Vivienne Tam on how hometown Hong Kong cityscape inspired her latest fashion collection

Designer says she sought to capture Hong Kong’s vibrancy and its ‘kaleidoscope of colours, patterns and neons’ in autumn-winter collection that features city’s skyline, a red taxi and a Cathay plane

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One of the outfits from the Vivienne Tam autumn-winter 2017 collection shown in New York in February.

Published: 7:08am, 4 Apr 2017Updated: 6:02pm, 4 Apr 2017

A colourful, mesmerising flurry of neon lights and a Hong Kong skyline, pawn shop signs, red taxis and vintage Cathay Pacific plane motifs greeted fans of Vivienne Tam watching the New York catwalk debut of her autumn-winter 2017 collection.

Moments earlier, paparazzi and crowds had been shooed away from heiress Paris Hilton and American first daughter Tiffany Trump, sitting in the front row for show along with actress Abigail Breslin, model Petra Nemcova and Asian stars Tao Hong and Sayo Aksaka.

Vivienne Tam greets her audience at the end of the New York catwalk show for her autumn-winter collection in February.

Hong Kong’s most recognised mainstream fashion designer usually takes on some element of Chinese culture in her collections, but for this season Tam dedicated her line to the city’s vibrant nightlife and cityscape.

In a collection named “City of Lights”, Tam created an ode to the city where she grew up from the age of three – featuring the skyscrapers, Chinese signage popular in Kowloon, Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, and looks inspired by Hong Kong’s relentless energy.

A look from Vivienne Tam’s autumn-winter 2017 collection.

“I was just thinking about how every time I enter the city, the first thing I see are all these lights – a kaleidoscope of colours, patterns, neons and LED lighting. I mean, Hong Kong really never sleeps,” Tam says when we meet at her headquarters in New York’s Fashion District, in the middle of Manhattan, following the collection’s debut.