UBS has wrapped up the Asian debut of its House of Craft x Dior exhibition in Singapore, using the collaboration not just to engage wealth clients but also to signal a longer-term commitment to nurturing the arts and creative community here.
The House of Craft campaign is a global UBS initiative built around specialist makers across different disciplines. “The House of Craft campaign is, basically, a global initiative that we seek to create opportunities for our clients to engage in the masters of craft,” says Young Jin Yee, co-head of global wealth management Asia Pacific at UBS. “Our campaign tagline is ‘banking is our craft’. We’re from Switzerland, and everything is about precision, dedication. It’s about hard work behind what you see, and that’s really what we stand for.”
After earlier editions focused on horology and gastronomy, couture is the third chapter in the series through a partnership with Dior. The campaign made its debut in New York before coming to Singapore, where UBS sees both a key booking centre for Asian wealth and a growing cultural hub. The Singapore edition built on the New York show with some 550 additional photographs shown only here, alongside a dedicated room featuring sketches and designs inspired by Singapore.
Installation at House of Craft x Dior exhibition in Singapore
The bank hosted an opening party for about 300 to 400 invited guests and ran four to five separate engagement sessions for clients from different segments. The programme then opened to the public, allowing a wider audience to access the exhibition beyond UBS’s core client base.
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A key differentiator of the Singapore stop was a deliberate focus on education and talent development. UBS, in partnership with Dior, brought in 50 students from local fashion and arts schools for a close-up encounter with haute couture. “It was amazing that we have the couturier explaining that just doing a collar would take him one and a half days,” says Young. “He said that’s because he’s really good at it. If you are not good at it, you can take up to a week to just do that collar… hearing from the master is really inspiring.”
For many of the students, the session also challenged assumptions at home about the viability of creative careers. Young notes that several shared how their parents did not initially see fashion as a serious path, preferring “cookie-cutter” professions such as engineering, law or banking. With events such as this, Young aims to break the stigma of pursuing the arts for a career.
The House of Craft x Dior programme fits into a broader UBS strategy to embed community engagement into its client events in Singapore. The bank has been in Singapore since 1970 and views arts support as part of “giving back” to a city it now calls one of its twin global wealth hubs. “Everything we do, we always think about how can we also engage society,” says Young. “Every event that we engage with clients, we try to also engage community.”
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UBS is a pioneering sponsor of ART SG and continues to back the fair as a flagship platform for contemporary art in the region. Young points out that UBS applies the same community lens there, building in outreach elements rather than keeping the experience confined to collectors and VIP clients. She draws a parallel with other initiatives, such as inviting young go-karters to meet Formula One driver George Russell during race week to inspire the next generation of athletes, just as Dior’s couturier did for aspiring designers.
Young also frames the Dior collaboration as part of Singapore’s evolution from a pure finance hub into a centre of culture and creativity. She highlights how local institutions have expanded pathways into the arts, and notes strong government support for the sector. “In Singapore, we are actually elevating this art space,” she says. “We thought that we want to participate. We want to help Singapore to really elevate this.”
Singapore’s position as a neutral, multicultural business hub was another factor in bringing the Dior exhibition here instead of other Asian cities. UBS sees the city as a gateway not just to Southeast Asia, but to a wider Asia-Pacific investor base that includes Greater China, Japan and the rest of the region. “We felt that Singapore is not just the gateway to Southeast Asia. It’s actually the gateway to the region,” says Young, adding that the city’s rich mix of cultures makes it “a perfect place” to host global arts and lifestyle events on top of finance and MICE activity.
House of Craft x Dior is just the latest example of how UBS is using its scale in wealth management to build soft infrastructure around Singapore’s ambition to be a leading arts and culture hub. For the bank, aligning its “craft” narrative with couture gives clients and their families a tangible way to experience ideas like precision and patience, while building confidence among young creatives that there is a future in pursuing their craft here.
