Leo Fan has been a fashion designer for exactly one year. He launched himself on January 15, 1996, and has been streaking like a meteor through Hong Kong's fashion firmament ever since.
Yesterday, at the Grand Hyatt, he showed his second collection to the ladies who lunch. They turned up in force to applaud and, fortunately, to purchase the Fan brand of glamour, which was categorised under such sub-headings as Frolic, Cool Elegance and Jade.
No one is more aware of this remarkable good fortune than Fan. Five years ago he was practising as a neurologist in Los Angeles, and while a working knowledge of the nervous system might have its advantages in those twitchy moments of creation, it is hardly an obvious route to the catwalk. Fan, a boyish-looking 34, agrees.
'Fashion was what I'd always wanted to do,' he said. 'But my parents thought medicine was the best thing. So my two brothers and I all went into medicine. And all three of us quit in the same week without telling each other.' The Fan parents have clearly weathered the blow: Leo Fan senior is his son's backer and Mrs Fan has long been an influence on her son's fashion sense.
'At med school in Boston I'd do sketches for her and make things up, and I always knew it was more than a hobby,' he said.
She intended to cheer him on at yesterday's show but was delayed by atrocious weather in Paris, where the family has a house.
