Hong Kong designer Angus Tsui’s autumn-winter 2026 collection uses vegan leather to depict wounded flesh

“404: Safety Not Found” is such a provocative title. What does “safety” mean to you in the context of fashion, and why did you feel it needed to be questioned or removed this season?

Safety, in fashion, has traditionally meant comfort—both physical and conceptual. It’s the predictable cut, the familiar silhouette, the garment that reassures rather than challenges. But in our digital lives, safety has become an illusion. We’re told our data is protected, our identities are secured, our connections are private. Yet every day, we bleed information. Every scroll, every like, every intimate thought shared online leaves a trace.

I wanted to tear that illusion apart. “404: Safety Not Found” isn’t just an error message—it’s the truth of our time. There is no safety in hyper-connection. There is only exposure. And perhaps, within that raw vulnerability, there is something more honest than comfort. This collection asks: if safety is a lie, what remains? The answer is flesh, instinct, and the desperate need to feel something real.

You’re using vegan leather for these intense, flesh-like textures. Was there something conceptually significant about using cruelty-free materials to create imagery of torn, wounded flesh?

Absolutely. The contradiction is intentional. We live in an age where we care deeply about ethics—what we consume, what we wear, what footprint we leave. And yet, our inner lives are more wounded than ever. We present curated, cruelty-free exteriors while bleeding internally from digital overexposure, comparison, and isolation.

Using sustainable materials to depict violence against the self creates a powerful tension. It asks: can we be gentle with the world while being brutal with ourselves? The vegan leather tears, but no animal was harmed. What about the human wearing it? That dissonance is exactly where the collection lives—between our ethical aspirations and our emotional realities.

After over a decade of pioneering sustainable fashion, what still frustrates you about the industry’s approach to sustainability? What gives you hope?

Frustration: The industry still treats sustainability as a marketing category rather than a fundamental restructuring. It’s “green collections” and “conscious lines” instead of asking: why isn’t everything sustainable by default? There’s still this assumption that ethics and aesthetics cannot fully merge—that sustainable fashion must look a certain way, feel a certain way, compromise in certain ways. I reject that entirely.

Hope: The new generation. Young designers entering the industry don’t ask “should we be sustainable?” They ask “how do we push it further?” They see no separation between creativity and responsibility. Also, material science is evolving faster than ever. What we couldn’t achieve five years ago—texture, durability, drape—is now possible. The tools are finally matching the vision.

This is your first time designing footwear. How did that experience change the way you think about body movements and how pieces work together?

Footwear humbled me. For a decade, I’ve designed for the body from the neck down—sculpting silhouettes, constructing volumes. But shoes remind me that fashion begins with the ground. Every step, every weight shift, every moment of stillness starts there.

Designing footwear forced me to think about movement as narrative. A collection isn’t just garments on static bodies—it’s bodies in motion, telling stories through how they walk, stand, turn. The industrial belts and restraints in this collection, for example, had to work with the shoes—not against them. Restriction and movement must coexist. You can’t design confinement without understanding what freedom feels like underfoot.

Beyond the Hellraiser reference, what else inspired this exploration of the body, technology, and violence? Were there specific films, art, or experiences that shaped your vision?

I’ve been deeply influenced by the biomechanical surrealism and post-humanist art movement—particularly artists like Berlinde De Bruyckere, whose wax and epoxy sculptures of wounded flesh capture vulnerability with terrifying tenderness. Also, the early body horror of H.R. Giger, especially Necronomicon and Biomechanical Nightmares, where technology and flesh become indistinguishable.

But the most direct inspiration was personal: watching my own generation scroll through trauma. We consume violence digitally—war, disaster, personal tragedy—then return to our curated lives. The body becomes a vessel for second-hand pain. I wanted to explore what happens when that pain becomes first-hand again. When the screen disappears and all that’s left is skin, torn open, demanding to be felt.

What does Hong Kong mean to your creative identity? Does the city’s energy or culture show up in this collection in ways that might not be obvious?

Hong Kong is the tension in every seam. This city teaches you to live with contradiction—ultra-modernity beside ancient tradition, immense freedom beside invisible constraints, constant motion beside moments of profound stillness.

In “404: Safety Not Found”, that tension manifests as the clash between exposure and restraint. The flesh tears open, but the belts hold tight. The body wants freedom, but the system binds. That push-pull is Hong Kong to me—a place that never resolves, never settles, never stops negotiating between what it is and what it could be.

Visually, the collection’s palette—deep blacks, pale flesh tones, shocking reds—echoes Hong Kong’s neon bleeding into night, the glow of screens on skin, the city’s raw, unpolished energy. But it’s subtle. You feel it more than you see it.

As the brand is moving into a new decade, what are you leaving behind? What are you embracing moving forward?

Leaving behind: The fear of discomfort. For too long, fashion has equated beauty with ease. I’m leaving behind the need to be palatable. This collection isn’t comfortable. It’s not meant to be.

Embracing: Vulnerability as strength. Raw materials. Raw emotions. Raw conversations. The next decade of ANGUS TSUI will be more exposed, more honest, more willing to tear open difficult questions. We’re embracing collaboration—with other artists, other mediums, other voices. Fashion alone cannot answer the questions this collection raises. But fashion can start the conversation.

Also, embracing the body in all its complexity—not as a surface to decorate, but as a living, bleeding, feeling entity that deserves more than decoration. It deserves truth.