A Dying Breed

OF ALL the products bearing the tag 'Made in Hong Kong', none has had to struggle so hard against connotations of cheap manufacture, shoddy workmanship and instant disposability as local high society.

While other countries demand money, talent and centuries of in-breeding as the basic admission requirements to their gossip columns, inner circles and creme de la cremes, Hong Kong's social whirl has traditionally belonged to anyone who wanted it. Until recently, a celebrity was any man who wore a novelty dinner jacket and any woman who spent in excess of two hours on her hair. And a bit part at the open bar belonged to anyone prepared to shake and fake and lisp: 'You look fabulous.' Provided you had a European complexion and a strong stomach you could have grazed almost day and night on gratuitous canapes and champagne. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hong Kong was, in effect, some kind of yuppie Tangiers, the international city of the freeloader, an open buffet zone.

This happened, of course, because in the late 1980s and early 1990s Hong Kong was a virtual bonfire of European and American money. Asia - and China in particular - was the emerging market. The great European fashion houses, the ancient French jewellery makers, the German car firms, the English porcelain companies, the international fine-art dealers had saturated their own markets and (happily bloated with late-'80s cash but facing a period of famine at home) were looking east. They were looking for the perfect spot to make that first addiction-inducing injection; the vein that would take their powerful mix of glamour, branding and image straight to China's head. Hong Kong took the needle.

Many of the big brand names set up shop in Hong Kong before anywhere else in Asia. Needless to say, the advertising budgets were immense and, to absorb them, Hong Kong became wadded with glossy magazines with names like Connoisseur, Taipan and The Peak. (On assignment for The Peak magazine in America, I was often embarrassed to be asked: 'Gee, is that a porno?' And I would explain: 'Good grief, no! It is an upmarket magazine for Hong Kong's wealthy elite. But, with hindsight, I think either description would have done.) Their marshmallow pages were spread thick with the activities of mythical rich people, with dreamy images of luxury, pedigree and success. But it was not enough simply to show low-paid models (usually backpackers passing through town) dressed as wealthy Europeans grinning with golf clubs, polo sticks or champagne flutes. To sell a lifestyle you have to be able to point at real people, beautiful people - the rich, the famous, the exclusive, the sated - and say: 'Look, it works for them.' But Hong Kong is a refugee town. In 1985, it didn't have any real European literary culture or enough inherited wealth or established dynasties to form a proper 'exclusive' set. So, in true refugee spirit, Hong Kong had to make do. And, as the first dose of European and American cash was syringed in, the most all-inclusive exclusive set in the world was born.

'When I came to Hong Kong, in 1985,' says Corinne Djaoui, regional communications manager of Cartier Far East, 'it must have been the only place in the world where you could become a socialite overnight. It didn't matter if you were rich or connected or if you had just washed up on a raft like Robinson Crusoe. Just get in front of the photographer's lens at a party and you were a celebrity. You had people - usually Westerners - who were always in the social pages and as a result always got invited to everything. But they were not rich or connected. It was not high society; it was a huge joke.'' But no one was rude enough to laugh with their mouths full. As Europe and America began to sink into frugal recession and China began to look increasingly like tomorrow's big spender, the cash poured in. The core brand names who had been first into Hong Kong were joined by lesser-known foreign firms with less clearly thought-out campaigns.

The growing throng was joined by micro celebrities and service providers: small-time PR people, interior designers, plastic surgeons, furniture makers, art salesmen and wine traders. Hong Kong high society swelled. Advertising copywriters struggled for fresh adjectives to attach this week's new make of watch and next week's new brand of luggage. Chefs lay awake at night thinking what else they could stuff into a canape.

Working for The Peak magazine in 1991 meant having to sift through piles of invitations to parties, promotional lunches, boutique openings and product launches. Invariably, they were organised by public relations people who, having no idea who made up their real market, invited everyone who attended the last party in the hope their photographs would again appear in the local press. As picture editors also had no idea who made up their market, such hopes were usually justified. Men who owned novelty dinner jackets and women who spent more than two hours on their hair each day were run ragged.