On the opening day of Hong Kong Fashion Week yesterday - which is usually the busiest day of the fair - exhibitors sat at their empty booths, slowly eating their lunches with glazed expressions.
'This is our third year in a row participating, and it is definitely the worst year so far. There's no one here,' said Sabrina Zhang Wei, a saleswoman for a Zhejiang textiles factory.
But her company's business on the mainland is doing fine.
'European and American buyers prefer to go directly to Chinese factories, or fashion-trade conventions in Beijing and Shanghai,' Zhang said.
The relatively low turnout at the 19th annual Hong Kong Fashion Week for spring and summer fashions reflected Hong Kong's declining importance in the global fashion industry, said Polytechnic University assistant professor of marketing Chester To Kin-man.
'Hong Kong used to act like an agent for mainland Chinese textiles factories when the infrastructure in China was underdeveloped,' he said. 'Now, China's facilities are very good, so buyers can skip Hong Kong and go directly to China.'
The popularity of fashion week events, organised by the Trade Development Council, peaked in the 1990s, according to research by Polytechnic University's Institute of Textiles and Clothing.