Wedding dress designer Barney Cheng would not be the man he is today if it weren't for his childhood love of attention.
Cheng, who has dressed Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng, Gong Li and Maggie Cheung Man-yuk in his stunningly tailored creations, did not always have such an A-list clientele.
At the age of six, the designer-to-be fashioned his first wedding dress out of toilet paper for a doll, and later went on to sketch more designs, many of which he tested on his sister.
'My little sister was my guinea pig,' says the 44-year-old designer at his studio in Central, surrounded by racks of his bridal creations.
'People loved my designs, and I loved the attention. The more compliments I received, the more I realised that I wanted to keep creating beautiful things.'
Over time, Cheng's creative talents developed and his focus sharpened. There were only a handful of established designers in Hong Kong back then, and he trained himself by studying the work of the masters.