Asian Fashion

When I arrived in HK, back in 2003, I was disappointed.  To me, there is no point living in a giant city, breathing in all that foul air, hearing that constant cacophony, being bombarded with EMFs, unless you have thousands of visually exciting people you can sit around and watch, and here I discovered 7 million people who all dressed like Mormons.

 Yawn!

It was sad and horrible and what I really couldn't get over was how young folk with such fabulous bodies all managed to look so bad.  It's like they knew exactly what to wear to create a silhouette that made them look like they had enormous figure flaws. So, so wrong!

Don't get me wrong.  There were indeed exciting and innovative designers around ...

 Shanghai Tang.

Douglas Young.

... however, these places were all high-end and didn't translate to the streets where it counts.

Fashion is for everyone, folks! It's food for the soul! Fun! Play! Everyone has to wear clothes so why not do something with it! Take a fraction more care! Think about lines and fabrics and colours and what goes with what! And voila!  We're talking visual and mental excitement right there on the streets.

As I tell the kids "Clothes speak directly to who you want to tell the world about yourself, so try to come up with interesting things to say."
 
And there was Hong Kong, back in 2003, telling everyone they were Christian office-workers! Bloody lie, wasn't it! So, as a civic-minded soul, I decided to do my part to raise their game so rocked out my fashion-forwardness ...

 Winter, 2003!

... and young HK seemed to respond and things almost immediately began looking up.

However, as it turned out, it wasn't me. That was simply an accident of timing.  What made the entire city change was ...

Note the Non-no!

Yup, that's what made all the difference: the incredible, wonderful, amazing Japanese fashion magazine Non-no! . Other Jap-Fash-Mags have followed but Non-no! was the first and, to me, the best, although young HKers tell me that these days they are preferring With! and Vivi.

Since they're all in Japanese, none of us can read any of them, sure, but that doesn't stop us buying and pawing through, looking at the pictures, getting inspired, and directly as a result of Non-no!, young HKers started to care and thus started to look GOOD.

 Loving this men's 2010 style HK hair,

but, psst!, don't tell anyone; 

women were doing it in NZ back in the 1980s.

But the change didn't come easily. For all of 2004, here in HK, Ginza became Mecca and fashion got very "Japanese-Ginza-Kookie" ...

 Ginza-style!

... but it soon settled down and we came into our own.

And now?  Well, two years ago, French Vogue congratulated HK on creating "the first important silhouette-change of the 21st century". That was hilarious, wasn't it!  All HK did was put the decades-old New Zealand silhouette onto the cat-walks.

I know I dissed Kiwi fashion in an earlier post but you must note that I did actually buy clothes from NZ that made Fiji very excited!  That was the silhouette I'm talking about here: knee-length tights, ballet pumps, and a 60s-London-Biba-style thigh-length sack-dress. You know what I'm talking about, don't you, because it took off BIGTIME about four years ago and you now see everyone on the planet unwitting "rockin' the Kiwi".

This look took off in NZ back in the late 70s and they still wear it today. And isn't it hilarious how the fashion world didn't notice it until HK made it their own.

And I honestly believe they made it their own because they saw it on ME!

See, HK encourages innovative design by making it easy for young designers to sell, and what usually happens is that youngsters start out selling their wares at the market stalls in our back lanes, and then, once they've got themselves a little nest egg, move themselves into The Island Centre next to Sogo in Causeway Bay, a building where young designers can rent store space at very low cost, (Can't find any photos but will put them in here when I do) This place is well worth visiting because HK's scheme is indeed paying off and innovation definitely arises there.

Anyway, I regularly trawl The Island Centre on a quest for visual and mental excitement, and I was in there shortly after a visit to NZ, "rocking the Kiwi" ...

The actual outfit we're talking about,

here being treated savagely in NZ.

 ... when a gaggle of young designers came out of their shops and were chatting excitedly about me.  I wondered if I'd sat in something or my face had turned blue but I noticed they were inscribing lines in the air with their fingers as they talked and I realised they were sketching out my clothes, putting something together in their own minds.

And the next thing I know I'm seeing what I was wearing on the cat-walk in the Fashion Week pages of local newspapers and it was so hilarious because, just by accident, I was wearing a pair of black ballet pumps with a white line around the top, and all these models had that identical white line around the top of their shoes. I guess these designers thought that was an integral part of "the Kiwi".

