An anguished e-mail arrived recently from Pearl Lam - gallery-owner, columnist and Hong Kong's arbiter of individual (for which read, singular) taste. Lam was communicating from Shanghai where she was organising an exhibition called Inside Chic, a retrospective of the work of Andree Putman. Putman, who designed the interior of Air France's Concorde, Morgan's Hotel in New York and the set for Peter Greenaway's film The Pillow Book, among many other notable commissions, is a venerated star in the world of contemporary design but word of her fame had evidently failed to reach the ears of Shanghai's government notables.
'WHAT A MESS!!!' wrote Lam (whose e-mails are always in capital letters, adding to her sense of breathtaking urgency). 'NONE OF THE CHINESE OFFICIALS UNDERSTAND HOW ANDREE COULD BE A DESIGN ICON IN FRANCE. IT JUST COULD NOT GET THROUGH!!!!' Even worse, wrote Lam - the general impression of Putman's understated elegance was that it was on a par with Ikea. An air of bafflement was therefore hanging over proceedings, rather like the pieces of mosquito netting Putman, who likes to be innovative with lowly objects, uses in her work.
This sounded like a cultural stand-off worth witnessing. And given that Lam's gallery is called Contrasts, her involvement in this collision between two civilisations could hardly be more apt. Nor could you find two more different women: Putman, who is in her 70s, is a tall, imposing, gravel-voiced woman who looks as if she's been hewn out of a kindly rock face. Her favourite word is 'modest'. Lam is in her early 40s, tiny, fluttering, with a complicated cargo of hair and a breathless persona that reminds one of an excitable bird. A typical Lam statement is: 'Every day I look into the mirror and tell myself - so I can tell others - how talented and gifted I am.' Each time the two stood together it was like one of those National Geographic programmes about bird's-nest soup, featuring swallows hovering over a cliff.
'What I want Andree to bring to China,' said Lam, in a little pre-exhibition dinner speech (the introduction to which was: 'Shut up, I'm going to speak'), 'is the simple elements of her philosophy. Her things are very real, there's no pretence, no hypocrisy. I hate hypocrisy. I love her.'
Putman, sitting rigidly upright, inclined her head, smiling. This function took place in a new restaurant called The Yongfoo Elite, which used to be the British consul's residence, and which Lam and her staff had spent much of the day raising to a level of high chic-ness with flowers and candles. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn't have any linen napkins and so the French elite (who had all paid dazzled homage to Putman) and the Chinese elite (who were still grappling with the concept of a French designer who didn't utilise all those Versailles twiddly bits without which no new building in Shanghai is considered complete) had to make do with paper.
Lam groaned. Setting up the exhibition - which continues at the Shanghai Museum of Art until April 19, arrives in Hong Kong on May 10 and will be in Beijing by October as part of the French in China celebrations - had fractionally crushed her spirit. 'I've suffered,' she gasped, flinging her hands, which are the size of a child's, about her head. 'I've been insulted. I hope the Fire Bureau isn't coming tomorrow to close the exhibition. We always hope that China is Hong Kong ... but China is not Hong Kong.'