Mai Nhi Tran Le—otherwise known as GG, is a blogger who is currently travelling the
world. GG’s unique choice of clothing is a step out of the norm, making fashion her
forte. When she moved to Singapore, her interest in fashion bloomed through her job
as a fashion photographer. During her teenage years, “I remember I couldn’t afford
anything at the time, yet I still believed that dressing well was a need and not a
want.” To accommodate her love for fashion and personal style she established an
online store, Plaaastic. Plaaastic is “a tribute to the song Barbie Girl by Aqua, which I
grew up listening to and for the ‘Plastics’ in Mean Girls.” With past experiences in
making and designing clothes, she opened her first online store at the age of 13. GG’s
aim was to open an “affordable, yet cool online store for youngsters like me.” At this
time in her life, she had been working for almost 2 years in Singapore at a “low paying
labour job” to pay for her education and lifestyle. This was a catalyst for GG to
become her own boss. After a year of success with Plaaastic, GG realised “what I
thought was opening a new door for me, was now holding me down.” The thought of
growing a business run in the apartment of one young girl is a scary thought. “I was
doing everything from designing the clothes, making the clothes, designing the webstore, shipping out the orders... and as the company became bigger and bigger,
everything else in my life got smaller and smaller. I stopped travelling the world, I
wasn't dancing as much as I used to, I didn’t like who I became and was obsessed
with my brand.” As Plaaastic grew as a business, GG made a tough decision “I wasn’t
ready to settle down with one job, so I said goodbye.”