Festival Spotlights Hong Kong Designs

Hong Kong is more than just an offshore manufacturing center for the United States. And to get the point across, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council showcased a few top designers during a five-day festival staged in a Los Angeles mall.

The Century City shopping center and its affluent shoppers were considered ideal targets for the message. Spokeswoman Sarah Monks said HKTDC wants to promote the idea that “there’s a star rising in the East in terms of fashion design, and that is Hong Kong. It’s not just everybody’s factory for making clothes. It’s a design center in its own right.”

California officials considered the “Festival of the Lantern” significant enough to either attend the opening night celebration or send envoys. Secretary of State March Fong Eu personally welcomed the group and a representative of Mayor Tom Bradley’s office pronounced Oct. 4 through 8, “Hong Kong Week in Los Angeles.” An impressive dragon dance and a ribbon-cutting ceremony--in which everyone on the crowded stage, including Miss Asia 1990, came away with a rosette--preceded a fashion show of the expected and unexpected.

Among the predictable entries were sexy evening gowns so loaded with sequins they could sink a starlet on Oscar night. And flower-embroidered knits--including vests, short jackets and pleated miniskirts--gave rise to unwanted thoughts of Heidi alive and well in Hong Kong.

On the more wearable and sophisticated level were bright, color-blocked wool cardigans and long dusters worn with trim knit leggings; flowing silk-Jacquard coats, skirts, blouses and jackets in dusty pastels or rich shades of mustard and olive green; and lightweight, well-tailored knit coats and suit separates worn in striking color combinations of indigo and cream.

If Southern California shoppers go looking for the garments, they will be disappointed. Monks said the show pieces are not in local stores. The Century City presentation was intended only to demonstrate that Hong Kong turns out quality, high-fashion merchandise. Selling quality not quantity, she says, is how Hong Kong apparel companies plan to successfully combat U.S. trade quotas.

As an indication of the region’s high-fashion capabilities, Monks said eveningwear by Ben Yeung retails in London for the equivalent of $1,400 to $1,500. And Bright Generation Enterprises, one of 13 companies participating in the show, currently makes private label merchandise for Anne Klein and Donna Karan.