A store built to champion local designers stopped paying them years before it folded

Naiise built its identity around Singapore's independent designers, curating and selling their products on consignment across multiple stores at its peak, including outlets at Orchard Gateway and Paya Lebar Quarter. The model depended on trust: vendors supplied goods upfront and were paid only after Naiise sold them.

That trust broke down years before the public collapse. Vendors including Capital Gains Studio said they had been owed money since 2018 with no payment and ignored collection emails; Bespoke Parfums Artisanaux was owed roughly S$10,000, with debt collectors reportedly confronting the founder at the airport. Other unpaid vendors included Bamboo Straw Girl, Freshly Pressed Socks and Nom Nom Plush.

Rather than address the underlying cash flow problem, founder Dennis Tay kept the business running by exhausting his personal savings and borrowing heavily from banks to make partial payments to creditors. The Orchard Gateway and Paya Lebar Quarter stores closed in 2020, and the flagship 9,500-square-foot store at Jewel Changi Airport closed in April 2021.

On April 14, 2021, Tay announced Naiise would go into liquidation and that he would personally file for bankruptcy, saying he was 'now out of time and options.' A platform built to give small Singaporean designers a retail home instead left several of them among its unpaid creditors when it finally admitted the business could not continue.