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History of Hong Kong Fashion

All photography by Calvin Sit

Nowadays it’s easy to forget that Hong Kong was once a titan in fashion having been eclipsed by the manufacturing behemoth that is mainland China. Besides finance and real-estate, the garment sector was once a vibrant and colourful industry that reflected the myriad of influences from foreign cultures. People came to Hong Kong because it was prosperous trading hub and also because there were artisans and tailors with the skills to make proper, well-fitted and tasteful clothing. As a result a thrivingfashion scene emerged that influenced much of the other regions in Asia. And in conjunction with the growth of HK’s entertainment industry, style icons emerged, which highlighted the progression of Hong Kong fashion. This is what gave us the idea to do a retrospective photoshoot that reflects the changing times of Hong Kong fashion – by re-interpreting the sartorial highlights of the women that defined it – from each decade starting with the 50s.

At the start we had to figure out which five women we wanted to represent Hong Kong. Anita Mui was an obvious pick for the 80s and a dangerous one. Any misinterpretation of the legendary chameleon and we would suffer the wraith of her loyal fans. The other choices came after much debate and for the 90s there were at least a few women that could have claimed the crown for style icon. Eventually, we chose Faye Wong, who wasn’t born in Hong Kong, but certainly was propelled by the industry here and eventually had great international influence. Styling became the next hurtle to cross – trying to make the season’s trending looks match with an exact time period we had in mind proved to be a challenge. After searching high and low through a series of different shops we finally found what we needed. Picking out the locations was the third step and it wasn’t too difficult because Hong Kong still has many heritage sites to choose from like The Pawn and the Sunbeam Theatre that fit with the feel that we wanted for our relative periods. It took twelve hours to shoot the whole look book. One model, five outfits at five different locations. This is the only city where the relative convenience of everything could make it possible to accomplish within a day.

There are many layers to the history of Hong Kong. There is the business, editorial, entertainment, cultural and design aspects that have all made contributions to the scene. So for the written bits we had to interview a few experts like Janice Wong –probably the first Hong Kong fashion editor to attend Paris Fashion Week as well as the ‘godfather of HK fashion’, Raymond Au, who’s currently a professor at the Hong Kong Design Institute. After compiling all the information from our interviewees and doing a bit of old-fashion text book research we came up with a concise description charactersing each decade of HK fashion

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