Top designer Eddie Lau on a mission to inspire the young
Eddie Lau wants his journey from humble tailor to celebrated fashion guru to encourage Hong Kong's youth to persist in working hard
The city's biggest celebrities poured into the Heritage Museum yesterday to celebrate the achievements of Eddie Lau Pui-kai. But what the homegrown fashion designer wants to share in his first solo exhibition isn't just the glitzy world of fashion and his classic image designs for late Canto-pop queen Anita Mui Yim-fong, but a story that will inspire the younger generation.
"I want to remind young people from the post-'80s and '90s generation of a Hong Kong spirit, a spirit of never giving up," Lau told the South China Morning Post. "Many of them have misunderstandings about the world. It seems to me they don't have faith. It's sad, because I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and I live this Hong Kong spirit."
I want to remind young people from the post-'80s and '90s generation of a Hong Kong spirit, a spirit of never giving up
"Fashion. Image. Eddie Lau" is the city's first museum exhibition dedicated to a local designer, said Heritage Museum assistant curator Apo Wu Pui-shan.
Lau, 62, donated 300 items, including costumes and archival materials such as newspaper cuttings and videos.
Wu hoped the exhibition, which occupies 675 square metres, illustrates the classic Hong Kong spirit - someone from a humble background but who worked his way up.
Lau, who was born in 1951, had a tough childhood. An only child with no father, he was sent to a boarding school in Fanling. Later, even his writer mother disappeared. At age 11, he became a tailor's apprentice in Tsim Sha Tsui. At 22, he went on to study fashion design in London's Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, after which he became a fashion designer.