Making it Real

Firstly, research behind the collection helped to achieve the Peranakan- inspired look of the jewelry.

These were sketched out, then handmade prototypes were first made in polymer clay. Partnering with designers who helped us render the pieces into 3D CAD CAM (3D printing software), that was printed into resin, before being casted by the craftsman.

However, the work doesn't stop there. The craftsman uses the mold to reproduce the jewelry, and then individually polishes and finishes all the pieces to perfection.

Then they are packed by hand, and shipped off to your doorstep.

Daughters of the Revolution

DOTR aims to empower the next generation of 21st century heroines through self love, because self love breeds self confidence, and that is what young girls need to change the world. DOTR was founded in 2019 by 13 year old Ava Soh, where she debut her jewelry collection called the "Love Letter Collection".

The Love Letter Collection

The Love Letter Collection was DOTR's debut collection. It is a twist on the Chinese New Year Love Letter biscuit, where girls would hide their love letters and give it to the boy they fancied.

This is a play on the story, where the girl gives the love letter to herself, as symbol of self love. Self love breeds self confidence, and that is what girls need to change the world.

This was launched on kickstarter in 2020, where it was funded by 200%

See the pieces

An idea

In March 2022, I joined a zoom call with the Ukrainian ambassador and some Singaporean changemakers. Upon hearing that they were accepting donations in crypto currency, I thought of doing an NFT to raise funds for Ukraine.

Collaborations

So, I embarked on this journey with a local company called Big Beyond, who helped me mint all the NFTs and create the tshirts. Each NFT came with a free tshirt, that had a unique QR code that linked to that NFT.

Find them here

A moonshot idea

I contacted the Ukrainian embassy to find out more details about the fundraising process. I just thought, “what if i got President Zelensky to wear my design?”. It was a moonshot idea, but I asked them. They got back to me and said “well, he's a bit busy right now, he's currently fighting a war”. Fair enough. So I told them, “can you take the tshirt and see where it goes?”, and I wrote a small letter to him to explain my idea, and passed it to them.

A few months went by, and I didn't hear anything from them. At this point, I was creating the campaign with the expectation that he would never wear it. But then one day, they sent a text: “He might appear wearing your t-shirt at this event”.

Sure enough, he appeared via zoom wearing my design at the IISS Shangri-La dialogue, where he addressed a room full of ASEAN’s leaders. What made it even more emotional for me, was that he opened his speech, talking about how a young girl in Singapore had a big dream to help Ukraine, and how more than ever, fundraising has been made easier through technology.