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Douglas Young, founder of the Goods Of Desire brand, is dismayed that the city has not managed to export more cultural products. Photo: Bruce Yan

Fashion faux pas: why Hong Kong designers struggle to make a global impact

Despite the government investing huge sums and the undoubted creative talent in the city, questions remain about the best way to develop the industry

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For up-and-coming fashion darling Anais Mak Ting-chung, Hong Kong has been a great place to launch her four-year-old brand, Jourden.

But for the creative designer behind one of the city’s most successful rising labels, there are a lot of challenges facing independent designers trying to make it big in the Fragrant Harbour, despite the considerable windfall of government funding the industry has received.

To 27-year-old Mak – who is starting to make waves worldwide with her collections – what the fashion world here offers fledging designers by way of stimulation, diversity, dynamism and government support, it lacks in direction.

And this is despite the government pouring millions into the industry in a bid to make Hong Kong’s fashion market rival London, Milan and New York as a trendsetting culture capital.

Mak is one of the few Hong Kong designers who is really tapping into the international market, selling to 30 accounts worldwide and garnering the esteem of movers and shakers in several fashion capitals. Despite last year’s slump in retail figures across Hong Kong the brand experienced moderate growth.

She attributes her success to forcing herself to acquire the necessary business acumen required to build a brand that can also appeal to international markets – a strategy she says young Hong Kong designers tend to avoid to the detriment of their careers.

This is a surprising phenomenon in a city that has garnered a reputation for being overly commercialised but in which young creative types are shying away from the business side of the work.
Anais Mak is one of the few Hong Kong designers who is tapping into ,and flourishing the international market. Photo: SCMP Pictures
But Mak says the targeted support and mentorship that could enable designers to start doing this is lacking.

This year, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau pledged HK$500 million to promote and incubate Hong Kong designers, singling out plans to develop the fashion industry as being one of “great importance”.

They reason that the pay-off would not only be a “broadened economic base and the continued prosperity of Hong Kong”, but it would also help boost revenues in related areas such as the flagging tourism and retail sectors.

“Efforts to propel the development of the fashion design industry also closely tie in with our policy to support the development of Hong Kong’s creative industries, particularly the design industry,” a bureau spokesperson told the Post.

The Jourden label has been gaining global acclaim in the four years since its launch. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The decision to target the fashion industry followed two years of consultation by the Working Group on Manufacturing Industries, Innovative Technology, and Cultural and Creative Industries. In 2015, HK$500 million was also injected into growing the industry.

“We will launch an incubation programme for up-and-coming fashion design start-ups; provide fashion design graduates with overseas internships and study opportunities; and set up a resource centre to provide technical training and production support for young and emerging designers,” the spokesperson said.

We are eager to draw experience from other fashion capitals such as London, which has a prestigious position in the global fashion market
Greg So Kam-leung, secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Bureau

Commerce minister Greg So Kam-leung, in a speech in London earlier this year, spoke of the many similarities in the creative industries of London and Hong Kong.

“Looking forward, we have set our sights on fashion as one of the new engines for propelling the growth of Hong Kong’s creative industries,” he said.

“We attach great importance to the development of the fashion industry. Promoting local fashion designers and brands and nurturing fashion design start-ups will be our priorities in the next few years. We are eager to draw experience from other fashion capitals such as London, which has a prestigious position in the global fashion market.”

But Mak believes that money might be better spent if the bureau weren’t so fixated on emulating fashion capitals in the West and looked closer to home for role models.

“They keep referencing London’s industry, but that took decades to develop,” she says, pinpointing Seoul and Tokyo as more realistic cities with business models for Hong Kong to look to and learn from.

“[The government] wants Hong Kong to become a creative hub on a comprehensive level, but they need to be more specialised [in how they offer support],” she says, adding that overambitious aims to make Hong Kong the next London are waylaying efforts to nurture home-grown talent – of which there is plenty.

The diminutive creative director behind Jourden believes that the pace, energy and intense emotion of her home city serve as a constant stream of inspiration to creatives working here.

As a fashion designer who enjoys playing with contrasts and expectations in her collections, she relishes soaking up Hong Kong’s hybridity. She also enjoys working in a city with discerning and adventurous sartorial tastes.

“Hong Kong has a really strong consumer power – that should not be underestimated,” she says, describing how the uniquely adventurous shopping habits of Hongkongers means they are more likely to cash in on unknown brands, supporting fledging labels and risqué, innovative designers. “Shopping really is in our blood.”

