Hong Kong Fashion Goes to Extremes
The fashion at Hong Kong Fashion Week was all about extremes. The styles ranged from over-the-top sophisticated evening gowns to detailed and unusual avant-garde pieces that defied categorization. The shows also featured everything in between. One of the week’s high points was Lulu Cheung’s show before a standing-room-only crowd. Cheung’s collection, titled “Beloved,” included understated, elegant pieces such as a wrapped skirt in soft charcoal knit worn with a cream and charcoal printed knit top. The designer also included more unusual pieces such as Persian-lamb pants and caped sweaters.
The Asia-Pacific Designers Show, which featured 22 designers from Australia, Korea, India, Malaysia, Mainland China and Hong Kong, was also strong, with several trends emerging from the show overall. Patched velvet and panne velvet turned up in collections from Australian designer Ahshui Y. and Korean designer Shin Jung Im, and printed velvet was trimmed with ruffles in Hong Kong designer Andy Daniel’s collection. Australian designer Bowie Wong showed `80s-inspired separates trimmed with an oversized U.S. dollar-print fabric and it was the corsages that were oversized in Hong Kong designer Greenie Chau’s line. Designer Tony Chow also showed oversized corsages in his collection featured in the Hong Kong Fashion Flash Show.
Several designers staged runway presentations that were as much performance art as they were fashion shows. Silvio Chan topped his avant-garde menswear with peaked Pinocchio hats and vintage police caps in his runway show titled “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Somber male models trooped down the runway to the familiar Elvis Presley tune. The models stepped into the crowd at the edge of the runway and walked back along the front row of the audience, giving everyone a close-up view of the Hong Kong designer’s vision: sweeping, fitted coats; full, fluid short pants gathered at the knee and exaggerated details such as extended collars and padded caped shoulders.
Designers Ika and William Tang’s runway shows were equally staged—although a little less surreal than Chan’s. Ika showed her line of Eastern-inspired designs between dance performances. And Tang sent a battalion of hairstylists and makeup artists down the runway to put the finishing touches on models wearing Tang’s paint-splattered T-shirts, intricately seamed dresses and pants tagged with Chinese characters.
