Tatler talks to fashion entrepreneur Lois Tien, the founder of SoL and the woman behind Hong Kong’s newest loungewear brand
You may have heard the name Lois Tien before. After all, the Hong Kong-based entrepreneur is the daughter of Michael Tien, founder of G2000, the clothing chain founded in Hong Kong in the early 1980s. With fashion in her DNA, a merchandising degree from the US and experience working with brands like J.Crew under her belt, Tien joined her family business in 2013 by taking over Anagram, a womenswear label under the family’s fashion umbrella. Using her strong business acumen and understanding of what women want, she quickly turned Anagram into a household name with five shops across Hong Kong.
Fast forward to today and the creative entrepreneur has proudly launched SoL, a label that promotes sustainability through “SelfWear”, a new category of loungewear and sleepwear. The garments use Ecovero, an innovative viscose fabric that is made with sustainable wood and feels like a blend between cotton and silk. The brand’s line, which includes robes, dresses, cosy button-downs, lounge pants, eye masks and headbands, couldn’t have been launched at a better time, as people have been spending a lot more time at home lately.
After launching a Kickstarter campaign on August 5, Lois successfully achieved her fund goal within the first 27 hours, an impressive feat in a time of economic uncertainty. But that’s not the only thing she’s celebrating: on June 27, she married her long-time boyfriend Joshua Chan in an intimate civil ceremony in Hong Kong. Could 27 be her lucky number? We think so.
Here, she talks to Tatler about her favourite family traditions, the most famous person she ever met and how she’d cope during a zombie apocalypse.
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What does Hong Kong mean to you?
Hong Kong is home. It's a city of harmonious juxtapositions situated in the middle of an island jungle. It’s a perfect blend of urban bustle and eco retreat; developed into a global financial hub from fishing village roots. It balances modern vigour with spirited traditions. There are so many sides to Hong Kong, and this allows me to engage in the widest spectrum of activities here and still feel anchored in one place, in one identity, and I think that’s pretty unique. I was overseas for much of my adolescence but my adult years in Hong Kong were formative in terms of who I became as an adult. Here is where my support system is: my family, my friends, the physical home I grew up in, and that means everything to me. Hong Kong will always be deeply rooted within my identity.
What was the inspiration behind your company?
I grew up immersed in fashion. In the ’80s, my father started a fashion retail company focused on giving men and women confidence and professionalism through quality, affordable workwear. Having worked in the fashion retail industry for more than 10 years, I observed all the excess inventory created by the constant churning out of new collections. I was a buyer and merchandiser for most of those 10 years and I noticed that often the supply ended up outweighing the demand. That, coupled with educating myself on where the waste was going (or not going) and feeling a real wake-up call through documentaries like The True Cost by Andrew Morgan, led me to realign my priorities in the industry. On a more personal level, I realised a few years ago that while I had a knack for accumulating “outside” clothes—clothes to impress, like single-wear cocktail dresses—I thought very little about the clothes I spend more than a third of the day wearing in my own home. This epiphany led me to invest in my own self-comfort and search for, then create, timeless and comfortable clothes for the home.
How easy or hard was it to leave your family business?
It was a difficult choice to make but I think what made it harder was how uncommon this is. The norm is that people often become lifers in their family businesses. Being a part of my family’s business was almost like an extension of being within the family so the longer I was there, the harder it became to detach myself from it. Luckily though, I have an exceptionally understanding family who listened and understood what I wanted to pursue, realised the value of it and encouraged me to break out on my own because they realised it was not something that could be pursued under our current business framework. There is familial obligation but there is also an obligation to myself: to be true to and comfortable with myself and my decisions. At the end of the day, I chose the latter because self-care is at the root of caring for others. You are only as good to others as you are to yourself.
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