Birkenstock took over the playground at New Bahru, the creative cluster built into the former Nan Chiau High School campus on Kim Yam Road in Singapore’s River Valley. Stickers covered the slides, an oversized shoebox displayed the Arizona and other key styles, and tenants including bag-making studio Make by Ginlee and leather-craft concept Crafune worked the brand into their own workshops.

The activation was Singapore’s version of Walk Naturally, Birkenstock’s global campaign built on the idea that its contoured footbed lets people walk as they would barefoot. It was due to close on October 12 but ran for an extra two weeks after strong demand for workshop places.

Evelyn Chua oversees eight markets as Birkenstock’s MD for Southeast Asia and Australia. She joined the company in 2024 after six years at DFS, where she led the Singapore and Myanmar business, followed by a role as chief commercial officer at e-commerce enabler Synagie. Inside Retail spoke with her shortly before the New Bahru activation closed.

Inside Retail: Let’s start with Walk Naturally. What is the campaign, and why bring it to New Bahru?

Evelyn Chua: Walk Naturally is a global campaign designed to help people understand what we mean by walking as nature intended. It’s one of the guiding principles behind how we present Birkenstock. The idea is to walk as if you were barefoot, and that’s what our footbed allows you to do.

We wanted to take the campaign into different markets and localise it, and New Bahru is where we activated it in Singapore.

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