Between the lines: Macau's label to watch

All designs start as lines in a sketchbook, says Macau-based designer Manuel Correia da Silva.

It was with this idea in mind that he and his partner Clara Brito named their fashion brand and creative agency Lines Lab, to reflect their experimental approach to design.

Correia da Silva grew up between Lisbon and Macau and met Brito while studying equipment design at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. After graduation, he returned to the city while Brito studied fashion in Milan. She joined him a few years later and together they founded Lines Lab in 2006. Since then, they have become a driving force behind Macau's fashion scene, promoting young local designers in their shop and organising the city's premiere fashion event.

The shop itself is housed in a yellow, 200-year-old colonial-style building that opens out onto a mosaic courtyard. Inside are local and Portuguese brands, as well as Lines Lab furniture and fashion, mainly accessories and some clothes that also sell in Hong Kong, Finland, Portugal, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

Brito describes their aesthetic as minimalist and urban.

"I studied industrial design as well as fashion, so I've always had this merged idea that is not a standard fashion point of view," she says.

This is apparent in this season's line of printed silk scarves, which are soft to the touch but were inspired by their experiments in cement furniture.

"I have this European side, which is very minimal and clean, and naturally I receive a lot of influence from the Orient," Brito says. "I combine these two sides."

This season's other line are parasols, which Brito explains were used by Europeans in the past, but are now rarely seen outside East Asia. The intricate pattern cut into the canopy casts a snowflake-like shadow, and was inspired by the shop gates in Macau's old town.

The shop is also the site of Macau Fashion Link, a two-day annual event that Lines Lab has organised since 2010. A pop-up shop opens on day one, and stays open for a month, and day two culminates in a fashion show in the courtyard, with designers from Macau, Hong Kong, the mainland and all over the lusophone world. Last November, Portuguese, Mozambican and Angolan designs walked the runway.

When Brito first arrived in Macau, she says, there were only tailors, no fashion designers. But she says this had changed with the arrival of casinos and luxury fashion brands, even if their target customers are mainland tourists.

"All these casinos and high-fashion brands have even started to launch their flagship stores in Macau," Brito says. "They've made a very big difference in terms of the fashion culture here."

Correia da Silva says there were about 10 fashion designers in Macau, and just three or four of them were full time. But the government has started giving subsidies to designers in a push to develop the city's cultural and creative industries, which he says is a game changer for Macanese fashion.

Correia da Silva says many young designers studied in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the UK, but there can be no Macanese fashion movement until there is a fashion school in the city.

"Macau very urgently needs a school of art, a school of design, a school of fashion," he says. "They must be thinking about it now."

Lines Lab is available in Hong Kong at Kapok, 3 Sun Street, Wan Chai, tel: 2520 0114

Three Macau designers to watch

ZICS
Founder San Lee studied design at Macau Polytechnic Institute and fashion design and manufacturing at the Macau Productivity and Technology Transfer Centre, winning first prize at his graduation show. He launched ZICS in 2009 and his black and grey unisex collections have shown in Macau, Hong Kong and on the mainland. Brito says, "I really like his work. I think he's very mature in terms of design and the selection of materials he uses."

Common Comma
Carmen Leng graduated with a first class honours degree in fashion from the University of Northampton in England. She recently returned to Macau and launched Common Comma at the beginning of 2013. Her collection of draped dresses and laddered leggings was one of the highlights of last year's Macau Fashion Link. "She's just starting, but I think her technique of layering materials with all those cuts is very new," says Brito.

Barbara Diaz
Diaz is half-Portuguese and half-Brazilian and grew up in Macau. She modelled in Florence and studied fashion design in Bangkok and Central Saint Martins in London before launching her eponymous brand diazbynature.com in 2011. Her clothes are feminine, elegant and sophisticated, and influenced by Asian culture. Darren Wee

All three designers are available at Lines Lab, Calcada da Igreja de Sao Lazaro No 8-A3 (tel: +853 2852 3869, lineslab.com