Asylum

When Chris Lee first started The Asylum back in 1999, it was a design studio specialising in commercial graphics tints and branding packaging projects. By 2005, The Asylum had morphed into a retail shop where local designers went to display their wares. Today, The Asylum sells everything from limited edition Fred Perry sneakers, quirky Kubrick toys and Kwodrent’s hand-sewn pieces to monthly issues of ‘Nylon’ and ‘Surface’ and music CDs from obscure, experimental indie folk bands. In short, they don’t quite fit into any conventional retail genre. Up next, we hear there are plans for a music label called Asylum Sounds, a potential in-house magazine and maybe even a book. Is there nothing they won’t do?