Inside bridal boutique owner Jacqueline Au’s wardrobe, full of surprises

The founder of The Loft Bridal, Jacqueline Au isn’t your typical bridal boutique owner. The former fashion buyer worked at Givenchy, Céline and Lane Crawford before a “painful” search for a wedding gown inspired her to launch her own shop. It is filled with fashion from designers known as much for ready-to-wear as for their bridal wear, including Delpozo, Maticevski and Viktor & Rolf.

Her own wedding-day fashion statement was a Giambattista Valli number that came with a 40-yard train.

How to pick the best bridesmaid dresses now they’re fashion forward, not frumpy

Au’s everyday style is simple – mostly monochrome investment pieces that read high fashion in their structure and construction, and always paired with vertiginous footwear.

“I think I’m quite edgy, but at the same time I like things with a lot of structure. If I use brands [to describe my personal style] then I’d say I’m Givenchy with a touch of Sacai. So I can still be feminine – but edgier. But I’m definitely not the emo type and I’m never a trend person.”

“People think I have a lot more clothes than you see [in my wardrobe]. I like to buy a few things that I really love every season and then kind of buy the same thing over and over again. I have a lot of white shirts and a lot of quality pants and skirts.

“I do a lot of separates. I’m not really a dress person unless I absolutely have to – like on my wedding day.”

 Styles Au wears for everyday

“If you look at my wardrobe, it’s all black and white. If I need to see someone I will always wear a shirt with a skirt or pant. I have, like, hundreds of Sacai skirts and I’ll just wear one of them and call it a day. Depending on who I’m meeting, I usually wear heels.

“On a casual day I’ll usually wear a shirt dress or a sweater with a casual pant. Then when I show up at occasions like someone’s birthday, or a wedding in colours, people can be pleasantly surprised. So I do have a few coloured outfits, but everyday wear is pretty monochromatic. For clothes I like to keep it simple and I like to invest in coats and sweaters.”

 “I also like bows a lot. That’s why I love Delpozo and Viktor & Rolf, both of which we stock at The Loft Bridal, because they do bows in a more edgy way, not so feminine. I’m pretty obsessed with these two things and I’m a big earrings person.

“I buy big earrings and ear cuffs. Ryan Storer is a favourite, and then we also stock these Kat Kim ear pins – they’re from LA and exclusive to us now, and it’s just such a cool look without trying that hard.”

Styles Au wears for weddings or other formal occasions

“I think in Hong Kong or in a lot of international cities you can actually still wear black [as a wedding guest] and brides and the family don’t mind. It’s about looking elegant but still yourself. I wear a lot of Maticevski to weddings. He’s great with occasion dressing. I wore this Leal Daccarett outfit, which is a Colombian designer, to a London wedding in the summer.

“I like to wear separates, even if I go to a wedding, because you can wear it again. I believe in wearing things again and again. Even if I bought an outfit for a certain occasion, I want to wear it again.”

What Au wore for her wedding

“Buying my wedding dress was actually quite painful. I was a buyer at Lane Crawford then and I knew that I would be travelling to New York, Paris and London, so I went everywhere to look for my dress. I didn’t even start in Hong Kong.

“My vendor at Jason Wu told me I should check out Kleinfeld’s, just for the experience, and I did and I just regretted it. It was like a fun supermarket experience but it was just nothing that I saw, I wanted. And then I went to Paris to Metal Flaque. The service is amazing. I tried on a few Oscars (de la Renta), but it’s not really my style.

“I even went to Vera Wang, because I feel like that’s the one time you can walk into Vera Wang and try something on.

“And one day I was just walking around Joyce, and my friend had told me that they had a Giambattista Valli couture gown there, and I tried it on and I didn’t really want to take it off! So the next day I went back in and bought it.

 Three high-end Chinese wedding trends: quality, customisation and destination weddings

“I sent photos to my mom, and she said no, because I was getting married in Phuket and she thought it was too heavy for Phuket. It was 40 yards of train. But then I’m quite a stubborn person, I know what I want, so I just went back with the right shoes, tried it on and then just bought it.

“I bought the gown a year ahead of the wedding so I actually had to store it at these fur storage places, so it was in a fridge for another year before I actually wore it.”