Retired, not expired: Former banking exec stitches together new career in fashion
Published on
27 Jul 2024
Published by
The Straits Times
SINGAPORE – Following Mr Giuseppe De Giosa’s retirement from banking after nearly 40 years, he stitched together a new career from threads from his youth.
The 73-year-old Italian, who first came to Singapore in 1990, has long been an aesthete and a collector of Tibetan rugs, European antiques and Japanese fabrics.
In 2017, Mr De Giosa launched his bespoke fashion business, DGA Threads, in Lower Delta Road, specialising in one-of-a-kind garments and accessories made with vintage Japanese kimonos.
His tubular dresses, sewn with contemporary and vintage yukata cotton, and clutch bags made from mulberry silk and fabric used for an obi, or kimono sash, cost $280 each.
The founder, art director and designer at DGA Threads says: “I’ve always appreciated art. You develop an eye for it, and it guides you.
“The Japanese are fixated on beauty and perfection, which are characteristics I also share. (In my business), I am like a ‘zipper’ between East and West.”
His yen for artistry was evident from his first job as a youth at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), an Italian bank that traces its origins to the 15th century.
Then 19 and based in the port city of Brindisi in Italy, Mr De Giosa used part of his first pay cheque – and a loan from his father – to buy a 19th-century set of Florentine silverware he had set his sights on. It cost 73,000 Italian lira at the time, which he estimates to be about $150 then.
After more than 10 years in the domestic banking sector, he moved on to international banking with a subsidiary of MPS. Working in places like Singapore, Sydney, Mumbai and Hong Kong, he retired at the age of 59 in 2010 on a pension from the bank.
Mr De Giosa, who is divorced from a Singaporean, recalls: “I still had a lot of energy, but I didn’t want to work in a bank any more. I wanted to do something fun.”
He established – and later sold – a company dealing in sculpture, paintings and antique furniture, before setting up DGA Threads. He toyed with the idea of opening a gallery, but felt a greater affinity with fashion.
He recalls he used to wear Versace suits as a banker – “Versace can be loud, but it can also be sophisticated and silent” – and recalls his mother telling his older sister off as a youth, when her shoes did not go with her outfit.
“We are pathological, we Italians, about the way we present ourselves. Everything has to match,” he says.
One day, he took out a box filled with more than 40 kimonos – some dating to the 1950s – which he had collected over the years during his frequent trips to Japan.
“I started to unstitch one kimono. I was possibly entranced. I discovered it was all made by hand with 30, 35 panels of silk. I discovered I could use the beautiful silk panels,” he says.
“I made a promise to the kimono: You will come back to life in a different way, but all your values will be intact.”
He could not sew, but sketched some designs. He found a seamstress in Singapore to work with, who has the finesse to hand-sew piping on garments, as well as other delicate sewing tasks.
Post-retirement, he finally had the time to delve into his interests through the pieces in his collection.
“I need to acquire something to study it. I need to be motivated. I didn’t have the time (before). I was acquisitive, and then I was obsessed.”
He read up on symbolism, for example, of the Japanese crane and its representation of peace, luck and longevity. He plunged into the study of rinzu silk and shibori, an ancient Japanese dyeing technique, usually in blue and white. He then sourced materials from antique textile dealers and fairs in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Starting a small business in an entirely new line of work had its challenges. The learning curve was steep, moving from Big Finance to a field where he has to figure out what to do with 3m left over from a bolt of cloth. Cut-offs are now used to make elegant, fish-shaped mobile phone pouches sold at DGA Threads for $29.
Having a comfortable pension allows him not to require drawing a wage from DGA Threads, and he thoroughly enjoys his work.
“Can you imagine it? You are not a painter, but you have a creativity in you. Each of us does. When the painting starts, you begin to feel an internal happiness,” he reflects.
“I don’t draw a salary, but I do get payment in kind. It’s the satisfaction of creation.”
Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Reproduced with permission.
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