Queensway could be next casualty in sportswear upheaval

The decline of one of Singapore's oldest shopping centres reveals the trade-offs we've accepted in the name of modernisation.

- Lin Suling

Auntie J has spent most of her life selling men's shoes at Queensway Shopping Centre.

Once an employee, she assumed the running of the business in 1997, a few years after her daughter was born. Motherhood equipped her with both the boldness to break out on her own and an added imperative to anchor a way of life that allowed for a stream of income while minding a young child at the same time.

Retail was booming in the 1990s. Selling 70 to 80 pairs of shoes a day was the norm. On weekends, hired help provided assistance when things got busy at her small rented 10 sq m store on the second floor facing the escalators.

But as the sun set when I visited one weekday evening, Queensway was all quiet. Neighbouring retailers selling speciality sneakers or sporting equipment do slightly better. Today, Auntie J, now in her late 60s, will be lucky to sell more than five pairs of shoes each day.

"Younger Singaporean men want branded stuff, while bargain hunters buy online or head across the Causeway. There's little room for the kind of leather shoes I sell," she confides. A clear-eyed, no-nonsense summation of the current state of her business, the admission is painful nonetheless.

"See, talking about this now... the tears can't stop," she says as she smiles, attempting to brush her tears aside and downplay her decision to hold a fire sale until her shop closes for good on May 11.

THE SPORTSWEAR DISRUPTION

Auntie J's tale often elicits reactions lamenting market forces or sighs from finger-wagging critics waving the "why didn't you do something" card. But reality is far more complex, as seen in the prolonged struggles of a small shop like Auntie J's to stay afloat amid tidal waves of disruption.

Shops and shopping malls began as places of commerce for people to peddle wares, yet evolved over time to become centres of civic activity.