A familiar face in the local party circuit, 35-year-old homemaker Nina Ng stands out with her feminine, glamorous and unpretentious ensembles. She has three children – Chloe, 14, Ethan, 10, and Claudine, 9 – with husband Eddie Ng, 40, managing director of his family’s shipping business.

Tell us more about your first encounter with fashion.
My best friend studied fashion in London and when she returned, she asked me to model the reconstructed denim outfits she’d designed for a fashion show held at the Promenade (where part of Paragon now stands).

I was 18 and a student at St. Andrews Junior College then.

How would you describe your sense of style?
Classic, girlish, fun. I love dresses from Herve Leger, Gucci, Pucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Matthew Williamson, Marchesa, Ashley Isham, and even the cheongsams from Shanghai Tang.

Over the years, my style has evolved to become more glamorous and ladylike.

Where do you shop?
I travel at least once every two months when I accompany my husband on his business trips to cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Rome, and shop there.

But recently, my sister introduced me to online stores like Net-a-Porter and Shopbop and I’m addicted!

On average, I spend about $15,000 to $20,000 a month on clothes. I just ordered a print dress and a pair of heels from Gucci’s latest Cruise collection.

Do you shop as much for your husband and children?
My husband buys his own clothes whenever he is overseas. My eldest daughter Chloe buys hers from Twelve 21, Club 21’s line for tweens.

When new stocks arrive, her personal shopper at the store will call her and I’ll go with her to pick out the clothes. My two younger children’s clothes are mostly from Kids 21. I love to dress my son in Roberto Cavalli and Emporio Armani.

What is your secret weapon when it comes to wearing body-conscious clothes?
I do hot yoga three times a week with my girlfriends.

How do you organise your wardrobe?
I categorise them according to colour. But my three wardrobes are bursting at the seams and most of my dresses are hanging in clear plastic laundry bags and squashed together. I think I own a few hundred dresses and more than a hundred pairs of jeans.

My house in Sixth Avenue will be undergoing renovations in a few weeks. At the top of the list is a new 600 sq ft floor-to-ceiling, walk-in wardrobe, complete with a chandelier.

What do you do with your clothes once the season is over?
I share clothes with my two younger sisters because we’re the same size. And every year, I clear out about four bags of basic designer tops, jeans and sweaters, and donate them to charity sales.

I also store a few hundred designer dresses in my five-room apartment in Punggol.

But I must admit I don’t take care of the dresses in that apartment very well – some of the white pieces have turned yellow.

Are there certain outfits you will never part with?
I don’t wear any of my gowns more than twice but I keep them all because they hold special memories and remind me of the events that I have worn them to.

One of my favourites is a Versace safety-pin dress that is similar to the one Elizabeth Hurley wore on the red carpet in 1994!

1.Get a copy of the May 2010 issue of Her World, Singapore’s No. 1 women’s magazine. Her World is published by SPH Magazines and is available at all newsstands now. 2. Gladys Chung is a features writer with Her World magazine by SPH Magazines. 3. Check out more stories at Her World online, www.herworld.com.