bahru truly come into its own.”
The result is a destination that boasts a community of brands that has arrived at its full complement without losing the sense of discovery that characterised its earlier phases. At 58 Kim Yam Road, the former Tai Wah Garments & Knitting Factory, a product of Singapore’s manufacturing boom of the 1970s, has been returned to life as the cluster’s newest building.
From Textile Factory to Modern Commons
Above At 58 Kim Yam Road, the former Tai Wah Garments & Knitting Factory, a product of Singapore’s manufacturing boom of the 1970s, has been returned to life as the cluster’s newest building (Photography: Finbarr Fallon)
At 58 Kim Yam Road, the former Tai Wah Garments & Knitting Factory, a product of Singapore’s manufacturing boom of the 1970s, has been returned to life as the cluster’s newest building (Photography: Finbarr Fallon)
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The former Tai Wah Garments & Knitting Factory, built in 1967, has been reimagined by Shanghai-based studio Linehouse into a communal retail and dining destination that wears its industrial bones openly. A rope installation on the ground floor nods to the pulley systems that once carried fabric through the building; upstairs, the 130-seat dining hall draws its suspended canopy from the form of traditional attap roofs, reworked in acoustic panelling, with modular food stalls around the perimeter lit by incandescent bulbs—a knowing reference to Singapore's hawker culture.
The dining line-up is characteristically considered. Dumpling Darlings opens its flagship here, expanding its izakaya-inspired menu in collaboration with Mustard Seed alongside exclusive retail merchandise. Fico, the Michelin Bib Gourmand–awarded restaurant by Chef Mirko Febbrile, ventures beyond its East Coast Park home with a limited pasta pop-up rooted in Cucina Povera. SUSHIRO brings its kaiten conveyor belt and over 100 varieties of sushi; Kios Minang—an SG Heritage Business serving nasi padang since 1954—introduces a New Bahru-exclusive wrap concept; and Orh Gao Peh Gao runs as a modern coffeeshop by day before flipping into a craft beer taproom come evening.
On the retail side, the marquee arrival is Beams, the celebrated Japanese fashion label opening its first directly-operated Southeast Asia flagship—anchored by selections from the main line and Demi-Luxe Beams, alongside a Singapore-exclusive merchandise collection. It is a considered commitment from a brand that takes its retail presence seriously. French footwear label VEJA makes its first Singapore appearance as a limited-time pop-up, while Yeti spotlights its drinkware and gear nearby. The wellness offering expands too, with future resonance—born of Bali-based Pyramids of Chi—bringing sound healing and somatic practices to the School Block's fourth-floor LABS space.
The School Hall, originally designed in 1969 by James Ferrie & Partners, has re-emerged as the development's cultural heart following a three-month refurbishment by local studio Open Studio. The approach was one of minimal intervention: partitions stripped back to reveal ventilation blocks and brise soleil; original teak wall panelling and ecru mosaic flooring repaired in situ; a waffle ceiling and custom light fixtures added to ready the space for live events and performances. Early activations have included HOT BODIES, a design-led exhibition by Anak exploring fashion and rising global temperatures, and Rituals of Perception, the Tanoto Art Foundation's inaugural show from Singapore Art Week 2026. Bookable pickleball courts complete the picture—a small detail that says something larger about New Bahru's ambitions: culturally serious, but genuinely open to everyone.
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Andrea Saadan is the Senior Digital Editor of Tatler Singapore. She oversees all digital content for the website and currently leads the Beauty and Lifestyle verticals. As a child, she had always enjoyed reading and writing but it was only after she joined her college newspaper, The Spectrum, in Buffalo, New York, that she considered a career in journalism. Her love for all things beauty started from the age of two—when she was caught playing with (and damaging) her mother’s YSL lipstick. On top of her day job, she is also an unpaid beauty consultant for friends and family. Besides make-up, her obsessions include the wizarding world of Harry Potter, podcasts, ice-cream, her walking pad and watching endless re-runs of The Office (US).
