Donald Ng was a traditional Hong Kong tailor. For 16 years, like his father before him, he had been working out of a small space in a Tsim Sha Tsui shopping mall, making men's suits. Then one evening at a friend's house a tall charismatic former fashion model from Chicago came into his life.
Daniel Joseph Pipala was running a women's fashion accessories business from Chicago when they met, but his head was full of creative ideas for the development of men's fashion. His career as a model had kept him up to date with the latest international trends and he was buzzing with ideas as to how they could be developed to suit both Asian and western men.
His meeting with Mr Ng, a conservative but hard working and talented tailor, was providential. Together these two men in their 30s formed a new high fashion company - The Daniel Joseph Collection. Mr Pipala brought a fresh input of capital and they moved into a bigger shop in the same shopping mall in February.
But now they are setting out to conquer the mainland and will open a free-standing boutique on The Bund in Shanghai next month. All their clothes are now being made in a factory in Dongguan.
'Chinese tailors produce excellent workmanship but they lack creative ideas. We hope to bring new ideas and elegant styles to the Chinese tailoring industry, and put it on the world map. We are making a line of high quality, trendy styles available at a quarter of the price charged by the big-name menswear designers,' said Mr Pipala.
He paused and lifted his arms above his head in a triumphant gesture - 'We are out to conquer - China today, tomorrow the world.'
He believes that the name Daniel Joseph will soon rank with Armani, Prada, Gucci and Hugo Boss for fine styling in menswear, but at a much lower price.