THOUGH Edith Cheung wears many hats, none ever touches her head. She enjoys designing caps for Ming Dynasty royalty or peasants or warriors, not wearing them.
Since hats have never been a part of popular culture here (the steamy climate, the informal lifestyle are foils, she theorises), Ms Cheung decided to go beyond her bread and butter and turn a passion, hats, into a business opportunity.
Hong Kong's award-winning movie costume designer/consultant recently introduced a line of 20 soft hats at Seibu.
''These don't require a hat box. They're the kind you stuff in your pocket,'' says Ms Cheung, the owner of The Costume Squad, her workshop in Kowloon.
Forty films ago, before she plunged into the local film and commercial scene, the 1982 graduate of the Hong Kong Polytechnic designed knitwear for the mass market in New York and Holland. But secretly, she harboured a penchant for hats.
When she did fashion design in New York, she studied furniture-making and hat construction in evening school.
