Impressions of Art Basel

Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota's Where Are We Going?

March is such a busy month with the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Central. Oh and did you know the artist Kaws' Companion is out floating in Victoria Harbour? Wish I could be like him and just relax but there's too much to see!

Photographer Liu Heung Shing

Today was the start of Art Basel and I took a taxi to get there. The drive decided to take the Central-Wan Chai bypass and before we got out of the exit for Wan Chai North, there was a traffic jam with cars going to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The first day is usually reserved for the media and VVIP, but by the time I got there around 3.30pm (it had started around 2pm), the bottom floor of the massive art show was already crawling with people.

And there were lots of beautiful people or people trying to dress arty farty. And lots of Mandarin was being spoken by lots of young women wearing Chanel boucle jackets and dresses, and men in Louis Vuitton shirts and even a crazy white vest with lots of pockets embossed with the LV logo. Do people actually wear this stuff?

Detail of pink swirls of Park Seo-Bo's Ecriture No. 160208

We didn't spot many celebrities, or wasn't paying enough attention, but saw Uli Sigg, the art buyer and philanthropist who is a big supporter of Ai Weiwei. We also saw Hong Kong-born photographer Liu Heung Shing who has come out with a new book comparing and contrasting the Soviet Union and Communist China.

The man himself embodies history, having seen China become a Communist country and watched it transform into a capitalist country with Chinese characteristics. I heard him speak about 10 years ago in Beijing and he has so many anecdotes he can still produce even more books.

But on with the art. My colleague noticed there were fewer large art pieces on show this year, perhaps galleries were worried about having big price tags that would scare off potential buyers and only brought out smaller ones instead.

What is she doing? Dan Colen's Rabbit and the Moon

For example some Francis Bacon prints were going for US$40,000. Wonder if they were snapped up right away.

As usual there was a lot of strange art that wasn't executed very well, and some that were visually arresting, which is what you need at an art fair where it can get mind numbing going by every stall. I did see a few pieces that I had seen at previous Art Basel shows. Perhaps they were hoping to catch buyers who were first timers at the art fair?

One of the large installation pieces was beautiful and airy. It's called Where Are We Going? by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. It's actually composed of lots of strings to make up a series of boats that seem to be floating in the air, making it very dreamy and light.

Rivane Neuenschwander's detail of garlic peel on fabric

A pretty piece in shades of pink is called Ecriture No. 160208 by Korean artist Park Seo-Bo. It's a series of acrylic swirls of paint that seem to be applied with a piping bag and different shaped nozzles. It's so pretty and pastel-y, like a giant vertical cake with tons of pink icing on top.

There were also some sculptures that made us do a double-take. One had a naked woman playing with a rabbit on her chest. New York-based artist Dan Colen created Rabbit and the Moon and it's a weird piece. Who would put that in their living room?

Another has a woman wearing a T-shirt and shorts, reading the paper with miscellaneous goods around her. And then we read the caption and it says: Flea Market Lady by Duane Hanson. A security guard had to be posted next to this statue in case people would touch her!

Chinese artist Zhang Yu performing Tea Feeding

Meanwhile Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Le presented some quietly strong pieces featuring embroidery on cloth. And the embroidery is white thread on white cloth. One is called Texture of Memory #7 2000-1 and it's a portrait of three people together in a line drawing by embroidery. The lines look simple, but up close involve a lot of work and skill to execute well. Utterly beautiful to me.

This other work was white too. It's three-dimensional and at first it looked like bulbs from flowers, but up close they are actually garlic skins. How did the artist, Rivane Neuenschwander extract these thin skins off of the garlic in one piece? She had to do several hundred for this untitled piece.

Vic Muniz's Letter Rack Hong Kong (Yellow)

I find Brazilian artist Vic Muniz's work fun to look at and so I purposely made sure I swung by Ben Brown to take a look. This time it's more like a random collection of items one might find in someone's memory box or time capsule of Hong Kong. There's postcards and ticket stubs, name cards, coins, maps and stamps. I miss his visually-arresting collages. Or maybe he didn't have much time because Ruinart champagne had recruited him to do a special collection creating collages using the actual bark and leaves from the vineyards. Yawn.

The Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija had some pieces shown this year that are new, but using 2014 copies of the South China Morning Post as his canvas. One was untitled and strangely featured two giant circles on newsprint. Usually he has a message written on them. Another exhibited by another gallery had Chinese characters written in red on top of the paper, saying something like, "We are together under one sky making dreams". I prefer his previous piece that said: "Freedom cannot be simulated".

