Long before homegrown jewellery brand By Invite Only was generating seven-figure annual revenue and winning over customers with its dainty, sparkling pieces, there was simply a teenage girl wandering into a beading shop along Arab Street.
Trixie Khong wasn’t even thinking about starting a business.
At the time, she was just a 16-year-old who had stumbled upon a new creative pastime. One that would later become an escape during her years studying chemical engineering.
As a student, Ms Khong immersed herself in a world of maths and physics. She was in classrooms where women made up just 10% to 15% of the cohort.
“The uncle at the store was very kind and open to teaching me how to craft,” she recalled in an interview with MS News. “Every time I went, he taught me how to connect things.”
As Ms Khong accumulated more handmade jewellery than she could wear, she realised she needed a way to fund her growing collection.
That hobby eventually evolved into By Invite Only. A brand that the 38-year-old founder and CEO has spent the past 17 years building into one of Singapore’s most recognisable accessories brands.
Like many Singaporeans, Ms Khong chose her Temasek Polytechnic course for practical reasons.
Having excelled at maths and physics, chemical engineering seemed like a natural path to university and a stable career. However, an internship at a chemical distillation plant on Jurong Island forced her to reconsider.
The work was far removed from what she imagined. Instead of solving problems, she spent most of her time memorising machinery codes, pipe systems, and plant layouts. She could even draw the entire facility from memory on a blank sheet of paper.
“To me, that felt very pointless because there was no critical thinking involved,” she said. “I would go to work full of dread and soon realised the field wasn’t for me because there was no room to be creative. I started with chemical engineering because I was good at it, but I hated it.”
She knew continuing down this road would leave her unfulfilled. So Ms Khong enrolled in the National University of Singapore (NUS) to study Communications and New Media. In doing so, she sought to complement her strengths in products and numbers with marketing skills that would later prove invaluable in building By Invite Only.
Her parents’ support made the transition easier. They trusted her judgment and gave her the freedom to chart her own path. And they never pressured her to pursue a conventional career or asked when she would get a “real” full-time job.
Image courtesy of Trixie Khong
“Sometimes it’s not about being an active cheerleader,” she said. “Just not stopping your child gives them the chance to try.”
When By Invite Only was officially launched in 2009, Ms Khong was not only trying to get a fledgling business off the ground. She was also juggling her studies at NUS alongside two part-time jobs — one in retail at the now-defunct Asylum Shop, and another doing data entry.
In the early days, the business operated on a simple formula: make a few pieces, sell them online, then use the proceeds to buy more materials.
Image courtesy of Trixie Khong
Ms Khong would typically produce no more than five pieces of each design at a time. If customers requested more and she still had leftover beads, she would make another small batch until the materials ran out.
Everything was made by hand, and for the first few years, every piece that carried the By Invite Only name was crafted by Ms Khong herself, who designed, assembled, quality-checked, packaged, and shipped each order under her one-woman operation.
The business was equally lean financially. “I started the business with just S$500 in my bank account,” she said.
Still, she didn’t dare to charge high amounts for a long time, with most pieces selling for between S$20 and S$39. Looking back, she admitted those prices were heavily influenced by “imposter syndrome”.
“I didn’t price in the value of my own time,” she explained. “While it took me maybe 15 minutes or less to physically assemble a piece, I didn’t factor in the time and effort spent sourcing materials and conceptualising the design.”
Image courtesy of Trixie Khong
Much has changed since then. While By Invite Only’s everyday jewellery pieces remain relatively affordable, ranging from under S$30 to almost S$200, its demi-fine jewellery collection starts from about S$95 and can exceed S$1,000 for premium designs.
As orders grew, so did the production demand.
Ms Khong eventually brought on a freelance crafter to help replicate her designs before building a small in-house crafting team. Even then, every piece continued to pass through her hands for quality checks before reaching customers.
At the same time, the business was beginning to outgrow its blogshop roots.
