When a Hong Kong teenager went to study fashion in New York – and came back to criticise the Chinese city’s lack of individuality
- When 19-year-old Philip Au-yeung won a scholarship to study fashion in New York, the Hongkonger said he acquired his appreciation for fashion from his mother
- Upon his return to the city after the two-year course, he said that ‘Hongkong fashions still lack individuality’ and that New Yorkers took this ‘to extremes’
“A $20,000 scholarship to study fashion in New York is the prize in a contest proposed by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce to the Ready-to-wear Fashion Festival Committee,” reported the South China Morning Post on December 12, 1968.
“Mr J.B. Kite, Chamber Secretary and a Festival Committee member, said the competition would be open to all residents. The winner of the contest would receive a two-year course in fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
“The proposed scholarship entailed one ‘condition’ – that the winner undertake after the two-year study to return to the Colony and accept a three-year salaried contract to work in a Hongkong design institution.”
On March 3, 1969, the Post reported that Philip Au-yeung, “the 19-year-old winner of the Chamber of Commerce’s design scholarship, has been designing clothes since he was seven years old.
“He acquired his appreciation for fashion from his mother, whom he describes as one of the best dressed women in Hongkong.
“At present he is studying at the Hongkong Technical College, but will leave in September to take up his two-year scholarship [in New York].”
On October 11, 1971, the Post documented that “Philip has just returned after two years [in New York, where] he graduated this summer and feels he has acquired some valuable experience in the fashion business. He hopes to make good use of it in Hongkong.
“‘Our industry would move forward faster if it was better informed on what different markets want – and if we designed our own clothes on the basis of this information[, he said].
“‘Clothes should be less confined and reflect the wearer’s personality. In New York they are taking this ‘individuality’ to extremes.’”
