MENTION Carven Ong and the image of soft, fluid gowns come to mind.
As the couturier of choice for beauty queens, blushing brides and glamorous celebrities, it is no wonder that Ong was named Asian Top Fashion Designer 2009 by Fashion Asia in Hangzhou, China.
“Making a dress is not unlike making a car. It is a very technical affair,” says Ong, who does couture, pret-a-porte and runs an academy in Petaling Street, Kuala Lumpur.
Some of the fascinating aspects of tailoring, reveals this fashion designer, is a formula that only requires the measurement of the back and bust line.
The accurate summation will provide the tailor with dimensions for the neck, arm hole, shoulder, waist and hip lines.
Of course this formula has seen a bit of tweaking from Ong who converted the original scale, which was formerly in centimetres, to work with the same accuracy in inches.
He also speaks of the seamless dress where not a stitch can be seen along the length of an entire gown.
This, says Ong, is attributed to the method of wrapping the fabric around the mannequin, a modus that is only reserved for the masters.
However, none of the above is even possible if a student does not know the character of his materials and it is a long process of introduction which can take no less than 1 1/2 years.
Having been in the line for two decades, Ong reveals that his love for fashion started from childhood in the small town of Taiping where he would watch his sisters dress up.
The youngest of six siblings, he fondly describes his sisters as the neighbourhood trendsetters. Coming from a financially challenged background was no obstacle as the girls tailored their own dresses.
“This was during the '70s and '80s, an iconic time where fashion revolution was concerned. My sisters were tall and beautiful, so whatever they wore looked good. I became the ‘unofficial’ fashion advisor and it was from them that I learned how to cut and sew,” says Ong.
The early years, as he describes it, were hard.
For one, Ong’s father, a lorry driver who drove one of those old Mercedes 10-wheelers with doorless wooden cabins and hard planks as seats, was not exactly happy about his son’s choice of profession in the beginning.
Two, the story of Ong’s first sojourn to the city, was one that had been fraught with one disaster after another.
As the story went, Ong was only 17 when he took a bus from Taiping to Kuala Lumpur as his family did not have a car. It was 9pm when the then naive small town boy arrived in Pudu with only RM50 in his pocket. As luck would have it, he was threatened by a thug while on his way to Kota Raya.
“Can you imagine? I had no choice but to bargain with the thug and at last he made off with RM5, which broke my heart,” says Ong.
That would not be the end. When he arrived at Kota Raya another bad hat stopped him and this time, there was no mercy. Ong was left without a dime.
“The next recourse was for me to take a cab to my former boss’ place, who ran a direct selling business in Taman Maju Jaya. Imagine, my first meeting with the boss and I had to ask him to pay for my cab fare,” says Ong.
But find his footing he did and after 1 1/2 years as a salesman, Ong finally persuaded a sister to sponsor his studies at an academy near Super Kinta in Ipoh, Perak. This was the time when the bosses of Pop Soda were still operating a little tailor’s shop in Yik Foong Complex.
Of this time, Ong would vividly remember wearing carrot cut trousers, the type where you could stuff in two hens down each leg. His fashion acumen soon caught the attention of the academy owners and they offered him a job as a part-time lecturer. In all, Ong took only a year to complete what normally would have been a three-year-course.
A man like Ong certainly suits the profile of a BMW driver and it is the 318i which has been his faithful companion for the last seven years. The Beemer, as expected, also comes with a story.
“On my second time to Kuala Lumpur to really start my own business, I drove a second-hand Mazda 323, which I bought from my brother for RM11,000. I was constantly honked at on the highway and at that time I thought, ‘Never mind, you can honk and overtake all you like. The next time, I’ll be the one overtaking you’. That was my motivation for working hard,” says Ong.
True enough, Ong was able to self finance his own Proton Iswara a year later. By this time, his academy in Jalan Panggong, Petaling Street, had 20 students and was only a modest 400 sq ft.
The Iswara finally made way for a Kia Sportage after five years. Ong’s academy had then grown to 1,500 sq ft and his pret-a-porte line had just begun making headway in departmental stores.
“It was only after I was convinced that I had established myself did I dare to think of buying a BMW. But let me tell you, it was a wonderful feeling when I got into the car for the very first time. That was when I knew that I had made it,” says Carven.
Story and pictures by Grace Chen
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