To call Hakken misunderstood feels like a stretch. Unlike most public figures, they are not interested in embodying a persona when they are in the spotlight, preferring to present their most authentic, unguarded self to the masses. Still, that is not to say that misinterpretations about them don’t arise. “People don’t believe me when I say I’m an extrovert,” Hakken says over Zoom one Thursday afternoon. They have just returned to Malaysia after a trip to Japan and is on the precipice of another trip. This time, to Singapore for their Vogue Singapore shoot where they will be tackling a different dimension of dress-up as a modern-day version of model and fashion icon, Tina Chow. “I’m just sitting there, chilling,” they continue. “I’m quietly enjoying myself, but no one believes it. They think that I must be an introvert. It might have something to do with me being a Taurus. All that grounded, practical energy.”
There is a likelihood that the stars have something to do with it. The other possibility, however, seems more probable—that is, the