Jen Webb of the Blksheepempire says demand is high in Hong Kong for novel products. Photo: Edmond So
Jen Webb, a shoe designer with a store at design hub PMQ in Central, agrees that demand for novel and original products is high in Hong Kong. The Eurasian creative director behind Blksheepempire, which specialise in Oxfords with bold and colourful prints, says Hongkongers are looking for novelty as an antidote to big brand homogeneity.

Enjoying government-subsidised rent at the centre, which opened two years ago to help offset rising rents that had been driving many established brands out of their spaces, Webb says she appreciates having a large space to showcase her work.

“I wouldn’t have been able to afford a space this size otherwise,” she says, adding that being based at PMQ means there is a steady flow of visitors, many from Singapore, Malaysia and Korea, as the space is listed as a tourist destination.

The vice-chairwoman of the Hong Kong Fashion Designers Association, Janet Cheung, agrees that looking to Korea and Japan in terms of inspiring business models might be more feasible than looking to the West.

She describes how on a recent visit to Seoul she noticed that local brands were supported by the private sector – alongside the government – which enables small, quality production of high-quality goods.

She believes one of the major setbacks Hong Kong designers face is a lack of high-quality technical teams in the city and production scenarios in which designers can create and tweak their collections rather than outsource the manufacturing and sampling side to mainland China and even further afield to Myanmar and Vietnam.

“Young Hong Kong designers don’t lack creativity, but they do lack refined technical teams,” she says. She thinks designers should manually modify and refine their works, which they can’t do if they outsource production to places where labour costs are more favourable.

“Just like in the movie Dior and I, designers should be with their pattern cutters every day,” she says.

With Shenzhen and Guangzhou on Hong Kong’s doorstep, the temptation to cut back on time spent with the samples and collections can drive down quality, she warns.

Hong Kong started off as a textile manufacturing base in the 1970s, emerging later as a more prominent player in the global fashion world. The Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the marketing wing for manufacturers, boasts of the city’s role as a regional trendsetter.

Stephen Liang, the council’s director of product promotion, says: “Hong Kong’s fashion designers have been gaining a worldwide reputation for their professional expertise, sensitivity to current trends and ability to blend commercialism with innovation.

“In addition, medium to high-priced fashion clothing bearing Hong Kong designer labels are available in renowned department stores such as Bloomingdale’s, Harrods, Isetan and Macy’s.”

The council runs a plethora of promotional events geared at showcasing and supporting local talent, including exhibitions, contests for young designers, fashion shows and two fashion weeks, with plans for a third in the pipeline.

But fashion insiders complain that Hong Kong is not proving as fertile a breeding ground for internationally recognised brands as one would expect given the hardware in place to incubate and promote talent. They say that while the focus on marketing and promotion across the board is strong, industry players should focus on boosting production and sales efforts.

It’s been really tough for local brands. I wish we had more support from locals
Douglas Young, Goods Of Desire

A Vivienne Tam success story is unlikely to repeat itself, insiders warn, citing rising rents as one factor preventing independent brands from growing and garnering acclaim elsewhere.

Some designers, including Douglas Young of Goods Of Desire – a local, well established fashion and lifestyle brand – complain that competition from multinationals opening stores in Hong Kong drives down business for Hongkongers.

Young believes that an overly globalist mindset in which Hongkongers favour Western brands over home-grown products impinge on efforts by designers already struck by rising rents.

“It’s been really tough for local brands. I wish we had more support from locals,” Young, speaking at one of his shops at PMQ, says. “Hongkongers are not very supportive of things that are local. I think it’s rather peculiar. As a former colony, we tend to think of foreign things being better.”

With a mandate to infuse his products with Hong Kong culture, Young expresses dismay that the city has not managed to export more cultural products. He says that what inspires his designs is a desire to explain Hong Kong to Westerners, who he says have an antiquated view of the city peppered by images of rickshaws and junk boats.

But amid the challenges facing Hong Kong’s fashion world, one things its designers and proponents can agree on is that the city is not short of creativity, inspiration and grit.

As Cheung says: “Hong Kong is a very cosmopolitan city. Its people are very creative in how they view everyday life, and people have lived this way for the last 100 years.

“My father’s generation came here with nothing, and they built something through hard work and creativity. That’s Hong Kong’s edge.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Fashion faux pas
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