Oh and one final performance art piece. We saw Chinese artist Zhang Yu pouring red tea in giant bowls that were sitting on top of paper. He kept pouring the tea until it slightly overflowed. Then we could see why -- on the walls were uniform circular blotches from previous pourings. We don't know the significance of it, but they kind of looked like fuzzy ancient Chinese coins. The performance art is called Tea Feeding...

SCMP newspaper used by Rirkrit Tivavanija

After about two and a half hours of going through pretty much the entire fair, it was time to call it a day. I like seeing what's out there, the artistic zeitgeist. It was more whimsical pieces than serious political statements. Another Art Basel done and dusted!

Memories of Kaiser Karl

Karl Lagerfeld at one of his Chanel shows recreating a French bistro

Towards the end of dinner this evening, my friend looked at her phone and saw a news alert that designer Karl Lagerfeld had died at the age of 85.

It was a shock to hear the news -- I remember watching him on Fashion Television in the late 80s and early 90s talking a mile a minute about how he made fashion relevant or how women wanted strong-looking clothes in the office or how they wanted to be feminine looking or how women wanted clothes to make them feel comfortable.

Back in the early 1990s with supermodels wearing Chanel

These sound bites rattled off his tongue and fashion correspondents lapped it up because he was considered the genius to reinvented Chanel from 1983 into the power fashion house it is today, while keeping Fendi still relevant despite the trend of moving away from wearing fur.

When I first started watching him on TV he already had greying hair -- and yet he kept working 30 years later, averaging a staggering 14 collections a year. How do you come up with so many ideas for so many collections?

That didn't seem to be a problem for him when it came to Chanel, as he continually riffed off the boucle fabric, the interlinking "Cs" and the multiple strands of pearls. He made the iconic boxy jackets into biker ones, or harked back to Coco Chanel's days or paired them with tulle skirts or leather minis.

I was just in awe of the myriad of combinations he would think of and yet each piece would have some kind of Chanel DNA in them.

Lagerfeld recreated a beach for his spring/summer collection

In the last several years he came up with more grandiose ideas of how to present his collections. One time he recreated a bistro in Paris, a supermarket even with Chanel-branded food products on the shelves, or what about trucking in tons of sand to recreate a beach...

Meanwhile Fendi is a brand I am not so familiar with, but he has had a long association with it since 1965! He would experiment with fur, shaving it, dyeing them, creating new textures and colours with them. Customers lapped it up, along with the baguette bag, which has made a comeback in different sizes.

Fashion never really changes, but just enough that you're lusting for the latest one...

He even made a Chanel-themed supermarket for a catwalk

Lagerfeld introduced me to the world of fashion -- it seemed glamorous and beautiful to a young person -- and how the clothes, particularly haute couture were made. He gave me a new appreciation for this art form and that it was important to keep couture alive.

While the German had a quirky personality, he anchored fashion for decades and has left behind a giant hole of creativity. Lagerfeld will be missed.

Canada Goose Takes Flight in HK

For mainlanders this is the must-have winter jacket these days

Hermes, Chanel, Gucci and now Canada Goose.

The Canadian down jackets are a must-have for mainland Chinese shoppers, and while they have been flying off the racks in luxury department store Holt Renfrew, the US$900 jackets will soon be available in Hong Kong.

This past Christmas when I was in Vancouver, mainlanders descended on racks of Canada Goose jackets at Holt Renfrew, trying them on and snapping them up. I've heard stories of them calling up their friends in China and asking them what size and colour they want, and buying 10 to 12 at a time.

The Chinese are snapping up the jacket in Canada stores

How do they even pack them all into their suitcases?

The latest news is that a sign in Chinese in a Toronto store states shoppers can only buy two jackets per day, probably due to complaints from local residents unable to get their hands on the prized jackets.

Dani Reiss, president and chief executive of Canada Goose knows he's onto a hot product and is eager to expand to Asia.

"A lot of people from the mainland often go to Hong Kong to buy products. That's one of the reasons why it makes sense for us to have a store in Hong Kong," Reiss said. "Even though it's a warm-weather climate, [where the temperature] almost never goes under zero."

Dani Reiss plans to open stores in Hong Kong and Beijing

The Toronto-based company will have two flagship stores, one in Hong Kong, the other in Beijing, and an e-commerce presence on Alibaba's Tmall, and set up an office in Shanghai.

The Hong Kong store will be in IFC mall and is expected to open in the fall. An interesting fact is Reiss is the third generation to run the company that was started by his Polish immigrant grandfather in 1957.

There should be no problem in selling Canada Goose in Hong Kong -- it's subtle in its look, very functional and it's a status symbol to wear. What more do you want in this day and age when Chinese luxury spending has to be a bit more discreet these days?

Chanel Up Close

A beautifully encrusted Chanel haute couture dress

Tonight after dinner, my friend and I happened to be near PMQ or Police Married Quarters on Aberdeen Street above Hollywood Road, when I remembered there was a Coco Chanel exhibition there. Lucky we caught it because it closes tomorrow!

