"The 47th Hong Kong Fashion Week for Fall/Winter opened yesterday to full house. Organised by HKTDC, the four-day event from January 18 to 21 features more than 1,500 exhibitors from 22 countries who are showcasing their latest designs, collections from international brands, fabrics and accessories. The theme of the show this year is: Fashion of Music. The theme blends different musical genres in ways that complement various styles of fashion and accessories. A dedicated fashion avenue in the fair has been created to depict this theme through fashion shows."  

The 47th Hong Kong Fashion Week for Fall/Winter opened yesterday to full house. Organised by HKTDC, the four-day event from January 18 to 21 features more than 1,500 exhibitors from 22 countries who are showcasing their latest designs, collections from international brands, fabrics and accessories. The theme of the show this year is: Fashion of Music. The theme blends different musical genres in ways that complement various styles of fashion and accessories. A dedicated fashion avenue in the fair has been created to depict this theme through fashion shows.

The fair will see around 30 fashion events, including fashion shows, fashion parades, seminars, forums, to present the latest fashion collections and market intelligence.

Latest fashion creations on the runway

More than 10 fashion, designer and brand collection shows are being organised during the four-day fair. Fashionally, webplatform for local fashion communication presented on the first day, two fashion shows for upcoming local talents, featuring designers from the Hong Kong Young Fashion Designers’ Contest (YDC). Fashionally Collection #5 Menswear displays menswear for the 2016 Fall/Winter season, whereas Fashionally Collection #6 launched a collection of women’s wear for the 2016 Fall/Winter, with participating designers including 112 mountainyam (designer: Mountain Yam), Blind by JW (designer: Walter Kong, Jessica Lau), Effie Hung, FromClothingOf (designer: Shirley Wong), HANG (designer: Mim Mak), KEVIN HO, Lapeewee (designer: Yannes Wong), and Sherman Kwan. 

A platform to explore new trends

The first day also saw a panel discussion on ‘circular business models’ as well as a session on net-a-porter, a leading game changer online luxury fashion retailer. A series of such seminars and forums are being conducted during the four day Fashion Week, with experts sharing their views and analysing market intelligence, including forecasts and analyses of major trends for the 2017 Spring/Summer by the world-renowned fashion advisory institutions WGSN and Fashion Snoops.

Sourcing in various thematic zones

This year, companies from Myanmar, Romania, Uzbekistan, New Zealand, Philippines and Vietnam join the Hong Kong Fashion Week for the first time. The fair features 11 pavilions, including Chinese mainland, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Macau, Japan as well as Hong Kong Fashion Designers Association. Multiple zones are set up to help buyers find sought-after products and suppliers, including four new zones: women’s wear, knitwear, international fashion designers’ showcase, and fashion tech, which presents fashion-related high-end technology and apps. Other zones include: Emporium de Mode featuring top brands, Fashion Gallery showcasing mid- to high-end fashion, Men in Style, Activewear & Swim Wear, and Denim Arcade.

Nearly 90 buyer missions have been invited for sourcing , these missions comprise more than 5,000 buyers from 43 countries and regions including representatives of renowned fashion brands such as H&M from Sweden, Dssr Co, the leading wholesaler of apparel and fashion accessories in Japan and Showpo, the largest online fashion retailer in Australia.

The Hong Kong Fashion Week also features Hong Kong Brand Management Association (booth 1D-E08), presenting the United States diva Taylor Swift’s own brand. Kate Liegey, who is responsible for tailoring Ms Swift’s clothing, is bringing the latest Taylor Swift collection to the show together with the singer’s single Wildest Dreams from her latest album. Also, Fortuna Tokyo from Japan, known for using traditional textile nishijin-ori in their designs, showcases their high-quality fashion products, with the leading actors Kanta Sato and Reina Bisa from the upcoming movie Mischievous Kiss as guest models for the show. Another highlight is the EcoChic Design 2015/16 Grand Final Fashion Show by Redress that is scheduled for third day.

“Hong Kong is the third largest exporter of clothing and accessories with $6.7 billion exports and has US and EU as the largest buyers constituting 63 per cent of export market. The top five export countries are: US, Japan, UK, China Mainland and Germany. HK imports clothing and clothing accessories worth $13.37 billion”, says Shirley Chan, Chairperson, HKTDC Garment Advisory Committee and CEO YGM Trading. “As per latest study by Euromonitor there’s growth in menswear market, keeping in line with that we have introduced Men In Style and the focus on menswear runway shows,” she added. On how China’s slowdown would impact Hong Kong industry, she said that HK can already feel the impact, there’s a slowdown in luxury market and the industry needs to adjust to the changes. “We have seen good times but all the time may not be the same. The HK steret and shop associations are trying to come to terms with high rentals and adjust to market realities, likewise we need to adjust as per the weather change also, as winters are shrinking,” she opines.

“China economy is facing a down turn, as it is connected with world markets. However, 6 to 7 per cent GDP growth in itself is not small. Rising wages, migration of business to Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Bangladesh to an extent is also impacting the economy, but still we cannot say there’s a mass exodus of business considering China has mass business base. Of course, RMB has deflated, but China also imports a lot of raw materials, since US dollar has also got devalued, the advantages of devaluation in yuan are getting offset. Furthermore, TPP impact also can be seen,” said Lawrence Leung, Chairman, Knitwear Innovation & Design Society.

Byron Lee, Senior Exhibitions Manager, HKTDC also announced, a new show ‘Centrestage’ that shall be held at the same venue between September 7-10, 2016. The show is being positioned as fashion spotlight for Asia focused offerings. The new show will have both exhibition and fashion show model-beside trend forums etc. Centrestage is being revamped as a new avatar of World Fashion Boutique to align with current global fashion calendar in new positioning and new Asia focused offerings.