Although online sales remained the brand’s primary revenue driver, she also started showcasing at community retail events such as Public Garden, where she could connect directly with customers and observe how they interacted with her products in person.
Image courtesy of Trixie Khong
That momentum eventually opened the door to physical retail. Around 2017, By Invite Only was offered a trial kiosk space in Plaza Singapura’s atrium by a mall manager who was an existing customer.
“That space taught us that retail was definitely not dead,” she said. “Once a customer physically tries a piece of jewellery on, there’s a very high chance they will buy it.”
The success of the trial led to the brand’s first permanent storefront in VivoCity, where it remained for six years before making way for its current expansion plans.
Today, By Invite Only operates five stores across Singapore, including its newly opened flagship at Raffles City, and is preparing to open its first overseas outlet at The Gardens Mall in Kuala Lumpur later this year.
As it turns out, Ms Khong’s chemical engineering background has not completely gone to waste.
Her understanding of materials and reactions has shaped how she thinks about product safety, especially for customers whose skin may not respond well to certain metals or coatings.
Beyond creating undeniably oh-so-pretty jewellery, By Invite Only has also built its reputation on pieces designed with sensitive skin in mind, a commitment shaped partly by Ms Khong’s own struggles with eczema.
Having grown up with accessories that tarnished easily or irritated her skin, she made material safety a non-negotiable part of By Invite Only’s product philosophy.
As a result, the brand’s pieces are free from what she calls the “toxic trio”: nickel, lead, and cadmium. That said, she is careful not to claim that By Invite Only’s jewellery is 100% allergy-proof. This is because everyone’s skin chemistry is different.
“If any brand claims they are completely allergy-proof, you should run away,” she cautioned. “What we can guarantee is that our jewellery is clean and safe for sensitive skin.”
That transparency extends to how the brand handles customers who may still experience a reaction.
By Invite Only offers a strict, no-questions-asked money-back policy for allergy flare-ups, though Ms Khong shared that such refunds are rarely needed, which she takes as a reassuring sign that their approach is working.
That focus on quality has led to some memorable customer encounters over the years.
One that stayed with Ms Khong happened at By Invite Only’s Raffles City store. A customer asked whether the brand still carried a basic rose-gold chain she had purchased years ago.
Curious, Ms Khong asked how long she had owned the piece. The answer caught her by surprise. The customer had worn it every single day for four years, including in the shower.
“I was shocked and thrilled. Her friends and colleagues who were with her instantly went on a shopping spree in our store right after hearing that!” she laughed.
As By Invite Only grew from a homegrown jewellery label into a multi-store brand, her own life changed, too.
In June 2024, Ms Khong and her husband, who is also her business partner, welcomed their first child, a baby boy.
Source: @trixiekhong on Instagram
In the early years of the business, Ms Khong was used to being involved in almost everything. However, becoming a mother has made her more intentional about where she puts her energy, both at work and at home.
It has even shifted how she thinks about growth. By Invite Only’s annual revenue is now in the high seven-figure range, based on its 2025 financial figures. Ms Khong shared that the goal is no longer to chase aggressive revenue growth for its own sake.
Instead, the team has been taking a step back to think about what customers actually want.
For instance, feedback showed that shoppers preferred larger, more comfortable spaces where they could better experience the brand’s storytelling and collections.
That insight helped shape the brand’s new Raffles City flagship. The outlet gives customers more room to browse, try on pieces, and enjoy a more comfortable shopping experience.
As for the even longer-term future, Ms Khong is open to her son taking over the business one day. However, that is only if he truly wants to. And even then, there will be no “nepo baby” treatment.
“He will absolutely have to work his way up from the bottom like everyone else,” she chuckled. “The only true way to gain the respect of others is to prove your own capabilities.”
To learn more about By Invite Only or shop its jewellery collections, visit the brand’s official website.
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Featured image by MS News. Photography by Felicia Fun.