Five emerging Hong Kong fashion designers on craft, memory and finding a voice

What’s one fabric you could work with forever?

Chung Tsz Ho: Non-woven fabric is ordinary, industrial and cheap, but if you treat it with intention—press it or heat it—its texture can shift entirely. That’s precisely where the interest lies.

Minimalist or maximalist—where do you fall on the spectrum?

Chung Ka Ching: I prefer the word “pared-back”. A garment can involve an enormous amount of craft and still, in the end, look clean and direct.

Kinyan Lam

As a child, Hong Kong designer Kinyan Lam’s favourite garment was a simple shirt printed with a cartoon character that chimed when pressed. It made him consider what clothing could offer beyond appearance. “I realised then that clothes could be fun, that they could carry so much memory,” he recalls—a realisation that would shape his future.

Lam founded his eponymous brand in 2023; this year, he has been named one of 20 semi-finalists for the LVMH Prize 2026, making him only the third Hong Kong brand to have reached this stage, following Anaïs Jourden in 2015 and Ponder.er in 2024. Lam’s USP is in part his close collaboration with artisans from China’s Guizhou province.

Guizhou is a mountainous region in the country’s south, and home to the Dong ethnic minority, whose ancestral traditions of natural dyeing face the threat of extinction—a loss Lam is determined to help prevent. “Their craft gives me a reason to be a designer,” Lam says. “Bringing these traditions back and celebrating them gives me a reason to keep creating in an oversaturated industry.”

Lam’s exploration of this artisanship begins with natural dyes derived from fruits, flowers and roots, which he uses to colour breathable fabrics such as cotton and linen. His autumn-winter 2026 collection, titled Grounded, centres on abstract, sculptural knitted floral embellishments—rendered not in the vivid colour typically associated with flowers, but in white and earthy tones—tracing a plant’s full shape from bud to root. It is, as Lam puts it, a celebration of “the unseen strength of plant roots and the raw, honest textures of the Earth”. 

Among the designs’ quietest yet most considered details are white buttons made entirely from threads, hand-sewn by Guizhou artisans, fastening cotton shirts in the same pale tone. “The complexity in my work is not something you can read at a glance,” he says. “It is about the richness of the process—layer upon layer of dyeing, the intricacy of hand embroidery, the subtle changes that come from fabric passing through human hands—that is where the true weight lies.”

Read next: Why the summer solstice is the best time to figure out which jewellery actually suits you

What do you do when you’re feeling uninspired?

I empty my mind—tending to my plants, or simply observing them. There is a quiet power in that stillness, one that pulls me back from overthinking and into feeling.

Where do you see your brand in ten years?

I hope we grow like a tree—slowly, with deep roots. We are not aiming to be the loudest name in the industry, but I want the brand to stand for something—a certain way of living.

Lau Hei

Lau Hei took “second skin”—a well-worn metaphor for a close fit—and made it uncomfortably real. Her YDC 2025 entry, a collection titled In Pain—recipient of the Best Art Direction award—uses silicone to replicate the texture of human skin. Fitted, skin-baring cuts merge the fabric with the skin beneath, creating an effect uncomfortably close to nudity. That unease is intentional: “In Hong Kong and most other Asian societies, there’s still [little] tolerance for dressing in a way that’s openly sexy,” Lau says. “I want to challenge that—to push back against the outdated biases around how women dress.”

The collection draws on BDSM culture and its fetish dressing—a subculture built on informed consent and mutual negotiation, in which pleasure is found through acts of dominance and submission. The Fifty Shades of Grey film series, released between 2015 and 2018, demystified BDSM culture among mainstream audiences worldwide, yet across much of Asia, open conversation on the subject remains rare; not that that’s stopping Lau. In Pain features metal accents, straps and corset-inspired headpieces—signature elements of fetish dressing—alongside form-fitting silicone garments. The effect speaks to the allure of the body’s own silhouette rather than any overt seductive intent. “To me, nude suggests raw desire, sexual tension and confidence in one’s own body,” she says. “Those qualities form the aura of Lau Hei.”

Lau has recently found a new role: creating performance costumes for clients including local singer-songwriter Moon Tang and girl group Viva. For these custom designs, her signature silicone gives way to new materials—lace, leopard print, sequins—though her guiding principle remains unchanged. “I never limit myself to a single material,” she says. “What matters more is the cut and how it shapes the body.” 

She is inspired by western brands that openly celebrate the female form—Mugler, particularly under former creative director Casey Cadwallader, chief among them—while remaining clear-eyed about their limitations. The sensuality and body-conscious cuts that such brands excel at are largely conceived with western proportions in mind, and for Lau, that gap is precisely where her work begins: designing for petite Asian women built like herself. “What I believe represents me most, in Hong Kong and across Asia, is a deep understanding of what Asian women need from a cut: designs that are fitted, bold and confident—and that empower whoever wears them.”

Don’t miss: Princess Diana's most iconic style moments that continue to inspire

Three words to describe your style?

Nude. Sensual. Harmony.

If you could design for anyone, who would it be?

FKA Twigs and Doja Cat. I love their quirky, unapologetically sexy energy.

