Melvin Ong, the founder of DESINERE, graduated with First-Class Honors from Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design in 2010. While in the UK, Melvin had the opportunity to work under the tutelage of established designers such as Chris Lefteri and Reiko Kaneko. Melvin has also exhibited his personal work at Tent London in 2010 and at the Milan Salone Satellite in 2011.
In 2012, he moved back to Singapore to establish his own studio, DESINERE, which approaches design through a quiet reflection of relationships between items, people, and experiences to create authentic, honest objects that are refreshingly unexpected. The brand launched its first collection at Design Tide Tokyo 2012, and later at Tortona Design Week in Milan in 2013.
DESINERE has also been an active participant of the annual “Singaplural” Design Week organized by SFIC (Singapore Furniture Industries Council). DESINERE was also part of the team that worked on the first collection of Singapore Icons porcelainware, produced by Supermama and Kihara, which was awarded the Presidents Design Award in 2013. In 2014, Melvin was named ‘Rising Asian Talent’ by Maison et Objet Asia.