Map collector Marcopolo Tam Siu-cheung wants to turn part of his extensive collection into haute couture to promote the Olympics.
Among his 230,000 cartographs, antique papers and photographs are maps of Olympic cities, and to bolster support for Beijing and Hong Kong's hosting of the Games in 2008, he plans to copy these maps onto ties and scarves.
He has travelled the world for the past 25 years collecting antique maps and atlases, as well as rare wall rubbings.
His name reflects his obsession with maps and travel. He started calling himself Marcopolo last year after the famed Italian explorer. 'I decided to use the name because I appreciate Marco Polo. I made it one word because Marco Polo was someone who bridged eastern and western cultures,' he said.
Displaying colourful images of horses and riders copied onto paper from engravings and wall relief pictures in China, Mr Tam said he hoped to popularise those images to show that holding the equestrian part of the Olympics in Hong Kong was a continuation of China's historical relationship with horses.
The paper images, which he calls 'cultural maps', were copied in the 1930s and 1940s, and are among 80,000 paper rubbings Mr Tam has collected. Most of the originals were created in the Tang (618-907) and Han (206BC-220AD) dynasties, and many were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.
Depicting horses being used for sport, work and leisure, Mr Tam hopes these images can also be transferred to clothing and pictures to promote the Olympic Games equestrian event in Hong Kong. His collection includes hundreds of maps from all the cities in which the Olympics have been held since the first modern Games were held in Athens in 1896, but he still sees room for improvement.