Inside ‘The Season’: how costume designer Vera Chow decoded the fashion of Hong Kong’s elite

This community grew out of the city’s colonial history. As Hong Kong developed into a major financial hub through the latter half of the 20th century, a wealthy Chinese elite emerged alongside the British establishment, and many of these families chose to send their children to international schools to give them both the cultural capital to operate globally and strong ties to Hong Kong. 

Fashion is also part of that equation. Hong Kong established itself as a gateway for Western brands entering Asia as far back as the 1970s, cultivating a particular kind of cultural fluency. Take Joyce, the city’s pioneering luxury fashion boutique founded by Joyce Ma in 1970, which is widely credited with introducing international designer labels to Hong Kong and the wider Asian market. For those like Chow, who grew up in Hong Kong in the decades that followed, western brands are simply part of the city’s landscape.

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“Hong Kong high society has always had a deep love of European brands,” she says, “but the choices people make—even when shopping from the same designer—say a great deal about where their money comes from and the demographic they belong to.”

We’ve also spoken with the main cast—Karena Lam and Jessie Mei Li. Li plays the show’s protagonist, Cola, a newcomer to the city. “Her style [at first] is unmistakably American,” says Chow, who has also worked as costume designer on including The Brothers Sun and The Walking Dead. Cola’s look begins as casual and unguarded—“She’d wear a boy’s tank top at home, no bra,” Chow notes—completely at odds with the world she’s attempting to enter. “A Hong Kong woman [in high society] would more likely be in a matching lounge set."

As the series progresses, Cola’s wardrobe grows increasingly structured—”more stiff, with woven fabrics,” Chow says—mirroring her true agenda as it surfaces: to clear her imprisoned father’s name and bring down the powerful Hext family. “You can see Cola growing in power,” Li says. “Her looks become a little more dangerous as she does.”

A pair of Shanghai Tang earrings are part of Cola’s final look, and Chow hints they are a pivotal plot point. “When they appear and when they disappear, they carry the story forward in a very significant way.” Founded in 1994 by Hong Kong socialite David Tang, Shanghai Tang occupies a particular place in Chow’s memory. “Growing up, it was everywhere—[later,] my school friends would have entire weddings themed around it, and the influence continues to this day,” she recalls. Known for its 1930s-Shanghai-inspired style, the brand is, in Chow’s eyes, emblematic of the early rise of the “east-meets-west” aesthetic. “Shanghai Tang represents an era when Hong Kong forged its own identity—where western and Asian fashion blended together in a way you simply don’t see anywhere else. A man might wear a Mandarin collar shirt with a fedora or a newsboy cap—it sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does,” she says.

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Such originality sits at the heart of Hong Kong’s contemporary fashion scene—and it was also critical in the costuming for Fiona and Christopher Hext, played by Karena Lam and Toby Stephens, the heads of one of the city’s oldest and most powerful families. In designing the looks for these roles, Chow drew inspiration from close to home.

“My aunt is Hong Kong old money through and through,” she says. “She shops European labels, but for any significant event, she would never simply reach for a Bulgari piece—those are for the everyday. For an occasion, she’ll go to her jeweller, take heirloom pieces that belonged to my grandmother, and have them broken down and reassembled into something entirely her own. The thought and care that goes into that is immense—because you absolutely don’t want to be wearing the same jewellery as someone else.”

That level of exclusivity shaped the Hexts’ wardrobe. “For Toby, almost all of the suits are either custom-made or very precisely tailored,” Chow says—after all, the value lies not in the label or the price, but in the considerations. “We are talking about pieces that couldn’t be found in K11 or Pacific Place [but] something that might require a trip to Italy or Japan to commission.” 

The nouveau riche attempt to signal their status in a similar way. Hotelier Andrew Fung, played by Crazy Rich Asians’ Chris Pang, is dressed in suits from Tokyo-based brand Ichijiku, which combines bespoke Italian cuts and Japanese vintage fabrics. “The moment you see it, you know it’s couture-level suiting,” Chow explains.

But owning something rare is only part of it. True taste, she suggests, is innate. “You could be wearing the most exquisite piece from Versace or Saint Laurent, and every Asian old money person in the room will immediately sense whether or not it lands correctly,” she says. “[It is about] your body, the circles you move in, the way it all comes together—there is a whole unspoken vocabulary of colour, silhouette and social context.”

It is a nuance most keenly felt in Fiona Hext—an “ice queen”, as Chow describes her, whose wardrobe was asked to do two things at once: announce her lineage and quietly reveal her inner turmoil. “The costumes make that very tangible.” Lam says to Tatler, “Her armour of elaborate outfits, strong shoulder pads and sculpted hair reinforces her sense of control and self‑possession. They project power and elegance, while also hinting at how carefully she has built—and maintains—that exterior.”

Chow’s contribution to The Season is far more than simply ensuring the cast are dressed to accurately portray their characters; their outfits are an essential element that ensures this story is told appropriately and in a way that rings true for the community represented on screen. “For people who have wealth, looking a certain way, being adjacent to a certain culture—that carries a weight far beyond vanity,” Chow says. “There’s a whole web of socioeconomic forces behind it—so much cultural identity, so much need for validation, so much history of simply needing to survive wrapped up in that image.”

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