Moon Tang doesn’t talk about time like a deadline. She talks about it like a room you can inhabit – glance over one shoulder and see the past still leaning in the doorway; glance over the other and see the future already taking a seat. It’s a way of thinking that suits a February cover story: romantic, but not in the loud, cinematic way romance gets sold. More private, lived-in – where tenderness is earned, and love is learned in increments.
When she titled her second studio album ‘25’ – released on March 11, 2025 – she was pinning down a specific point in time. Her birthday is in May – ‘kind of in the middle of the year,’ she notes – and she’s drawn to the symmetry of a midpoint. Twenty-five, too, is the exact centre of your twenties: the age where looking back feels honest rather than hazy with nostalgia, and looking ahead feels concrete. She describes her early twenties as a stretch of questioning herself, of being confused, of still figuring out what adulthood is supposed to mean while living inside it. ‘25’ lands at the moment you can finally acknowledge you’ve been doing that – and that everything was still real.
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Skirt: Sandro
Jewellery: By Angi
Headwear: worth.it
Shoes: Charles & Keith
She’s 26 now, and it’s been almost a year since the album came out. Uncertainty hasn’t vanished; what’s changed is that she no longer interprets it as a shortcoming. There’s no attempt to rewrite those years into a cleaner narrative. If anything, she speaks about them with a softness that suggests she’s made peace with her own past. Confusion, in her telling, wasn’t wasted time; it was simply what it looked like to be fully present in those moments.
The simplest way to put it is that she feels less anxious about the future now – because she can see where she wants to go a little more clearly. ‘A clearer vision’ – she says plainly. But her hesitation matters: she’s still learning. Always learning. She circles back to that line like a grounding point, as if the most grown-up thing you can do is to stop pretending you’ll ever land somewhere finished.
Skirt: SUSAN FANG
Jewellery: By Angi
Teddy Bear Bag: Moschino
Shoes: Charles & Keith
Part of what makes ‘25’ feel like an cohesive album – rather than just a collection of songs – is how intentionally it was assembled. She contrasts it with ‘Water Comes Out of My Eyes’ (released in early 2023), which moved like an exploration by design: different genres, different producers, a wide-open experiment where each track was made with a different friend. That approach has its own thrill, but can also mirror the emotional logic of your early twenties: try everything, feel everything, don’t pause long enough to solidify.
‘25’ tightened the circle. Most of the album was built with just two or three producers – people who have known her since she was 16 or 17. ‘They basically grew up with me,’ she says. In practice, that changes everything: less time translating your instincts, more time trusting them. You stop reaching for the most interesting option and start reaching for the truest one.
The credits reflect that kind of closeness. Producer-songwriter Nic Tsui is credited across much of the record, with collaborators like Sam Ock and Gordon Flanders also helping bring particular songs to life. It’s held together by familiarity rather than constant motion.
Jewellery: By Angi
Shoes: Charles & Keith
Heart Puffer Scrunchie: KOKOOKY
Tea: Chinese Tea Gallery
Macarons: Bain Marie
There’s something understatedly romantic about that choice: choosing familiarity, choosing people who have seen your awkward phases, choosing depth over variety. Not romantic in the love-song sense – romantic in the way commitment is romantic: to a sound, to a story, to staying with something until it reveals itself.
And yet, if February makes people think only of romantic love, Moon’s version of love is wider. When asked how the album changed her perspective on love or her standards around it, she talks about where her focus has shifted. Before, love felt more outward – friends, a partner, the social gravity of being young and on the move. After the album, she found herself turning toward her roots: herself and her family.
She’s careful not to claim that she’s figured it all out. She says she’s still confused about the meaning of love – still exploring. But if you want evidence that her notion of love is concrete, not philosophical, she offers it without prompting: her mother.
