One secret behind Gn’s success? He has always been generous in choosing who he dresses, long before inclusivity became a buzzword. “We are not sizeist. We dress women of different ages, nationalities, skin colour and sizes so we are very international in that way,” observes Gn, whose designs are stocked at luxury retailers including Harrods, MatchesFashion and Net-a-Porter.

10 most popular luxury brands in the world, ranked – but which is No 1?

Gn has a knack for effortlessly melding Asian influences with Western elements without appearing trite or cliche. “Being Asian is not a style, it is a sense of being,” he says. For example, he once drew inspiration from the shape of pagoda roofs to create a coat with “pagoda shoulders”. Another gown is inspired by a 19th-century porcelain bowl from his personal collection and features a butterfly pattern, a recurring motif in his designs.

His fashion awakening happened at a young age. His merchant father, who often travelled around Asia for work, would bring different textiles home for his mother. These included Indonesian batik, Chinese silks, printed Japanese fabrics, kimonos and obi belts, and textiles from India and Pakistan.

“My mother would open the packages up and I would stand beside her, seeing all of these wonders appearing before me. She would then bring these fabrics to her Shanghainese tailor where she would spend hours discussing the little details of her dresses, skirt suits or jackets,” he recalls. “The process of seeing all these wonderfully sumptuous two-dimensional fabrics transformed into three-dimensional dresses was amazing.”

7 Asian celebrities owning the quiet luxury trend – from Suga to Alia Bhatt

He went on to study at the Central Saint Martins college of art and design in London before assuming a position as an assistant to Parisian couturier Emanuel Ungaro. In 1996, he decided to launch his eponymous label. He is still the first and only Singaporean designer to show consistently at Paris Fashion Week. He also received the Singapore President’s Design Award for Designer of the Year in 2007.

More recently, he has been feted by Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum with a retrospective titled “Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore and the World”, its largest exhibition thus far for a contemporary Singaporean designer. The exhibition, which runs until September 17, traces Gn’s Asian roots as well as his unique blend of Asian and Western cultural elements in his work.

To offer viewers this deep dive into his creative world, Gn donated about 160 creations from his personal archives to the museum. A consummate collector, he has been carefully storing away his designs, sketches, samples and even the accessories and shoes from all his collections.

Meet Hong Kong legend Michael Wong’s LGBT activist daughter, Kayla

“When I started out as a young person, I was not thinking about legacy. For me, it was simple – I had spent so much time and energy in studying and making these prototypes that I was not going to give them away or sell them. It was only natural to preserve them as a memory and also in case I wanted to refer to them again in the future,” he says.

But he decided to part with select pieces from his archive as a way to inspire the next generation of creatives from the nation he calls home. “This is my history and my own country and hopefully my story will inspire other people to go in the same direction,” he says.