She asked for her salary in advance to start Young Hungry Free. 14 yrs on, Blackpink wore her designs.

Young Hungry Free lasted 14 years in S’pore’s fashion scene, and along the way, even caught Jisoo’s eye

When Winnie Ong started Young Hungry Free in 2012, she was 19, fresh out of her A Levels and taking what was supposed to be a one-year gap year.

She had no grand plans to build a full-fledged business. Instead, spent that year doing what she already loved—reworking clothes, experimenting with designs and figuring out how to turn her ideas into something people might actually want to wear.

Fourteen years on, that side project has grown into one of Singapore’s well-known homegrown fashion brands.

Here’s the story behind Young Hungry Free.

“It was simply all I had”

Young Hungry Free’s Between Meetings collection./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

Winnie’s interest in fashion started long before she launched Young Hungry Free.

While she was still in school, she spent much of her free time thrifting for vintage clothes and turning them into pieces that felt more personal. Denim was a particular favourite.

She would cut, bleach and distress pieces, adding details until each one became unique.

Winnie Ong, founder of Young Hungry Free./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

She eventually started selling these reworked pieces as a small side hustle. At the time, however, she wasn’t thinking about building a business.

“I just genuinely enjoyed creating things that felt different,” she shares.

During her gap year, Winnie worked a retail job while continuing to experiment with clothes in her free time. It was during this period that she decided to turn her passion project into Young Hungry Free.

“It didn’t feel like I was making a particularly bold decision,” Winnie says, looking back. “It was simply all I had, and I wanted to give this idea a chance.”

At the time, she was earning around S$1,400 a month before CPF and took home about S$1,100. She asked for her salary in advance and used it to get Young Hungry Free off the ground.

Building around individuality

Winnie launched Young Hungry Free from her bedroom with a second-hand DSLR, learning almost everything through trial and error.

Young Hungry Free’s Above Basics collection./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

Looking back, she thinks starting young worked in her favour.

I didn’t overthink it. I wasn’t worried about whether I was qualified or experienced enough. I was simply curious enough to give it a try.

Winnie Ong, founder of Young Hungry Free

But she wasn’t creating clothes simply for the sake of having another fashion label in the market. She had struggled to find pieces that reflected her own style and began to wonder if other people felt the same way.

Her answer was to build a brand around individuality.

Winnie doesn’t believe people fit neatly into a single aesthetic. The way someone dresses can change with their mood, the occasion or simply the version of themselves they want to express that day. Some days, that might mean dressing boldly; on others, something softer or more understated.

Young Hungry Free’s Lucky Loop collection./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

Getting people to understand that vision took time. Young Hungry Free’s style wasn’t common in Singapore at the time, so the response was slow in the beginning. But Winnie says that turned out to be a blessing.

The slower pace gave the brand room to experiment, make mistakes and gradually figure out what it should become.

“Trust isn’t built in a few launches, it compounds over time,” she says.

For Winnie, those early years also taught her that building a brand isn’t just about getting people to buy something. It’s about giving them enough reason to come back.

Learning to let go

As Young Hungry Free grew, Winnie also had to learn that creating a brand and running a business were two very different things.

Winnie Ong, founder of Young Hungry Free./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

In the early days, she handled almost everything herself, from designing and photographing collections to modelling, packing orders and replying to customer messages.

But as orders increased, so did the number of things she had to figure out.

She had to learn how to manage inventory, read a profit and loss statement, hire people and eventually build a team.

Going from working alone in her bedroom to having people trust Young Hungry Free with their careers changed how she viewed the business. It was no longer just a creative project that belonged to her—she was now responsible for building a company that other people could grow with.

That also meant learning when to step back.

For years, Winnie believed that being involved in every decision was how she protected the brand. But as Young Hungry Free grew, she realised that trying to oversee everything could become a bottleneck.

Today, she focuses primarily on creative direction, product development and thinking about where the brand should go next, while her team handles much of the day-to-day operations.

Keeping up with weekly launches

Young Hungry Free’s Campus Crush collection./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

Young Hungry Free launches new designs or collections almost every week, but moving quickly doesn’t necessarily mean producing more.

Instead, the brand is intentional with its production, releasing smaller batches that can be quickly reordered if a design resonates with customers.

That approach, Winnie says, has allowed Young Hungry Free to stay agile while maintaining quality.

Customer feedback also plays a significant role in shaping what comes next.

Whether it’s through surveys, social media, TikTok LIVE or conversations with customers, the Young Hungry Free community has influenced many of the brand’s future collections.

Young Hungry Free’s Love Me Not collection./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

Behind the scenes, every design starts in-house, before the team travels to China almost every month to source fabrics and materials. From there, each piece goes through multiple rounds of sampling to refine its fit, drape and feel before going into production.

Young Hungry Free works with long-term manufacturing partners in China, some of whom the brand has partnered with for more than a decade.

For Winnie, these relationships are one of the company’s biggest advantages.

“They understand our quality standards and the level of consistency we’re looking for,” she says. “I don’t think partnerships like that happen overnight.”

Making it to Blackpink’s stage

Young Hungry Free’s growth has also brought unexpected moments of recognition.

Ahead of Blackpink’s Singapore concert in 2025, Jisoo’s stylist contacted Young Hungry Free to request one of the brand’s designs. Jisoo later wore the piece during the performance.

Blackpink’s Jisoo wearing Young Hungry Free’s Key Hold Skirt in black./ Image Credit: @jisooyaachu via TikTok

There was no formal collaboration or campaign behind it. The stylist had simply come across the brand and selected the design.

For Young Hungry Free, the moment offered a glimpse of how far a homegrown label could reach beyond Singapore.

Good design can travel much further than you sometimes expect.

Winnie Ong, founder of Young Hungry Free

Fourteen years on, Young Hungry Free is still evolving

For Winnie, perhaps the biggest milestone isn’t any single collection, collaboration or business achievement. It’s simply that Young Hungry Free is still around.

“Fashion is an incredibly competitive industry, and many brands don’t get the chance to grow over a long period of time,” she says. “The fact that we’ve been able to keep evolving, while remaining independent and staying true to who we are, is what I’m most grateful for.”

That ability to evolve has become increasingly important as the fashion industry changes. Consumer behaviour, technology and the way people shop have all shifted over the past 14 years, and Winnie expects that pace to continue.

Young Hungry Free previously operated an outlet in Funan Mall./ Image Credit: SingMalls

Young Hungry Free has also evolved in how it connects with customers.

The brand previously operated a physical store, but has since returned its focus to digital. Still, Winnie says the experience reinforced something that can easily get lost online: the importance of knowing the people behind the purchases.

Meeting customers face-to-face, helping them style pieces and hearing their feedback in real time gave the team a different perspective. That’s why Young Hungry Free will continue exploring physical experiences and events.

Young Hungry Free recently held a pop-up in collaboration with SF Farm Mart for its YHFARMERS MARKET collection, transforming SF Farm Mart’s outlet at Raffles MRT into a farmers’ market-inspired space featuring the collection, exclusive merchandise and interactive experiences./ Image Credit: Young Hungry Free

Looking ahead, Winnie sees three areas of growth for Young Hungry Free: deepening its relationship with its community, expanding into new product categories and styles, and growing across Southeast Asia.

But she isn’t looking to expand simply for the sake of becoming bigger. For Winnie, it’s about continuing to build something people genuinely want to be part of.

“Young Hungry Free was never about creating clothes,” she says. “It was about understanding people.”

Find out more about Young Hungry Free here. Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Young Hungry Free/ Her World