"In-between moments are a luxury. I do my best to embrace them as an observer."
— Fiona Tan
The person behind the work
Fiona Tan has spent over three decades navigating the intersection of luxury, wellness, and design. Today, as Director of Product Development at COMO Shambhala — the Singapore-founded wellness company whose name draws from the Sanskrit word for peace — she helps shape experiences that are rooted in balance: modern science alongside time-honoured practice, movement alongside stillness.
Her career has taken her through retail, consumer strategy, and executive leadership across some of the world's most refined brands. But what makes Fiona particularly compelling to us at SOTIYO isn't just her professional track record. It's how she moves through the world — with intention, sensitivity, and a quiet curiosity that turns the everyday into something worth noticing.
She's the kind of person who stops at an art installation not just to see it, but to feel what it's doing to the air around her. The kind of person who, on an ordinary Friday morning in her Singapore office, pauses to think carefully before answering a question about rhythm.
That's why we wanted to have this conversation.
A slower pace, on purpose
We caught Fiona on a Friday morning — TGIF, as she put it — before her weekly routine got underway. She's been in Singapore her whole life. Born and bred there, she calls it home without hesitation.
When we asked how movement shows up in her daily life — not the travel kind, but the everyday rhythm of it — her answer was characteristically measured. She wants to be mindful of every action. A slower pace, she says, means life doesn't rush past unnoticed. "I am still evolving in my own consciousness," she adds, with a kind of honesty that most people would keep to themselves.
It's a reminder that moving well isn't always about covering distance. Sometimes it's about the quality of attention you bring to where you already are.
What lives in the in-between
The spaces between places — a walk, a pause, the quiet before the next thing — are where Fiona says she feels most present. She finds those moments most precious when she's walking her dog, or sitting across from someone in a conversation that actually goes somewhere. "I do my best to embrace these moments as an observer," she says.
That word — observer — keeps coming back when Fiona talks about how she moves. She takes in beauty as information. The color of a place, the silhouette of a stranger, the architecture still standing behind autumn leaves. "Inspiration for me comes from the beauty that I see physically — a place, an object, the style of a person. And after the communication. It's always a balance between the mind and the heart."
She shared a photo from the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul — an Olafur Eliasson installation where light, air, and water work together in ways a camera can barely catch. Her note alongside it was perhaps the most Fiona sentence in this whole conversation: "What's invisible still leaves an impact."
The decades that shaped her
When we asked about the transitions that had shaped her most, Fiona pointed to her twenties and thirties — a decade of travel, work, and the right people at the right time. "May need more time and perhaps a conversation," she added, laughing lightly at the idea that some things still need processing.
There's a kind of grace in admitting that. That you're still figuring it out. That the person you are now was built quietly, across years of movement — not in a single turning point.
She mentioned liking stillness, and in the same breath acknowledged she's constantly moving and evolving. The two aren't contradictions for Fiona. They're the same thing, seen from different angles.
The honest answer about objects
We always ask about the things people carry. The objects that travel with them through the day, for whatever reason — practical, emotional, or habitual.
Fiona's answer was disarming in its candor: "The truth hurts here but I have to admit it's my Apple." No elaborate explanation. Just the plain reality that most of us live with — the one object we can't quite leave behind, even when we'd like to.
What Fiona does bring to her relationship with objects more broadly, though, is an unusually refined eye. Good design, for her, reveals itself in sequence: first the form — color, shape — then the detail. The touch. Even the scent. "I love beauty and the art and science behind it," she says. It's not a passive appreciation. It's a trained attentiveness that she's carried from her career into her life.
Comfort as a feeling, not a feature
Comfort, Fiona says, is hard to describe. It's physical, mental, emotional — all at once. But when she tries to pin it down, she comes back to something deeply personal: being comfortable in her own skin. "I am highly sensitive. A gut, a vibe needs to feel ok — comfort?"
It's one of the more honest definitions we've heard. Comfort isn't a spec sheet. It isn't a material grade or a feature list. It's the quiet sense that things are — for now, in this moment — okay.
For someone who works in wellness, who thinks about balance as a professional discipline, it makes sense that she'd bring the same standard to herself.
Breathing as a tool, not a habit
Staying present through familiar routines is something Fiona approaches practically. Her answer was simple: breath. "If I use my breath more meaningfully and purposefully, I can break my routines." Not dramatic. Not a reinvention. Just a small, intentional act that shifts the quality of the moment.
It's worth sitting with that for a second. The most powerful tool she named for staying out of autopilot fits in a single breath.
What's next
Fiona is turning 60 — she mentioned it with a laugh and a half-question of whether we'd actually publish it (we will, because it's worth celebrating). She's curious about this next decade. Reflective about the last one, which she calls a blessing. And genuinely open to what comes next, in the way that only people who've learned to move with intention tend to be.
A quiet thread
What runs through this conversation — quietly, without ever being stated outright — is the idea that how you move through life is a practice. Not a destination. Not a set of products or places. But a quality of attention that you bring to the small things: a walk, a pause, a light installation in Seoul, a breath before the next meeting.
At SOTIYO, we think about this a lot. We design for people in motion — but the kind of motion we care about most is the kind Fiona describes. Unhurried. Observant. Rooted in the belief that the in-between moments are where something real happens.
The objects we make are meant to support that kind of movement. To disappear into it, in the best possible way.
If this conversation spoke to you, you might enjoy exploring how we think about the rhythm of urban life and the spaces between places — it runs through everything we make at SOTIYO.
And if you'd like more conversations like this one, subscribe to Roam Lines — our newsletter about human flow, design, and what it means to move through the world with intention.
