WEDA 2023: Nicole Oh’s full trust in her younger self

by Aisha Capulong

Nicole highlights the importance of initiatives like WEDA to uplift women designers on a larger scale while excitedly speaking on achieving the perfect work-life balance through her hobbies

Having won the Women Empowering Designer Award (WEDA) twice in a row now, Nicole enters the room with an easygoing aura about her. After all, this isn’t her first rodeo. With a warm smile, Nicole tells us how the award has strengthened her personal brand over the year, and in lieu, Art by Three’s reputation as well. She also adds how it’s allowed the design studio to attract new talents, clients and investors that share the same values.

For someone with her level of charm and grace, Nicole’s favourite way to unwind is to decorate her “home sweet home” with fresh flowers, and pair a glass of wine with some music and scented candles. She truly finds calm and repose within her own home. Plus, it helps that she has a prized collection of wine and whiskey glasses from her travels welcoming her home.

Thinking of the next five years, she sees Art by Three expanding into international markets. Nicole is excited for her studio’s next chapter and looks forward to replicating the premium work they’re known for even outside Malaysia.

If she could travel back in time and meet her younger self, the Design Director would tell herself to do whatever her heart desires. Nicole is sure of her path and the direction she’s taken in life, and she’d like her younger self to have the same sense of conviction, even if it means it may lead her someplace new. Either way, she puts full trust in herself to live an authentic life, one she’s chosen from A to Z.