A group of designers more aware of the origin of fabrics and the way garments are produced is on the rise. The business is slowly gaining visibility. Diego Laje and Eudora Wong report.

Environmentally conscious fashion is emerging in Hong Kong. There is a new group of designers more aware of materials, the origin of fabrics and the ways garments are produced. The business, while still not a significant portion of the total in the city, is slowly gaining visibility.

This trend isn't only influencing how garments are produced, but also how they are worn. And for inspiration, a local designer has even turned to a local politician for inspiration - none other than Chief Executive Donald Tsang and his ubiquitous bow tie.

Kenny Li's FAVE is a collection of collars using materials such as organic cotton, silk and paper. As Li produces a small amount of each design, he can't buy large quantities of raw materials. "I am using wasted fabric from factories, fabrics which will otherwise be disposed of," he said.

Fashion and style often moves too fast sometimes, according to the designer, pointing to the fact people buy new clothes and throw old ones away every season. Li believes that his collars can create a new look on old clothes and which can help avoid garments getting thrown a way. "As a designer, I think I have a social responsibility for what I do or what I tell people," Li said.

Li's concept of using collars as accessories came from the city's Chief Executive, Donald Tsang. "The Chief Executive always wears a bow tie, and I think the bow tie changes the whole appearance," Li said.

Starting from that point, Li has started a collection with the lowest possible environmental impact. Other than using eco-friendly materials, Li also uses plant extracts for dyes, to reduce chemical consumption.

Li's operation is small compared to the scale of this sector in the city. The apparel industry employs around 20,000 Hong Kong people, and the city itself produced or traded HK$176.5 billion in textiles during 2009, according to official data.

To scale up these fledgling businesses from small workshops like Li's, the Hong Kong government supports local designers with funds and resources.

According to the government's Innovation and Technology Commission, there were 1,053 approved projects from July 1999 to January 2011. HK$4.953 billion was distributed through the program and HK$405.4 million went to textiles, clothing and footwear projects.

One of those supported by the policy is Lucy Shih. Shih is an eco fashion designer, and she told China Daily how the funds she received helped her business. "If there weren't any government funds, I would not have made the first step and given up the profitable evening wear business I was doing for more than ten years, because I already had a stable customer base," Shih said.

Even though it was a difficult first step for Shih, she thinks that the green trend is very important in Hong Kong. She is careful to use recycled materials whenever possible, with less harmful chemicals to treat them. "As a designer, I know how the industry can be damaging, if people wear clothes full of toxins, they will be absorbing it every minute," Shih said.

Hong Kong already had 477 apparel companies certified as not using harmful chemicals to treat fabrics by mid-2007, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. This placed the city in fifth place in such certifications among 84 economies.

But Shih's concern goes further. One of her garments can be worn in up to 42 different ways. Using a combination of cut and buttons a blouse can be turned into a dress, skirt, trouser or shawl.

"My clothes can transform into lots of styles, I think that when one material can bring more than one style, it's eco-friendly," she told the China Daily.

Her logic is that if one garment performs many functions, then consumers will need to buy fewer pieces to stock their wardrobes.

Shih received a total of HK$750,000 in grants from the government for developing her product and business. She said she invested HK$1.25 million in her company, excluding the grants.

Environmental companies are not just about small operations, and this may well mean a small industrial revival for the city. Hong Kong's factories from the 1970s have mostly disappeared. Central Textiles in Tsuen Wan used to be one of those. Now, it is in business again, with a new product that is capturing the public imagination with an eco-friendly argument.

According to Pat Nie Woo, Director of Central Textiles Hong Kong, there are 500 million yards of wasted denim every year in China. "If we put it into one roll, we can put it around the world 16 times," Woo said. The Hong Kong based company uses this scrapped denim and recycles it into new fabrics.

Even though the jeans are made of recycled denim, the quality is not inferior to normal jeans. "If you look at it (the recycled and normal jeans), you can barely tell the difference," Woo said. Recycling used materials to produce new products is also a practice by a creative pair of designers who sell their products at four local retailers and in Singapore.

Handsome Bag Company co-founders Billy Potts and Joseph Ng are also doing their part, albeit at a smaller scale than Central Textiles. The partners both have a day job, as a lawyer and an architect respectively, but that does not stop them from being creative after work.

Potts and Ng started Handsome Bag Company last year; they sell bags, laptop bags and phone cases made with old taxi seat covers and seat belts.

They have sold over a hundred pieces since July 2010. "We sell on average 20 bags a month," Ng said.

The pair is also trying to minimize their carbon footprint, they said that operating within a small radius can help lower energy consumption and, as a result, minimize carbon emissions.

"Ninety to 95 percent of our product is all discarded materials which would otherwise go into a landfill," Potts said. Potts added that the material they are using is called vinyl, which is plastic and may otherwise take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill.

It was a long process for them as they had to learn about the materials, the working and production process. "The material looks like leather but it doesn't behave like leather, so we had to learn it bends in certain ways but not in certain other ways," Potts said. The first time they were making a small bag, it took them four days and they snapped four needles.

Ng thinks Hong Kong needs more creativity. "A lot of people say Hong Kong is a cultural desert," he said. Apart from the idea of using recycled materials, Potts and Ng want to send another simple message through their bags - the story behind the materials and how it relates to everyone. "We want to make sure the rest of the world can see that there's something creative coming out of Hong Kong and we are worth looking at," Potts said.

(HK Edition 04/27/2011 page3)