‘Bling Empire: New York’ has aired its last episode, but its glamorous star Lynn Ban will go on. The Singaporean designer lets us in on her creative pursuits and why, like vintage fashion, being yourself never goes out of style
“I’m not the shy, wallflower type,” Lynn Ban says while getting her make‐up done for this photo shoot. Almost anybody else would have been intimidated by the amount of black eyeliner and eyeshadow that is being meticulously applied to her face, but Ban merely asks for more.
This just about sums up the Singaporean jewellery designer’s approach to glamour, which had its share of the spotlight in Bling Empire: New York, the spin‐off series to Netflix’s hit reality television show Bling Empire. Both offer a look inside the glitzy lives of wealthy Asian residents, in New York and Los Angeles respectively, and reveal their material indulgences, be it in the form of multimillion‐dollar mansions, private jets or, in Ban’s case, designer outfits.
“I think my wardrobe was its own character on the show,” says Ban, laughing. Indeed, the 50‐year‐old could not have made her reality television debut in a more spectacular fashion. In the show’s first episode, she arrives to a party dressed in a black leather dress covered in needle‐thin metal spikes, an avant‐garde creation from Japanese fashion label Noir Kei Ninomiya.
“That was my social‐distancing dress,” Ban jokes. Another spiked look from that same Noir Kei Ninomiya collection was recently worn by Icelandic musician Björk—known for making outfit choices that are as eccentric as her art—for her Coachella performance in April this year. But Ban needs no such setting to put on her extravagant displays, nor did she dial up the drama especially for her appearance in Bling Empire: New York. “Dressing up is my self‐expression. It’s not stunting,” she shares. “I just think fashion is fun. Even when it comes to workout clothes, I like something that makes me and other people happy.”
Read more: Style Superstar: 5 of Lynn Ban’s wildest outfits on ‘Bling Empire: New York’
Ban’s style philosophy manifests on her Instagram feed. In a shot of her holidaying in Aspen, the designer’s choice of skiing gear is a red puffer jacket and a polka‐dot bodysuit by Jean Paul Gaultier. In another post, she struts by a swimming pool in a glittering blue Rick Owens sequinned top, worn in lieu of a swimsuit.
Ban has been playing dress up long before Instagram even existed. She certainly did not inherit her appetite for fashion from her father, David Ban, who serves as the executive director of Venus Assets, the property developer that owns Four Seasons Place Kuala Lumpur. Instead, she credits her gemmologist mother, Patricia Ban, and their shopping trips to Club 21 for exposing her to the transformative power of clothes as a child. “I was a Versace girl from when I was like 12,” she says. “That sort of strong, sexy, confident woman really appeals to me.”
Today, Ban still embodies the glamazon that was propagated by the fashion industry as the ideal woman in the 1990s. She is toned, tan and towers over others easily in her sky‐high stiletto heels. The image is complete when she dons the famous Versace gown from the Italian fashion brand’s spring‐summer 1991 ready‐to‐wear collection.
The “Versace Warhol dress”, as Ban calls it, is the stuff of fashion legend: it was designed by Gianni Versace himself, modelled by Naomi Campbell on the runway, and captured by fashion photographer Irving Penn for a campaign starring Linda Evangelista. It piques the interest of art aficionados too, given that it was inspired by pop art master Andy Warhol, and features colourful prints of Hollywood icons Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.
“There were only three of those dresses made,” reveals Ban, who bought the treasured piece on eBay and with it, her membership into an ultra‐exclusive club of people who can call themselves a proud owner. “Now, it’s me, the Met, and Naomi.”
