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Colleen Lee

Seamless bras, miracle bras, strapless bras and sports bras may sound unfamiliar to many but not to Winnie Yu Wing-man,  who has been studying and working on them over the past 20 years.

'It is so mysterious and few people know much about it,' said this associate professor of the Institute of Textiles and Clothing of the Polytechnic University.

An alumnus of the institute, she started  working in a lingerie factory soon after her graduation in 1986.

When the factory moved to Shenzhen on the mainland in late 1980s, the then deputy director returned to her home university to start teaching.

But it was not until she studied her doctorate in Britain that she began to specialise in intimate apparel.

'When I was introduced to other researchers at the University of Leeds, my supervisor half-joked, 'This is the lady from Hong Kong who is studying bras'. And everyone laughed at me.'

Ms Yu, now  in her 40s, recalled: 'It was one of my hardest times. Even my supervisor knew little about my topic, so I had to start from scratch and work on my own.'

But her effort paid off. The lingerie pioneer won the Silver Award at the International Exhibition of Inventors in 2004 in Geneva for her 'Cubicam' 3D body scanning system, and developed the world's first soft mannequin in 2005 to evaluate contact pressure of lingerie.

The lingerie master is most proud of founding  Asia's first Institute of Intimate Apparel in 2004. 'It is my greatest accomplishment,' she said. 'But my dream wouldn't have come true without the industry's support.'

'We lacked sewing machines and cloth specially for making bras in the beginning,'  she said. 'But later we received generous donations from the industry.'

However, the subject was not well-received  in the early days. 'When years ago I first wanted to launch an elected subject of intimate apparel,  few students were  interested,' she said. 'It was not until 2002 that we finally started the course.'

Now the self-financed degree programme has no worries about finding students.

'Hong Kong is the leader of underwear technology in the world. We are one of the major exporters of lingerie,' she said.

'We ship out high-quality bras  to the States and Europe, but ironically there aren't many choices in local stores as most Hong Kong customers are conservative and won't try new things. New colours? No. Lacy bras? No. They just want to keep it simple and functional.'

The award-winning academic said she has seldom made bras for herself. 'I just treat it as research even when I do. I never get excited about it, but students would,' she said. 'And they're certainly not as fancy as bras for sale.'



Mistress of lingerie finds her passion mysterious