Aenrmous (by Uia Kwok, Kenneth Cheang)

Hong Kong duo Uia Kwok and Kenneth Cheang draw on historical and mythical references to craft universally resonant designs. In March, their label Aenrmous unveiled its autumn-winter 2026 collection as part of the Welcome to Paris programme at Paris Fashion Week. The collection is deeply rooted in Polish history, drawing inspiration from the 1965 film The Ashes—a historical drama set during the Napoleonic Wars that traces Poland’s faith in the French leader from its heights to its inevitable collapse, and the long, painful reckoning that followed. “We drew inspiration from that broken history, where creating became a form of quiet resistance,” says Cheang.

The collection has a weathered, layered quality through its earthy palette, and cuts that naturally scream dishevelment—cinched waists, raw-edged jackets and skirts with uneven hemlines. A standout black coat takes the French fencing jacket as its foundation, its high stand collar and parallel rows of buttons recalling the silhouette of a Napoleonic-era uniform. “These looks may read as dark, understated, quiet on the surface,” says Kwok, “but look closer and you will find different textures, layers and details that speak to the enduring influence of historical memory on the way we dress.”

The highlight of the collection is a series of matching headpieces created in collaboration with Polish artist Aleksander Jurczak. Their brims are crafted from a specially waxed material that stiffens in cooler temperatures, causing them to close in around and obscure the wearer’s face. This is a signature sentiment: since its founding in 2021, the brand has featured models whose faces are concealed, through masks, hats or structures that vary in form each season. The spring-summer 2026 collection referenced the Tree of Life, the ancient symbol of immortality. Models’ heads were wrapped in layers of fabric toned to match each look, or fitted with long, branch-like extensions.

Read next: 27 most stylish Thai celebrities to follow on Instagram

The gesture reflects the designers’ commitment to anonymity, as does their brand name—an approach they committed to from the start. “In a world where people so often buy into the designer or the brand rather than the work itself, our commitment to anonymity is about putting the design back at the centre.”

Not that that is straightforward. “Translating an abstract feeling into something concrete is never easy,” Cheang explains. “Getting an idea to fully exist through cut, proportion, fabric, the way something is worn—it is always a process of constant revision. And pushing through that is what we are here to do.”

Is there one fabric you would work with indefinitely?

Kwok: Linen. It is one of the most versatile natural fibres—adaptable in weave, density and texture, capable of holding structure while shifting naturally with the wearer over time. It is also one of the oldest textiles in human history, present across cultures and centuries in both everyday and ceremonial use.

Is there a filmmaker, designer, or work that has shaped you most?

Kwok: Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1975 film The Mirror and Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s 2011 film The Turin Horse have been our major inspirations—both made us think differently about what design and style can fundamentally be.

Fab Flow (by Jasmine Cheuk)

For Jasmine Cheuk, founder of local fashion brand Fab Flow, denim is a canvas of possibility. Her participation in the 2025 Global Denim Talent Programme—a three-month incubation initiative organised by the Hong Kong Design Institute—gave her a more rigorous grounding in the material’s full range. “I came to understand how much variety a single piece of denim can hold, from fabric selection—weight, composition, colour—to washing techniques and sustainable processes,” she tells Tatler. The same fabric, when treated differently, yields an entirely different result.”

The “result” she speaks of extends beyond the garments’ finishes—it also encompasses its environmental impact. Her autumn-winter 2026 womenswear collection uses regenerative cotton: an innovative agricultural solution that grows cotton using farming methods that actively restore ecosystems, improve soil health and increase biodiversity. She then employs laser printing technology to achieve wash and distressing effects without harm to either the environment or garment workers.

The same collection moves across a range of denim treatments, yet each look—constructed entirely from fabrics within the same tonal palette—finds its own character through cut alone. “I’m drawn to the fabric’s stiffness,” she says. “You’ll notice structured shoulders in my designs—sharp, defined lines that project a sense of strength—while the body of the garment stays soft and fluid.” One of the highlights is a jacket with dramatically widened shoulders and full sleeves, cinched at the waist with a row of buttons and cut to an irregular hem, worn with a matching denim bra top and fishtail skirt.

Don’t miss: 14 best sunscreens to use for ultimate sun protection

The versatility of denim in everyday dressing became a sharper focus for Cheuk once she turned to design professionally. She came to realise that getting one outfit right was not enough: “When a design becomes a product, you have to think about what the wearer actually needs—the same piece should be able to work in more than one way.” This thinking was already at play during her 2024 Centrestage debut, where her denim ensemble was built around a multiwear logic: a short denim skirt worn alone, buttoned onto a matching skirt panel to form a longer silhouette, or with the skirt panel fastened to the hem of a cropped denim jacket for a trench-like layered effect.

“As a teenager, I would drape fabric over myself in front of the mirror, pinning and shaping until something took form,” she recalls. That instinct—to explore, deconstruct and rebuild—has never left her.

Minimalist or maximalist—where do you fall on the spectrum?

For a long time, I kept adding—more layers, more detail, as though complexity could prove something. I’m still finding the balance, but learning to trust in less is where I’m heading.

If you could design for anyone, who would it be?

Barbie Hsu. There was a fearless resilience about her that I find deeply compelling. I’d want the clothes to reflect that—sharp, structured silhouettes for her boldness, fluid lines for her grace.