But that's when everyone in HK got excited about "The Kiwi" - although they didn't call it that - and it took off and spread like wild-fire and now the whole world wears it and, because NZ is totally out of the fashion loop, it's HK that took the credit. 

So it only took five years between "Sad-Sack Mormon-Dressing" and today when we're totally on the radar in the fashion world.  Yee ha!

HONG KONG STYLE

Rocking the roots!
Tang Dynasty meet London '75.

OK, he's my favourite fashionista I've seen recently, but how is the rest of Asia doing?

JAPAN-STYLE

Japan, as we all know, has been rich for the longest time and thus is the most fashion-forward of all the Asian countries, so let's level the playing field by showing you 'the average' rather than 'the best I've seen':

TAIPEI STYLE

I've already told you about Taipei, which has a LOT of fashionistas who dressed in ways I found very exciting. Remember?

And you'll recall this was the person I thought looked best:

INDOCHINA-STYLE

Since the entire Indo-Chine region - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - is such a basket case, no one has the money to indulge in fashion - BAD FRANCE! BAD, BAD FRANCE! - the only folk who look good are the remaining French colonists and, because I completely disapprove of everything they've done to these countries, (although I do realise that, since WWII, these countries have done it all to themselves) (although they wouldn't have if the French had set up proper education systems.) I don't want to show you any of shots of them.  

Yeah!  You suck, you colonial froggy scum!

However, I will show you one shot of a lady I saw in Laos who managed to pull it all together on a shoe-string and look amazing:

This is what I'm talking about.  

It's not about money, it's about caring!

And this lady in Vietienne who just looks effortlessly good because the lines of what she had on were so right.

Upgrade this outfit
and we're talking serious chic.


PHILIPPINES STYLE

The Philippines do "American-style" undoubtedly because of all the American bases they have there.  Here's what it looks like, their way:

SINGAPORE-STYLE

Singapore I found really SAD.  It's a repressive sort of society so no-one really dares to be exciting in any area. The entire week of 2005 we were there, the only person who made me sit up and take note was this young lady in a department store modeling her new outfit for her friends:

MACAU-STYLE

Macau may look rich but the locals aren't in the slightest thus, even today, with Las Vegas types who've recently taken over from Stanley Ho types continuing to pay such lousy wages,  it too doesn't do fashion, and the only exciting dresser I've ever seen there is this lady:

BANGKOK STYLE

You don't see many folk who look good in Bangkok, apart from the monks and the ladyboys and I refuse to photograph ladyboys because all tourists do it and it's icky and trite, and treating them like zoo animals or freaks or something.

However, they are increasingly interested in fashion, hosting all sorts of visiting exhibitions ...

 Our Viv's Bangkok Show

... and the Thais always have such talent and excel in so many, many areas, including fabric-making and design, the moment they start to care they'll ace the rest of us, so I hold high hopes for the future.  

 

In the meantime, the best of the best I saw was the icky young fellow who I just know was the one who stole my decoy wallet at Chatachap Markets:

KUALA LUMPUR

Although KL locals have money, the only person I saw who actually made an effort was this lovely guy ...

... however we can blame the heat for that indifference and also this small factor: 

 Religious demands on the women.

 Nonetheless, it can still be done:

Kinda!

However, you see Non-no! everyplace and thus it could only be a matter of time until they take it to the streets and throw up a challenge to the rest of us. 

Oooh, and let me share something with you: Kuala Lumpur's very own women's fashion magazine:

It's hard to know what to laugh at first!

And their very own stylista mag:

This one is engagingly BENT!

Seems like everyone is a foodie,

into cafe society 

and they all adore tarantulas.

I could sincerely live here.

SOUTH CHINA STYLE

China has evolved so fast in the seven years we've lived here.  When we first started jaunting there, it was Mao suits and coolie hats on the men and this was standard for women:

 Even when playing shuttlecock!

These days, they've got their very own Ginza: Li Wan Square in Guangzhou where fashionistas congregate and show off the latest.

Although there are many youngsters who look amazing around here, the best I've seen there would have to be these two young art students:

So that's it from all the places I've been.  And who do you reckon is the winner?

OK, OK, we all know it's Japan, so why are we still pretending this is a competition!

But most of the rest of us aren't doing so badly, so kudos to us all!