The bold and the beautiful
As part of their usual runup to next Tuesday's launch of Hong Kong Fashion Week, the Trade Development Council has been sending out photographs of what we can expect to see on the catwalk. Some of these garments are absolutely fabulous. Some, frankly, are not.
The weird and wacky item is a recognised part of the fashion trade. Pictures of furry bikinis, padded bottoms and transparent trouser-suits are what get a designer noticed: they make that significant leap from the fashion pages to the news section. But such idiosyncrasies do not sell. What they do is fix a name in the public consciousness, so that the make-up and perfume lines take off. And that's what makes the money.
It has been said that John Galliano failed to shift a single couture item in his short time at Givenchy. It didn't matter because the house received millions of words in publicity and could market its fragrances and leatherwear with profitable ease. But if you are a Hong Kong designer, that safety net doesn't exist. So should the TDC be encouraging such bizarre visions? 'We are just the organiser,' says Patrick Lam, deputy senior manager of the TDC's fashion department. 'Whoever wants to participate in fashion week can do so. It's a trade event. Anyone who registers and takes a booth is free to show whatever they want, and we'll help to promote them. But we're not a star factory.' Mr Lam feels, reasonably enough, that economics dictate the scope of a designer's creativity. 'Maybe you might not want to wear certain designs,' he says. 'It's a very personal thing. And yes, sometimes there are funny designs and I wonder too . . . but these designers must have regular buyers in order to survive. If nobody bought them, they would change their style.' Which is fair enough. But a fairly recent fashion week development has been the arrival of the Europeans. Next week will be the fifth time Europe Selection, an umbrella group for European fashion companies, will be present at the Convention Centre.
'Many European companies are experiencing a slump in their domestic markets so they are looking at the emerging markets,' said Kathryn Young, Europe Selection's Hong Kong co-ordinator. 'It's expensive for them to come here but they see it as a stake in the future. For some of them, it's a long-term investment.' Such companies have been long-established in their home territory. They often have a solid family history of manufacturing and quality. And a specially-selected panel from Igedo in Dusseldorf and Ente Moda Italia in Milan vets potential companies before they are allowed on board. All of which ensures the presence of what Ms Young calls 'superior-genre manufacturers' but which may not augur well for the home-grown designers. Where do they fit in? 'It's two cars heading in different directions,' says Ms Young. 'We sent two young designers, Pacino Wan and Grace Choi, to Dusseldorf recently and gave them free space at one of the biggest exhibitions there so that they could get off the ground. We wanted them to be helped out and they jumped at the chance. We do try to connect with local companies.' She also believes that the element of overlap is minimal. 'I think that our buyers are different. Most of the designers here are setting up shop in places like the Island Centre in Causeway Bay, but the collections from Europe are more for older people. We're in the middle - not Versace but still high-quality, and people respond to that. We get the department-store buyers from Joyce and Lane Crawford.' She puts her finger on a sensitive point. Many of the local designers would very much like to be hanging on the rails of Joyce but feel that they're overlooked in favour of names from outside Asia.
In fact, some of the domestic designers are happy to reap the side-effects of an increasing European presence. 'What the TDC is doing, by having other people here, is making Hong Kong fashion much more international,' says designer Barney Cheng. 'Last time I had a show here in the summer, I had buyers from Brazil, Spain, France. And I've just had a call from Germany asking me to do the opening show for Igedo in April with Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood. They rang to say that they'd seen my designs at Hong Kong fashion week.' Cheng's show next week will have its own European flavour. The shoes will be by Parisian wonder-cobbler Christian Louboutin. And his hats are being created by Irish super-milliner Philip Treacy.
'A lot of those pictures the TDC sends out are just for publicity,' says Cheng. 'We're a very young fashion centre, but we're doing a good job.'