When we arrived there wasn't much of a line, though we had to scan a QR code and tediously register online in order to get in free of charge. The first part of the show featured local artists' interpretation of the legendary Paris-based designer.

This white wedding top is completely beaded

While it's nice to have these kinds of overseas shows invite local artists to participate, the pieces themselves seemed forced... perhaps because the local artists have no affiliation with a brand that makes zillions of dollars from fashion slaves.

Then we walked inside a room where you could smell the different essential oils that go into making Chanel No. 5 perfume and when we walked out we wondered if that was it. But thankfully it wasn't, though it meant walking up several flights of stairs to get to an exhibition showing a few select haute couture pieces up close.

They were presented behind several sheets of muslin (white fabric used to make the first draft in tailoring) and a rectangular hole cut through them for viewers to "peek" inside the atelier.

Some of them had very intricate beading like the top underneath a white wedding jacket, or a dark navy dress encrusted with sparkles. There was also a selection of little black dresses that revealed the outer shells to show fashion fans how intricate the sewing was, but also indicate how many man hours went into each outfit, which was in the hundreds.

890 hours of work went into this black dress

It's almost as if Karl Lagerfeld wants to challenge the haute couture staff into doing the most tedious work to deadline, but in reality fashion is a business and these pieces are a way to lure clients to order these one-of-a-kind dresses.

One that I liked required 890 hours of work into it. Thin organza black strips were carefully sewn either horizontally or vertically -- definitely a daunting task not everyone would have the patience for.

There were also some high jewellery featuring lots of small diamonds to create glittering pieces that would turn heads, including one of a carved lion signifying the leo constellation that stands on top of a shooting star.

At the end there is a very short film that Lagerfeld made in 2015 featuring himself and Geraldine Chaplin as Gabrielle Chanel. She wakes up in her Paris salon and goes upstairs to find Lagerfeld there and the two have a feisty debate about how things have changed since she died, but she still doesn't approve of what he has done with the label.

Chanel's favourite leo on a shooting star

It's a funny finish, but then we are handed a cloth bag and a poster -- of Lily Rose Depp -- Johnny Depp's daughter with a tiara on her head... what does that mean? Hardly a souvenir we want to keep!

Mademoiselle Prive Hong Kong

Until February 10, 2018

PMQ

35 Aberdeen Street

Hong Kong

Stylish Uniformity

A military jacket (far right) inspires two outfits on the left

One of the last few things I saw in New York was the Fashion Institute of Technology's exhibition called Uniformity -- a show on how uniforms evolve and how they can inspire designers in their collections.

Uniforms aren't something we think about much, but this exhibition makes us look at them differently. While the display is small, there are interesting juxtapositions. The collection is divided into four sections -- uniforms for the military, school, work and sports.

Dresses by Maxwell and Gaultier

Curator Emma McClendon says in some ways uniforms are the antithesis of high fashion. "While uniform design focuses on functionality, control and tradition, fashion design promotes constant change, creativity and subversion," she writes.

There are some military wear, the camouflage print that inspired an off-the-shoulder full-length gown by Jean Paul Gaultier, and even an everyday dress nicknamed "speed suit" from 1976 by Vera Maxwell.

Designer Thom Browne draws from military symbols -- the braiding, gold buttons and epaulets for his collection. In a video he talked about finding it interesting to see how people personalized their uniforms. His collection showed his obsession with sharp tailoring and attention to little details that make a suit a kind of armour one wears to work.

Stan Herman is another designer who became known for designing uniforms for corporations. He started by revamping the uniforms for Avis, then TWA, presenting a really colourful collection, and he also did uniforms for McDonald's and FedEx, when Federal Express shortened its name.

Which uniform do you prefer wearing?

For McDonald's the uniform makes a strong statement with its maroon colour, and interestingly when he redesigned the fast-food chain's uniforms, all the franchises had their own versions. Herman standardized the uniforms worldwide.

Standing next to the McDonald's uniform is a mannequin wearing a bright red sweater with a yellow "M" whose golden arch legs are more curved, created by Moschino and at the bottom it says "Over 20 billion served". Cheeky.

We also loved the Chanel "Brasserie Gabrielle", named after Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, where the collection was shown in a recreated brasserie. This particular outfit featured the formal waiter's jacket with a bowtie, while below is a skirt made from artfully placed napkins that look like ruffles.

When it comes to sports, Geoffrey Beene's "football jersey" dress is actually a long white sequinned evening gown with the number "38" on the front, while Gucci created a sports jacket reminiscent of competitive ski wear.

