The Swagger Salon + Koh Yung Shen

By Cindy Low • 07 Apr 2015 in Shop + Owner

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The Swagger Salon
Not For The Faint of Heart

When you need a place where you can head in to have a style makeover, especially of the tough, urban street style variety as opposed to the faux-high fashion Hypebeast look, you can take a stroll into this establishment where its unisex apparel of caps, t-shirts, and other knick-knacks will put the final embellishment onto that attitude-heavy tough guy veneer. When talking about The Swagger Salon, the word LANSI would inevitable come up, as it’s the Cantonese word for ‘arrogant’ appropriated by label owner Shen for a line of fitted caps that it has become more synonymous with. The impetus for the development of The Swagger Salon began as the only means to sell Shen’s caps as disinterested streetwear stores turned him away. Thus, with the help from his high school mates and his entire savings of RM5000 as investment, The Swagger Salon was conceived. It has since grown from a successful online store into a flagship boutique situated along the heritage shop houses in Penang, just nearby Hin Bus Art Depot. Housing sister brands christened with similarly ballsy ethos-defining names such as TAIKOR and NSFW, the shop also carries other unrelated smaller Penang labels such as CNLM, Touchwood, and Solesmith. The store even pays homage to its online beginnings by integrating its signature delivery boxes into the raw, minimalist space where the focus is paid to the merchandise. Painted jet black, The Swagger Salon sticks out like a sore thumb among the decrepit heritage houses and we mean that in the most complimentary way possible.