The opening ceremony of this year’s Macao Fashion Festival (MFF) featured six designers from the greater China region, with Macau represented by veteran designer Kitty Ng. Kitty has worked in the fashion and garment industry for more than 30 years, heading up the production department of a fashion factory, and working as a technician and trainer at the Productivity Textile and Garment Technology Centre, and a guest lecturer at the Fashion Design Department of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She has also taken on the roles of technical director and judge for major fashion shows, as well as a technical consultant for uniform design, production and production for government departments and private organizations in Macau. This year at MFF, she featured designs from her personal label ‘La Mode Désir’ a boutique and design studio founded in 2004.
Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind your latest range presented at the opening ceremony fashion parade for this year’s Macao Fashion Festival?
The theme of this year’s Festival is ‘Legacy. Future’. In line with this theme, I designed a series of cheongsams to preserve and commemorate Chinese culture. The fabric is made from traditional silk prints and embellished with the ‘mother-of-pearl’ technique, which was prevalent during the Tang Dynasty, to add the finishing touches. Inspired by the famous Mainland court drama Yanxi Raiders, what attracted me to this drama was not only the plot, but also the costumes of the actors and actresses, which made me fall in love with the colours of traditional Chinese painting. The colours are used to express the beauty of fashion and modern art, creating a peaceful and secluded atmosphere and exuding a sensual and elegant quality.
What were your impression of this year’s Festival?
This year’s festival gave me a whole new experience, including a unique stage design, new fashion display and infinite creative space combined with technology elements, all of which were very refreshing! I had the opportunity to see the work of many outstanding young designers and to showcase the power of fashion in Macau. At the same time, we were able to present Macau’s fashion charm to the world.
This year’s MFF is focusing more on technology and the Metaverse. How did you incorporate these concepts into your approach to designing?
As the ‘metaverse’ concept has become quite popular in the past few years, I was interested in how it could influence fashion design. So this year, in line with the theme of the festival, I asked a local start-up company to create a short video on one of the main colours of our collection. A short video called “Meta Universe” was produced to kick off the collection. Although the video was only 30 seconds long, it took a lot of time to communicate with the designers of the company and work out how to translate a garment into the ‘metaverse’ world. For example, when I saw the avatar walking along the corridor, I thought of adding pleated lace to the sides of the dress to enhance the dynamic beauty. This change would need to be combined with the technical skills of the ‘metaverse’ designers, otherwise it would not be possible to make this change in both the real and ‘metaverse’ versions of the outfit.
How do you think these concepts will impact the fashion industry in the future?
This experience has led me to believe that the future of fashion design will be influenced to a certain extent by the metaverse, and that future fashion designers may also have to consider how their garments fit into the metaverse, taking advantage of its borderless nature to promote their brands worldwide. At the same time, they may also take advantage of the boundless environment of the metaverse to communicate their design concepts through visual art. We hope to develop our brand in this direction and become a couture brand in the metaverse. In the future, the ‘Meta-Universe’ will become a new driving force for fashion companies!
Do you feel like the local and regional fashion industry is starting to make a recovery now after the challenges of the past couple of years?
All industries around the world are facing different levels of challenges in the wake of the pandemic, and the fashion industry is no exception. The last three years have been unprecedentedly stressful and a serious test for brands! Although the economy is showing signs of recovery, the fashion industry is facing new market changes in the post-pandemic era, and in the case of haute couture, there are both opportunities and challenges. At this stage, we need to equip ourselves well so that we can start afresh as soon as the economy recovers.
Do you have any plans for your brand and designs for the coming year?
The company is still based in Macau and continues to be a classic brand of haute couture. With the strong support and promotion from the Macau and Mainland governments, the entire Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau Greater Bay Area has now become a very good business environment, including the supply of industries and the maturity of the relevant supporting facilities, so that clothing designers can have more and better opportunities for development. We hope to continue the essence of our brand by expanding into the Greater Bay Area in the near future.