Jewellery: By Angi
Tea: Chinese Tea Gallery
Macarons: Bain Marie
It’s the most underrated love she can name, she says – because it happens every day, without being asked for or negotiated. Moon describes herself being constantly in a rush, and still, her mum makes breakfast for her anyway. Always waiting on the table. The same combination: kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, and two boiled eggs. She didn’t tell her mum she needed breakfast; her mum just makes it. That daily ritual – habitual and reliable – is the opposite of what people usually try to capture on camera. It’s also, arguably, the most formative.
It isn’t hard to connect the dots: an album called ‘25’ acting as a hinge, a drift back to her roots, a breakfast left waiting at the table. Romance, in her story, is what’s left once the noise thins out.
That idea carries into what comes next. Moon is taking ‘25’ on the road with a tour titled ‘25+,’ a name she likes because it leaves space open. She laughs at the literal reading – she’s ‘actually 25 plus one now’ – but the real meaning sits underneath: plus as possibility. New opportunities. New experiences. New perspectives on the world.
Jewellery: By Angi
Shoes: Sam Edelman
Tea: Chinese Tea Gallery
Macarons: Bain Marie
Touring turns the idea into something physical. She describes it simply: it feels nice to make something and have people like it, and for that to bring her to more places. There’s a flicker of disbelief inside her excitement – the surprised gratitude of someone watching her music travel further than she imagined.
On stage, there’s one song she keeps returning to – ‘Hair,’ one of the tracks from ‘25.’ She tells its origin story as if the memory still delights her: she wrote it in the shower while washing her hair back when it was long. She hated having long hair, she says, but she wanted to try it anyway – to find out if she truly hated it or if she just assumed she did. That’s Moon in miniature: she tests her feelings against reality.
The song held a question: when should she cut her hair? In the lyrics, the answer appears as a pair of milestones – when she found love, or when she was 25. She turned 25, and she cut it off. Yet she also felt that she found love after releasing the album – not a single romantic event, but ‘so much love around me’ that she realised had always been there. Now, when she sings the song live, it feels strange, she says, because it’s about growing her hair and she has short hair now. It’s the story of ‘25’ again: outgrowing a version of yourself while still carrying the memory of how you got there.
Belt: Shiatzy Chen
Jewellery: By Angi
Shoes: Charles & Keith
When she talks about what she wants next, she isn’t describing a transformation so much as a calmer way of moving. She says she feels more stable and grounded than she did two years ago – like she knows herself better now. The difference shows up in how she handles the world looking back at her: when people question her, she no longer hears it as an attack. ‘This is who I am,’ she says, which comes out with a steadiness that leaves room for whatever comes after.
That groundedness, however, doesn’t mean she’s staying in one place. She’s writing a lot of new music, she says, and it’s very different from ‘25.’ She can’t wait for people to hear it. A single is already planned for March.
Jewellery: By Angi
Tea: Chinese Tea Gallery
For a February cover star, the timing is serendipitous. This is the month that pressures everyone into definitions – of love, of partnership, of what romance should look like. Moon refuses the pressure entirely. Instead, she talks about love as a practice, family as foundation, getting older as gaining direction – ‘plus’ as a way to stay open.
If ‘25’ is a turning point, it’s also a permission slip: to look back without flinching, to look forward without panic, to admit you’re still learning. Moon Tang’s romance right now lives in small choices – keeping close the people who knew you early on, noticing who shows up when you’re rushing, letting love stretch beyond its usual shape, and simply being yourself out loud.
That’s what makes her a February story. Not the obvious romance. The kind that lasts.
Styling Assistants: Joey Wong & Samantha Lai
Special Thanks: Chinese Tea Gallery & Bain Marie
Catherine Pun
A Hong Kong native with Filipino-Chinese roots, Catherine infuses every part of her life with zest, whether she’s belting out karaoke tunes or exploring off-the-beaten-path destinations. Her downtime often includes unwinding with Netflix and indulging in a 10-step skincare routine. As the Editorial Director of Friday Club., Catherine brings her wealth of experience from major publishing houses, where she refined her craft and even authored a book. Her sharp editorial insight makes her a dynamic force, always on the lookout for the next compelling narrative.
