Two Lamps Are Enough

by Arnaud | Sep 26, 2026 | Taste

5 min read

Two Lamps Are Enough

One of the nicest things about moving into JAM is discovering who our neighbours are.
And then I walked into FTMD. I love this shop.

LISETTE

FTMD is a Malaysian label built around clothing, objects and experiences, but what I particularly love is the way they curate. There is no need to fill every square centimetre with things. They don’t need fifty lamps. They have two really good ones. They don’t need ten different cups when one great cup will do. A few pairs of shoes. A few skirts. A few objects. Everything feels considered.

The clothes are great. The shoes are great. The whole place is minimal without feeling empty, and cool without trying terribly hard to be cool. For me, as we move nala further into streetwear, it is actually rather inspiring to have a store like this as our neighbour.

But it was the lamps that got me. They are made by SAD Studio, a Malaysian design studio founded in 2024 by Sugee Wee and Driv Loo. They are a couple, and rather wonderfully, neither of them was professionally trained in 3D design. They taught themselves. Sugee looks after much of the creative direction while Driv handles production, and together they make these extraordinary little objects locally, layer by layer, using 3D printing.

The lamps come in fantastic colours. They are beautifully made, playful without being childish and incredibly reasonably priced.

I am in love with them.
Maybe that is also what I like so much about FTMD. It reminds me that good retail isn’t about having more.

It is about knowing what deserves to be there.

And sometimes, two lamps are enough.

Some Things Are Great in Black and White

by Arnaud | Sep 26, 2026 | Food

5 min read

Some Things Are Great in Black and White

I had dinner at Towzen the other night, and as a vegetarian, this is exactly the sort of restaurant I love finding.

LISETTE

Towzen began in Kyoto in 2004 as a small soy milk ramen restaurant, with its roots in shojin ryori, the traditional vegetarian cooking connected to Zen Buddhism. Kuala Lumpur is its first venture outside Japan.

But enough history. The food is so damn good. What I particularly love is that nothing is pretending to be meat. I have never really understood fake meat. A mushroom is perfectly capable of being a mushroom, and the fried mushrooms here are phenomenal. Somehow they give you that same deeply satisfying feeling you sometimes miss when you don’t eat meat. Crispy, substantial and delicious, but still very much a mushroom.

And then there is the soup.
The soy milk and sesame broth is creamy, rich and incredibly comforting. The kind of soup where you finish the bowl and immediately start wondering what everyone else ordered.

I had the black charcoal sesame soy milk ramen. Completely black. Not necessarily the prettiest thing to photograph, but absolutely delicious and very pretty to look at !

Some things really are better in black and white.

This is also one of those restaurants where I would recommend going with a whole group. The menu makes you want to try everything, so order too much, put it all in the middle and share.

I certainly didn’t manage to eat my way through the menu. Which is a very good reason to go back.

What’s JAM Without Strawberries?

by Arnaud | Sep 26, 2026 | Culture, Events

5 min read

What’s JAM Without Strawberries?

It started with JAM.
Our new home in PJ is called JAM, and the minute I heard the name, my brain went straight to strawberry jam.
More specifically, strawberry jam and peanut butter sandwiches, which I absolutely love.
And from strawberry jam, somehow, we arrived at Strawberry Fields.

LISETTE

Of course, we didn’t invent the name. Strawberry Field was a real place in Woolton, Liverpool, close to where John Lennon grew up. It was a Salvation Army children’s home, and Lennon spent time playing in the grounds as a boy. Those childhood memories eventually became part of the inspiration for The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever, released in 1967.

The actual place was Strawberry Field, singular. The song gave us Strawberry Fields. And somehow, all these years later and very far from Liverpool, there is another Strawberry Fields. Ours is in PJ.

I love the name. I love our new logo. And I love that this nala store is going to be a little different. We’re going streetwear.

There are T-shirts, bags, strawberries, stickers and a few other things we’ve been playing with. It’s younger, a little rougher around the edges and very PJ.

And PJ is really close to our hearts. I used to live here in 1973! We were also lucky enough to do the branding for JAM itself, which makes being part of this new place even more special. We’ve watched it take shape, and now we get to move into something we helped create.

