The socialite-turned-managing director of shirt specialist PYE tells us why she only focuses on shirts, and why she names collars after mathematicians
“Let’s do this and kill it,” Dee Poon says, passionately. It’s a line that, taken out of context, can be mistaken for some malicious motive, but Poon was referring to the act of perfecting men’s shirts.
“We know we can make the best shirt out there, but do we want to focus on doing one thing really, really well?” Poon asked. “Or do we want to come out with a collection of things that are fashionable, fun and wearable, but not each item is at the level that we want it to be?” It’s one of the earlier questions she asked herself before running PYE (pronounced pie), a luxury shirt boutique that opened in Pacific Place in late 2012. She opted for the first approach.
Poon arguably has the right to hold such high standards. Her father is prolific businessman Dickson Poon, who owns Harvey Nichols, ST Dupont and Hong Kong Seibu, and brands such as Brooks Brothers. Meanwhile, her mother is Marjorie Yang, chairwoman of leading textile and apparel-manufacturing firm Esquel Group, which makes shirts for Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss, and according to the company website, employs 54,000 people globally. PYE has been its retailing arm since 2000.
In other words, not only does Poon have access to the technology, capital and connection in the industry, she has the best of them, all strung together with a driven mentality. She is involved, practically, in PYE and Esquel from the ground up, paying visits to their cotton farms in Xinjiang, giving green lights (and red lights) to shirt designs and store displays.
When asked to give a brief introduction of PYE and its shirts, she appears as much a fashion geek, as she is a fashionista. She told us what she likes and doesn’t like, (which include pockets) before going into the “brief” introduction which eventually span into a lengthy introduction to yarn-spinning, French seams and plackets, as well as vertical integration and patents held by PYE and Esquel.
From Poon, we learnt that PYE carries three lines in the store – infinity, executive and classic – ranked from premium to entry-level, made for different individuals and occasions. Poon then went on to educate us on yarn counts, when she said the fabric in their infinity shirts are “pretty much the best you can get across the market”, thanks to the fineness of the yarn and the technique used in its manufacturing process.
There are terabytes of data on shirts that Poon can dispense and share for hours, if not days. And that makes for a reassuring feeling, as these seemingly simple shirts now appear as more than fabric, cutting and labels created by imaginary machines, but rather minds that are passionate about the trade.
We were then told, with a rather sheepish smile, that all the different types of collars offered at PYE are named after mathematicians. “We named all our collars after mathematicians because we wanted to be able to both bring out a little bit about the collar through the story of the mathematician, as well as so we can show what classic collars there are,” explains Poon. There’s Euclid, named after the Greek mathematician who came up with geometry, and Fibonacci after Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci. PYE’s Euclid and Fibonacci therefore represent PYE’s basic and Italian collars, respectively.
Besides offering the “best shirts out there”, PYE is also a proof that luxury and made-in-China clothes are not mutually exclusive, so long as the skills and brains are in place. And the hard truth of the matter is that Poon really knows her shirts.
In the video above, Poon tells us how different fabric fit different purposes and how would customers go about customising their shirts at PYE.
PYE’s shirts range from HK$880 to HK$2,880. In addition to the store in Pacific Place, PYE now has five stores across mainland China. PYE, Hong Kong: Shop 111, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway; +852 2152 9288
Videography by Tyrone Wu