Babe carries the Parisian dream
In April last year, Dennis Pong set up Babe, a company to make bags. He called his first collection Lost Paradise. As a complete unknown, he needed to make his presence felt, so he sent out imaginative press information: an island map was folded into a packet containing grains of sand and minute, translucent shells from Tahiti, which trickled on to fashion editors' desks in several countries.
'The whole idea originally was to print invites on wood but we had technical problems,' he says. 'So then we thought a little and had the idea of the sand. We wanted to build on the theme of a shipwreck - the feeling that it had happened 100 years ago, and the treasures that you dig up are the bags.' These days, bags really are treasures - one need only look at the staggering revival of fortune of the house of Fendi as a result of its 'baguette' bag to appreciate their lustre.
If the last two years of this century have had a dominant fashion theme then it is the re-emergence of this one accessory, so Mr Pong timed his arrival on the scene beautifully. Indeed, his second collection, Return To Eden (available in Lane Crawford), was inspired by the resolve of early settlers in America, but it may just as easily be read as a reference to his own situation: an abundance of natural resources, some hardship, plenty of determination and the belief that there is a huge continent out there waiting to be conquered.
In Mr Pong's case, although he is based in Hong Kong, that continent is primarily Europe. As he wryly observes: 'When people see that this person is accepted by Paris, they say he must be OK. Once you have an image in Europe, then you can penetrate the Hong Kong market.' It helps that after he graduated from Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnic University, with a degree in fashion design, he went straight to Paris. That was in 1991, when a baguette was something young designers with little money ate to keep themselves going. 'It was like being a starving student, you're quite happy with just a croissant, and most people were really nice. It was a very good experience.' He worked as a freelance designer for a variety of design studios there, including Lanvin, Michel Klein and Dorothee Bis, before returning to his birthplace of Hong Kong to work for a manufacturing company.
Babe was a journey into virgin territory. (The name is based on the touching but possibly mistaken belief that 'every woman wants to be called 'babe' by somebody', and has no connection with cute, chatty pigs.) It is, like the shells he sent out for his first collection, a tiny, concentrated entity: Mr Pong freely admits that when he uses the word 'we', he is simply referring to himself and his brand.
'In the beginning, I kept saying 'I' and that sounded egocentric to people. So now I say 'we'. But it's still entrepreneurial which means I'm the best shipper and packer, and I still do the spreadsheets.' In fact, his staff has expanded to two and, perhaps more vitally, Mr Pong has signed on with a press agent in Paris who can woo the buyers and get him into magazines.
Judging by the French clippings, editors certainly like using his products, which have an unexpected, eye-catching charm and are based on more arcane research than is usual in a bag designer. The autumn/winter Return To Eden collection, for instance, was partly based on images from the early edition of John James Audubon's tome, American Birds.
'I did that research in Paris,' says Mr Pong. 'Because it's winter, I wanted to use that idea of lots of birds against snow in the collection. And one of the bags has a quilt pattern which is an exact replica of an Amish pattern.' There are also seasonal icicles, falling leaves, curling borders of ivy and the glitter of frost, embroidered on to such traditional fabrics as Harris tweed and cashmere.
'When I design I'm thinking: 'Is this combination new? Is this an original item?' Every time I go to a city, I go to the museum and look at what's there. I'm very good at making things with lots of details and I like vintage stuff, but not so that it's dusty and old. It's modern and accessible but with craftsmanship and a feeling of the past.' Perhaps this is why his third collection, which has just been bought by Barneys New York - thereby joining other prestigious stockists such as Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Joseph and Joyce in Taiwan - is called Paris 1900. The cultural references are, of course, to Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and Mr Pong has also been inspired by the era to move into a co-ordinating range of shawls (one of which can be seen in this month's issue of American Vogue).
His millennium dream is to have his own boutique in Paris. Hong Kong is his current base, the frontier land where his bags and dreams are assembled, primarily because he loves the speed of the place.
The recession has, perhaps surprisingly, favoured those fashion pilgrims who are trying to make the best of often hostile territory. 'It's not a bad time to be a small company because people are willing to take orders which aren't very big, and there's more tolerance and opportunity,' he says.
Paris, however, is where his heart is. He had a wandering childhood - he lived in northern Nigeria for eight years before moving to Canada - and the fashion world requires continuous travel for those who need to get their wares out into the world. But Paris is home.
'In Europe, you can have a tiny, tiny store, a cutesy little place, and you can survive there because people will buy novelty stuff,' he says. And, as befits a minute company with big ideas, he adds: 'We'll stay in accessories because we like doing things where you don't have to worry about sizes.'
