When I designed my first wine charms collection for Singapore, I was so sure I had it figured out. Five years of watching what people love about this city, five years of knowing what sells. I had logic on my side. I made 100 sets of one collection and 50 of another. I didn't even order enough boxes for the second one — that's how confident I was.
I was completely wrong. And honestly, it's one of the best things that's ever happened to Livac Designs.
If you're looking for wine charms in Singapore, the shophouse set is the one I'd tell you to start with. But let me explain why — and why it almost never existed.
The Collection I Was Certain Would Win
I launched two wine charm sets at the same time. The first was a Singapore icons collection — the Merlion, Marina Bay Sands, the Science Museum (most people call it the Buddha's Hand), the Singapore Flyer, the Supertree, and a Singapore map. Classic Singapore. The kind of designs that appear on every postcard and every souvenir shelf in every airport in the country. Recognisable. Safe. Proven.
I ordered 100 sets of this one.
The second collection was shophouses. Those colourful, two-storey terrace houses along Joo Chiat, Katong, Tiong Bahru, Emerald Hill. Beautiful, unmistakably Singaporean — but not the obvious gift pick. Not the first image that comes up when you Google "Singapore." A bit niche, I thought. A side bet.
I ordered 50 sets. Just to see.
What Happened When They Went on Sale
The shophouses sold out first.
Not by a small margin. They were gone before the icons set had moved half its stock. Customers were messaging me asking when they'd be back. Two stockists were asking me the same question within the same week. I was sitting there staring at my remaining inventory of Merlions, genuinely confused about what I'd miscalculated.
Turns out I hadn't miscalculated anything. I'd just underestimated something I couldn't have put in a spreadsheet.
Why the Shophouse Wine Charm Wins Every Time
Here's what I understand now, after watching these wine charms end up in living rooms across London, Sydney, Dubai, Toronto and Melbourne: the shophouse isn't a tourist symbol. It's a personal memory.
It's the row of houses on the street where your friend lives in Joo Chiat. It's the coffee shop on the corner you went to every Sunday for three years. It's the neighbourhood that quietly became yours — before you even realised Singapore could feel like yours.
The Merlion is Singapore on a postcard. The shophouse is Singapore the way you actually lived it.
When someone picks up a shophouse wine charm set, they're not buying a souvenir. They're keeping something specific — the light in the evening on a particular street, the feeling of a city that got under their skin without asking permission. That's not what I expected a small wine charm to carry. But that's what it does.
What Happened After (The Part I Don't Usually Talk About)
I put in a reorder for 800 sets.
That sounds like a straightforward win, and it was — but it was also a full week of logistics I had not prepared for. New box sizes. New assembly process. A supplier who asked me to confirm the quantities three times because the number seemed too big. I was sorting this out at my kitchen table at 11pm, working backwards from lead times I hadn't planned for.
That week taught me something I've tried to hold onto since: your customers know what they love before you do. Your job is to make it, keep your assumptions out of the way, and listen when they show you.
The shophouse wine charms are still one of Livac's best sellers — not just in numbers, but in the messages they generate. Someone in Amsterdam sent me a photo from a dinner party with all six glasses lined up and the charms catching the light. A customer in Melbourne tagged me at a housewarming. A woman in London said she uses hers every time she wants to feel like she's back in Singapore for a moment.
I almost didn't make them.
If you'd like a set, you can find the shophouse wine charms here. And if you want to see the full range — there are six collections in total, each one a different corner of Singapore — browse them all here.