M^u: A jewelry brand inspired by the stories of different communities

Designed and Hand-Crafted by Cecilia HyunJae Cho

M^u (pronounced: em-power-you) is a handmade jewelry brand conceived to empower and transform. Cecilia HyunJae Cho designed all components of this brand to cultivate physical and mental positive energy. M^u will release different collections inspired by a specific issue or community interests.

The first collection from M^u takes inspiration from the anecdotes of Third Culture Kids (TCK). TCKs are those raised in cultures different from their birth or ethnic culture. While this lifestyle promotes a well- founded worldview and kinship with various cultures, it comes with its share of obstacles. For instance, TCKs face the deep-seated conflict of identity that stems from the insecurity of cultural values.

The stories of TCKs have been transformed—by design—into ‘amulets’ for beauty and protection. The pieces in the TCK collection seek to ease the friction between clashing ideologies, values, and identities through a visual manifestation of coexisting elements of culture. Furthermore, wearing the pieces will have a physical and mental realization aligned with the mission of M^u.

Tradition Is Young

The prevalence of Kueh’s in our society is slowly diminishing with the arrival of exciting and new foreign cuisine. As a result of this phenomemon of globalisation, the popularity of kueh’s has been in the decline as people are slowly detaching themselves from these traditional foods, while searching for the next new trend. 

I aim to reignite the excitement of kueh’s among the youths through the stories they carry, focusing on the visual aspect of these stories which carry much of the kueh’s symbolism and value. The visuals would paint a vivid picture, sparking a connection with uninterested youths as well as sharing the value and importance which kueh’s hold in our society. A series of new flavours would also be introduced to give kueh’s a fresh experience in contrast to the flavours which we have been used to. 

Rojak Cypher

This project aims to document the street dance community in Singapore to showcase how it is unique in these four aspects .

  1. Location and historical context
  2. Unspoken Vocabulary
  3. Spoken Vocabulary
  4. Short documented stories

Street Dance is a dance style that evolved outside of dance studios in any available open space. The term is used to describe vernacular dances in the urban content whereby the genre of the dance is broad. Vernacular dances are often improvisations ( Freestyle) and social in nature.

As a dancer myself, I’ve come to realise dance being a form of expression of the human intention is considered a language. The idea of doing this topic for my FYP came about while I was pondering on the idea of how Singlish, a local dialect was evolved from English, a foreign language. Similarly ,the initial philosophy and practice of street dance was something that was foreign to the culture here and was adopted by Singaporeans in the late 1970s and only started getting popular traction in mid 1990s . It is no surprise that the dance styles in Singapore has also evolved in a way that is localised. However a quick google search will show that street dance in Singapore is not being structurally documented and if so, it is rare. This is why this FYP is important to me as it serves as a platform to showcase a part of our much seeked after cultural identity.