We love PJ. We love the slightly chaotic, crowded jam of it all. We love the bagels, we love the doughnuts, and now we get to add a little Strawberry Fields to the neighbourhood.

This weekend, we’re opening the doors.

Saturday, 26 September, from 10AM at JAM, PJ.

But please be kind to us. This is a soft opening. We’re testing the systems, figuring things out, moving things around and almost certainly discovering a few things we forgot. That’s precisely what a soft opening is for.

The big one comes on 3 October, when we officially open Strawberry Fields.

For now, come and see us. Have a look around. Tell us what you think. And if you want one of the first Strawberry Fields pieces, come quickly. We made very, very few.

Strawberry Fields at JAM
Soft opening: Saturday, 26 September, from 10AM
Official opening: Saturday, 3 October

Please register here: https://naladesigns.my.canva.site/strawberry-fields

And Now, the Pots.

by Arnaud | Sep 26, 2026 | Events

5 min read

And Now, the Pots.

When you think about it, it’s actually quite strange that we haven’t done this sooner.
Almost everything at nala starts with a plant or a flower.
I draw them, we turn them into patterns, and then we put those patterns on dresses, bags, cushions, tablecloths,
walls and just about anything else that will let us. So naturally, we’ve moved on to the flower pots.

LISETTE

We did actually make a few during lockdown, when we had had the time to make all sorts of things we had been thinking about for years. But somehow, the pots never continued. Until now.

The Campus Ampang is holding Campus in Bloom from 30 September to 4 October, filling the place with plants, flowers, orchids, workshops and all things green. It seemed like a rather obvious moment to bring our pots back.

They start as simple terracotta pots, which we cover by hand in nala fabric. Luckily, we had Sahin and Sulaiman at HQ, who found the time, and patience, to make every single one.
They are pretty incredible.

There is something I love about taking something as ordinary as a terracotta pot and completely overdressing it. Especially when the thing you’re putting inside it is probably the very thing that inspired the pattern in the first place.

We only made a few, so this really is a small batch. They will be launching on Wednesday, 30 September, exclusively at our store at The Campus Ampang.

Come for Campus in Bloom, find yourself a beautiful plant, and then, obviously, find it something fabulous to wear.

Campus in Bloom
30 September to 4 October 2026
10AM to 10PM
The Campus Ampang

nala fabric pots launch Wednesday, 30 September.
Very limited pieces, available only at our Campus store.

What Is So Great About Picnicking?

by Arnaud | Sep 25, 2026 | Design

5 min read

What Is So Great About Picnicking?

Even the word has a rather lovely history.

LISETTE

“Picnic” comes from the French pique-nique, a word that appeared in the 17th century. Originally, it wasn’t about sitting on a blanket in a park at all. It described a meal where everyone contributed something to the table. Only later did the picnic move outdoors and become what we know today: food, friends, grass, sunshine and a few hours with nowhere particularly important to be.

Maybe that is still what is so great about picnicking. You take a blanket. You find a patch of grass, a beach, a tree with some shade. You bring something to eat, something to drink, a book, a friend, your children, your dog, or nobody at all.

And for a little while, that patch of ground becomes yours.

Which brings me to our picnic mats. They are back.

These have been a nala classic for years, but strangely enough, their story doesn’t begin with a picnic at all.

It begins with polo.
I used to play polo, and this particular type of mat comes from the polo world. Polo mallets are laid out beside the field so players can choose the mallet they need before getting onto their horses. The mat keeps everything together and, importantly, off the wet grass.

I came across these mats through polo and immediately loved how incredibly simple and practical they were. So we took the idea and made it ours.

Our mats are compact, practical and reversible, with a waterproof layer underneath, so damp grass is no longer your problem. And because this is nala, both sides are completely different.

Every print begins as a hand-drawn artwork, so depending on where you’re going, what you’re wearing or simply what mood you’re in, you can flip it over and have an entirely different mat. We have taken ours everywhere.

To the park. To the beach. On holidays. Thrown into the car for those moments when sitting on the ground suddenly seems like a very good idea.

Perhaps that is what is so great about picnicking.

You don’t really need very much. Something delicious. Somewhere beautiful. Someone you like. And a good mat.

Our picnic mats are making a comeback in a handful of prints and very limited quantities. They will not be available online.

You’ll have to come and find them in our stores.

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