HONG KONG: In the back of Henry Lau's Spy boutique in Soho - past the tux jackets, rhinestone-studded T-shirts and embroidered jeans - is a rack for fashion-show and photo-shoot cast-offs. A recent find there was as a long, red dress. Its color, length and high slits gave it the feel of a Chinese cheongsam. But its button-down front, pointed collar and matching necktie also made it look like a Western shirt-dress. It was part Suzie Wong, part woman banker, and totally Hong Kong. And it cost a fraction of what a dress would in one of the European designer-name boutiques in central Hong Kong.
A generation ago, it would have been hard to find this sort of one-of-a-kind piece from a local designer with his own couture line. Hong Kong spent decades on the bottom rung of the international fashion ladder as a low-cost manufacturing center for Western companies. The city excelled at the mass production, import-export and retailing of clothing from Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, newly rich Hon
g Kongers flocked to acquire the latest foreign status symbols.
The result was a fashion-obsessed city that produced very few of its own fashion designers. Those who did make it, like Vivienne Tam, mostly did so overseas. But a new generation of local designers have begun to make a mark here. In the 1990s, newly graduated designers began showing their works in rented shoebox-size spaces in commercial districts like Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui. That is how Henry Lau began.
More recently, designers have begun opening signature shops in the adjoining areas of Sheung Wan, Soho and Noho (South of Hollywood and North of Hollywood, respectively), near the Central district. This year, neighborhood favorites like Cecilia Yau and Ranee K have moved to larger ateliers, while several other designers have opened new boutiques.
Though works vary from designer to designer, a collective Hong Kong style has emerged. Fabrics are ultralight. Colors are bold and Asian, though the Chinese influence is often less blatant than, say, Shanghai Tang's, with its emphasis on traditional Chinese-themed clothes. Great attention is paid to details like cuts, folds, layers, embroidery and beading. That is a reflection of the city's long-standing tailoring tradition, as is the fact that most designers make only several custom-fit copies of each piece.
Ranee K showed up for her interview looking every inch like a working designer - in a ponytail, loose jeans and re-tailored dress-shirt. In May, she moved to a two-story atelier, called K, with a boutique and an upstairs workshop, where she has been finishing an evening wear collection for a fashion show at the end of this month. She has no other stores and makes only three copies of each design - one each in U.S. sizes 2, 4 and 6, although others can be tailored.
When Ranee K opened her first Hong Kong store in 2000, just after graduating from Parson's School of Design in New York, her style was limited to variations of the Chinese dress, the qipao - retro-chic frocks in florals, pastels and vintage Asian prints. She has since branched out. A recent visit turned up a floaty silk gown in misty blue and white, black minidresses decorated with pieces cut from vintage kimono obis, tube dresses with a bright Pop Art prints, separates, bikinis, bits of jewelry and other eclectica.
She credits her clientele for her evolution.
"I didn't expect this when I first opened a shop, but I have befriended many of my regular clients, and my designs have grown as they have," she said. "They started getting married, so I did evening wear. Then they got pregnant, so I added maternity pieces. Then they got better jobs, so I did office wear."
Had they also been invited to the Royal Ascot races? K is filled with hats that would belong at Harrod's had they not been paired with Chinese dresses, pink feather puffs, pillboxes with net blushers and big-brimmed sunhats.
"Well, maybe one of my guests will get invited to a garden wedding party in England," she said.
Cecilia Yau is in the process of opening a similar two-story atelier. Clients can browse her intricately hand-embroidered and beaded gowns downstairs; but the upstairs workshop will not be finished until autumn.
Yau, who attended the École de Mode Internationale in Paris, focuses on evening and bridal wear. She graduated in 1999 and launched her couture line in 2000. At the time, she did fittings in an upstairs workshop next to a pizza shop.
Source: iht.com
A generation ago, it would have been hard to find this sort of one-of-a-kind piece from a local designer with his own couture line. Hong Kong spent decades on the bottom rung of the international fashion ladder as a low-cost manufacturing center for Western companies. The city excelled at the mass production, import-export and retailing of clothing from Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, newly rich Hon
g Kongers flocked to acquire the latest foreign status symbols.The result was a fashion-obsessed city that produced very few of its own fashion designers. Those who did make it, like Vivienne Tam, mostly did so overseas. But a new generation of local designers have begun to make a mark here. In the 1990s, newly graduated designers began showing their works in rented shoebox-size spaces in commercial districts like Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui. That is how Henry Lau began.
More recently, designers have begun opening signature shops in the adjoining areas of Sheung Wan, Soho and Noho (South of Hollywood and North of Hollywood, respectively), near the Central district. This year, neighborhood favorites like Cecilia Yau and Ranee K have moved to larger ateliers, while several other designers have opened new boutiques.
Though works vary from designer to designer, a collective Hong Kong style has emerged. Fabrics are ultralight. Colors are bold and Asian, though the Chinese influence is often less blatant than, say, Shanghai Tang's, with its emphasis on traditional Chinese-themed clothes. Great attention is paid to details like cuts, folds, layers, embroidery and beading. That is a reflection of the city's long-standing tailoring tradition, as is the fact that most designers make only several custom-fit copies of each piece.
Ranee K showed up for her interview looking every inch like a working designer - in a ponytail, loose jeans and re-tailored dress-shirt. In May, she moved to a two-story atelier, called K, with a boutique and an upstairs workshop, where she has been finishing an evening wear collection for a fashion show at the end of this month. She has no other stores and makes only three copies of each design - one each in U.S. sizes 2, 4 and 6, although others can be tailored.
When Ranee K opened her first Hong Kong store in 2000, just after graduating from Parson's School of Design in New York, her style was limited to variations of the Chinese dress, the qipao - retro-chic frocks in florals, pastels and vintage Asian prints. She has since branched out. A recent visit turned up a floaty silk gown in misty blue and white, black minidresses decorated with pieces cut from vintage kimono obis, tube dresses with a bright Pop Art prints, separates, bikinis, bits of jewelry and other eclectica.
She credits her clientele for her evolution.
"I didn't expect this when I first opened a shop, but I have befriended many of my regular clients, and my designs have grown as they have," she said. "They started getting married, so I did evening wear. Then they got pregnant, so I added maternity pieces. Then they got better jobs, so I did office wear."
Had they also been invited to the Royal Ascot races? K is filled with hats that would belong at Harrod's had they not been paired with Chinese dresses, pink feather puffs, pillboxes with net blushers and big-brimmed sunhats.
"Well, maybe one of my guests will get invited to a garden wedding party in England," she said.
Cecilia Yau is in the process of opening a similar two-story atelier. Clients can browse her intricately hand-embroidered and beaded gowns downstairs; but the upstairs workshop will not be finished until autumn.
Yau, who attended the École de Mode Internationale in Paris, focuses on evening and bridal wear. She graduated in 1999 and launched her couture line in 2000. At the time, she did fittings in an upstairs workshop next to a pizza shop.
Source: iht.com
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