'They have ordered some quite strong pieces, but my first shop needs a strong identity when it is in the same street next to all those other names,' says Pugh, who is known for his edgy, super-structured style.

To celebrate the opening, Pugh has designed an exclusive collection featuring 'full-on signature pieces' drawn from pieces from his early archive that weren't produced. The shop itself is dark - black and shiny - so he has made the collection black and shiny to match, using materials such as patent leather stitched to soft, floaty fabrics. There's sophisticated chevron-cut leather ('the autumn collection was all about dangerous women - the chevron is a universal warning signal,' he explains), draped pieces, T-shirts and optic print dresses for women. Men can choose from leather jackets, long-line Ts, and trousers that are slightly baggy around the hip and very skinny from the knee down.

His shoes and his handbag collection, which was launched this year, will also be available. The shop itself has a special LED video wall to display his film projects produced with his friend, film director and editor Ruth Hogben. One of the first screenings will be a short film featuring the new autumn-winter collection, which will then go live on the internet.

Pugh has been to Hong Kong only once before, in 2007, and that trip inspired his spring 2009 collection, a graphic black and white range of architectural silhouettes that used square patent flaps to imitate the way the dappled sunlight fell on the windows. 'It seems a very happening place, like an intensified New York,' he says, recalling Jefferson Hack (founder of AnOther Magazine) saying the city 'is the gateway to the whole Asian market'.

Pugh burst on to the fashion scene in 2005. His early collections included jelly-mould catsuits, inflatable latex creations, an over-sized illuminated coat, PVC swimsuits and, most famously, a black catsuit with inflated balloons that mimicked the silhouette of a giant poodle straight out of a dog-grooming parlour. It created such buzz that Anna Wintour, editor of US Vogue, attended his next show to watch cyber-beauties in cube headdresses inspired by Michael Jackson during his moonwalking era.

Pugh is known for drawing a very fine line between commercial fashion and performance art. This is not surprising, considering that the fine-framed, softly spoken young man with alabaster skin studied ballet and tap-dancing as a boy. At 14 he was fortunate enough to be picked to study for a summer season at the English National Youth Theatre in London. He welcomed the escape from the tough comprehensive school environment in his hometown of Sunderland.

'I was fascinated by theatre work, but I couldn't act for toffee so applied to work in the costume department,' he says.

He spent three summers there before deciding that he would go into fashion and start his career in London. He subsequently graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2003 with a wacky degree collection that used balloons to accentuate the models' limbs. This led to a cover for cult magazine Dazed and Confused and a show the following year with Fashion East, the alternative fashion collective that has launched many of London's hottest designers, including Marios Schwab and Richard Nicoll. While Pugh's work was featured in countless editorials, one major criticism was that his clothes were too theatrical to be commercial.

'I had no production in place and I was given this opportunity to show with Fashion East and only four weeks to turn it around. A year later I showed with The New Generation [sponsored by Top Shop] where you were given financial support to stage a show, so that is what I did,' he says explaining his spectacular pieces.

His extreme vision caught the eye of Kylie Minogue's stylist William Baker, who then commissioned Pugh to design costumes for her Showgirl and Homecoming tours. The singer subsequently DJed at one of Pugh's after-show parties, much to the amazement of his family - his brother and father are in the police, his mother works for Britain's National Office of Statistics. Since then, he has created show costumes for Beyonce and goth-rocker Marilyn Manson, reworking some of his archive pieces.

Despite all the publicity, Pugh hadn't been able to sell very many designs and couldn't manage working from his squat in Peckham for much longer. So he contacted Rick Owens, the avant-garde American designer, who had just started work in Paris with Revillon. Owens invited him to Paris and has since become Pugh's mentor.

Owens' wife, Michele Lamy, advises Pugh on production and found him a factory in Italy where his fashion and accessories collections are now produced. Since then, Pugh has moved to a large studio in Dalston, east London, just below the noisy workshops of Gina shoes. His work was most recently awarded the prestigious Andam Award in 2008, allowing him to finance his first fashion show in Paris, where he continues to present his ready-to-wear collections twice a year.

'Gareth knows how to construct clothes from zero using his bare hands,' says Owens. 'I'm thrilled by technical ability and Gareth has it. I haven't run into that many people that actually do. Add to that a fantastic graphic sense and fearless flamboyance, and that's Gareth in a nutshell.'

Pugh has a dark aesthetic and uncompromising vision that continues to intrigue journalists and retailers alike. From the beginning his style drew comparisons with Alexander McQueen and after McQueen's death his name was briefly in the frame to become creative director for the label.

Pugh, meanwhile, is becoming more focused on his vision - a retrospective fashion show at London's Victoria and Albert Museum made him realise there is continuity in his work.

'I hadn't thought I had a style until I saw how well the present day and archive pieces went together. Even now, I still like to play with volume, structure and the way things move. Each collection is a work in progress,' he says.

As for his plans in Asia - and the rest of the world - Pugh says: 'Little steps are best. The best thing to do is suck it and see. It could be the first of many [stores] but who knows, especially at this stage in my career.'