Two colourful outfits designed for TWA

It's interesting to see how designers riff off of uniforms and create their own "uniform" in more stylish terms.

Uniformity

Until November 19, 2016

The Museum at FIT

7th Avenue at 27th Street

New York

Tel: 212 217 4558

Fashion and Design, Handmade and Machine

A Dior dress on the left, Alexander McQueen on right

Today I went to see the annual fashion-related exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This year it's called "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an age of Technology". It showcases handmade clothes and those made by machine, from the 1920s until today.

They were divided into different sections focusing on lace, sequins, artificial flowers, feathers and beading, presented in a white austere looking room with mini arches that almost had a religious feeling, like worshipping the best of fashion.

Gareth Pugh's outfit made with sraws

Some had interesting juxtapositions, like a 1920s Chanel sequinned evening dress, and then two others of similar styles but from the 1990s and 2000s next to it to show how technology has enabled designers to make 3-D printed outfits.

There were some outfits that were totally out there -- like a dress made completely of black drinking straws that were individually hand sewn onto the fabric. Another was a black dress that had white delicate tulip-like flowers coming out of the dress and the edges of the petals connected with each other to create a kind of bubble over the black dress.

Admittedly I preferred many of the older designs, that were so elegant and stylish even today, while the newer ones seemed to be only made possible with technology, or used it to prove how far they could go in pushing design forward.

Many brand names were featured, from Chanel and Dior to Alexander McQueen, Prada and Yoji Yamamoto. There were a few Chanel wedding dresses designed by Karl Lagerfeld, one a winter dress that was covered in white sequins and camelias.

Ethereal wedding dress from Chanel

The highlight of the show was another wedding dress designed by Lagerfeld with a very long 20-foot-train covered in the most intricate beading with sequins and pearls in a computer-generated design, while the dress itself is relatively simple. My friend said it was the perfect outfit to wear for your coronation.

While we liked the outfits, and how they were put together, the atmosphere didn't encourage people to celebrate and have fun with the fashion. Instead it just felt very serious and almost austere.

What a pity, with such gorgeous clothes, to not be warm and inviting, and inspire the next generation of designers to push boundaries even further.

I missed last year's exhibition that was fashion inspired by China that I heard was a very good show, but my yardstick is the Alexander McQueen one that fascinated and amazed us with his creativity and innovation.

Avant garde Iris van Herpen

Manus x Machina: Fashion in the Age of Technology

Until August 14

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York

Tel: (212) 535 7710

Across the Board

Queues like these in front of Chanel will soon be gone in Hong Kong

French fashion brand Chanel has made headlines for announcing it will standardize its prices around the world as a way to develop its share of the Chinese market.

Some other names are following suit, such as Burberry, Cartier and Patek Philippe, but some analysts warn the strategy could backfire by devaluing Chanel's image and making it appear less exclusive.

The French fashion house will start "harmonizing" its prices, beginning with its three iconic handbag models, the 2.55, 11.12, and the Boy bag.

The drop in the euro led to prices falling for the bags in Asia resulting in a surge in spending on the mainland, with the Boy bag falling from 32,700 yuan (HK$41,400), to 26,000 yuan, while in Europe it rose 3,720 euros (HK$32,200) from 3,100 euros.

The 2.55 bag, or February 1955, the date it was created

"We made a very important decision, to treat our customers the same way everywhere in the world. It was a big decision," said Bruno Pavlosky, Chanel's president of fashion.

"The reason we decided to do the price standardization was to prepare ourselves for the next 20 years," he said. "the brand is quite strong; the year before we had double-digit growth in almost every market, so we can afford to make such a decision."

He adds the harmonizing of prices allows Chanel to treat customers the same everywhere, which was not the case before.

This announcement will be another blow for Hong Kong's luxury retail industry, as fashion brands are more expensive on the mainland thanks to the strong yuan and luxury tax, and as a result, many mainland Chinese come to the city to buy expensive items for cheaper. They would also venture further afield to Europe, but now with prices soon to be standardized, they won't have to travel far.

This is Chanel's way of undercutting parallel traders who would entice Chinese students with free trips to Paris so they could buy handbags (one per person), and resell them back home at an inflated price.

Pavlovsky also says it is a concerted effort to end dodgy websites supposedly selling Chanel bags, making it difficult for consumers to tell if the products were "genuine, second hand or counterfeit".

Another interesting fact is that there are only 11 Chanel stores in China, and nine in Hong Kong alone.

With the price standardization starting to take effect, Hong Kong will still have a bit of cache for being a fashion-forward city for mainlanders to see the latest trends and take advantage of the wide selection of goods. But the lineups in front of luxury stores will probably disappear very soon.

Does the Hong Kong government have a plan B for the retail and tourism sectors?