Time to Shine

In December, some of the city’s most talented fashion designers gathered at the annual Macao Fashion Festival to present their latest creative collections in an impressive display of style and colour.  Seven shows were held over three days featuring a total of 13 local labels.  The opening catwalk included designers from around the greater China region including Faya Zhu from Shenzhen, Henry Lau from Hong Kong, Cincin Chan from Taipei, Wu Xiao Lei from Guangzhou and Macau’s own Anifa brand by Simon Kuong.  There was also a Jewellery Brand Collection Show featuring creations by the Macau Jewellery Designer Association and Shenzhen Jewellery Designer Association.  The event concluded with a show of selected collections by Fashion Design Students from the University of St Joseph, as well as participants in the Subsidy Program for Fashion Design.  Macao Fashion Festival is organised by Macau Productivity and Technology Transfer Center (CPTTM) and Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM). CLOSER was there to catch some of the highlights and speak to just a few of the young designer talents on display.

 

 

 

 

For Macao Fashion Festival 2021, local fashion label SARA LOLO presented a wide selection of amazing designs from their Autumn/Winter 2021 and Spring/Summer 2022 collections. 

 

Established in 2020 by creative director ALo Lo and co-founder Auralo Arte, the brand combines intricate and diverse craftsmanship with romantic styles in a tribute to endless imagination.

 

The Fall / Winter 2021 collection entitled Afterglow featured 22 sets of FW21 designs together on the catwalk, a romantic Parisian collection with bold bright colours, combining jacquard, embroidered textures and bright fabrics, 70’s nostalgic check prints and feminine suits and skirts.

 

Then came SARA LOLO’s Spring / Summer 2022 Aeonflux a sustainable fashion collection, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman culture, combined with contemporary fashion – romantic elegance with the strength and power unique to the ancient Greek goddesses.

 

Recreating the epic fantasy of an ancient Greek battlefield, ALo Lo used cotton fabrics with bold print technology and iconic, vibrant necklace motifs, intricate hand-beading and futuristic high-tech satin acetate fabric with a striking soft lustre, together with a range of carefully designed accessories to create a goddess-like look.

 

“In 2021, we were scheduled to participate in various fashion shows in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, but they were cancelled and postponed. However, as we have seasonal events in the fashion industry, this time we decided to release the current season of FW21 and the upcoming SS22 in one big show,” explains the designer. 

 

Based in Macau, the brand name SARA LOLO is derived from Sara, the name of the founder ALo Lo’s mother, which means princess, and LoLo, the name of the founder ALo Lo, which means happy.  The collections are designed to complement the romantic atmosphere of a woman’s happy life, with the pursuit of freedom, comfort and a beautiful body shape incorporated into every design, whether it is for everyday, holidays, business, dating, parties or glamorous events.

 

ALo has been working in different fields of aesthetic design since he was young. In addition to fashion design, he also works as a hair stylist and stylist, and has been the official hair stylist for many celebrities and stars.      

 

“If a client wears the right kind of fashion and has the right kind of look, they will have a happy and fulfilling time, and they will be able to express their moods in the clothes they wear,” ALo says, explaining his design philosophy. 

 

By focusing on fashion and culture, ALo hopes to use fashion to express modern classic stories and bring out more positive messages to everyone, especially in these difficult times. 

 

“Many of our partner companies have unfortunately closed down in the past two years. We have also experienced a serious decline in sales due to the uncertainty in the development and production line, which has been affected by the increase in price of raw materials and labour,” ALo comments.

 

“However, we believe that clothes represent people’s attitude to life and that we need to have the strength to face life with confidence when things are not going well. That’s why our brand wants to spread the message that we believe in positive energy and that we will overcome this together, so we are spreading a declaration of love in romantic colours,” he adds optimistically.  

 

 

 

 

Local brand Amen, established by Jay Chan and her husband, specialises in tailor-made clothing for men and women. The brand currently has two men’s clothing shops and one women’s shop. All three stores feature their self-branded clothing and tailor-made services including men’s suits and handmade leather shoes and women’s evening wear.  

 

Describing the latest range on show at Macao Fashion Festival, Jay says:  

 

“A lot of effort has gone into the details so that the individual pieces can be diversified. Some of the styles have detachable collars to enable variety and to make sure that the clothes can be presented to suit different moods or occasions.”  

 

“My design inspiration comes from retro elements with innovative designs, using retro-looking floral fabric stitching, and checkered fabrics into the whole design, with the idea of incorporating innovation on the basis of classics, presenting a brand new ambience.”

 

On participating in Macao Fashion Festival, Jay comments: “It’s a great honor to participate in Macao Fashion Festival again. I am very grateful to CPTTM because this organization provides a platform for designers with dreams and ideas in Macau to showcase their designs. Every time I see all the people on the catwalk and behind the scenes joining together for the Fashion Festival, I feel very moved and proud. I hope that Macau’s fashion can be showcased to the world.” 

 

Jay explains that the brand name AMEN is an expression used to affirm the truth of a statement.

 

“This is my mission. Amen was founded by my husband and I. We are devout Christians and there is a Bible verse in Genesis where God says “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”  I feel that this verse symbolises our union, and I believe that I can assist with very piece of fashion and accompany every person wearing my designs on different occasions through their lives. I believe that everything I have was given to me by the grace of God.”

 

Despite the challenges of the past two years, Jay is positive about the coming year.

 

“There are always difficulties, but I remain optimistic. I do my best to cater to the needs of different customers and I’m grateful for the support and trust placed in me. I do my best to balance customer satisfaction with the health of my business so we can all benefit. 

 

“In the coming year I plan to work hard, do my best in brand design, serve every customer who trusts us with our fashion and designs. I will continue the tradition of style, classic and innovation with Amen.”

 

 

 

 

C/W COLLECTIVE is an independent fashion brand in Macau. Adopting an avant-garde and deconstructive design style, head designer Connie Wong uses a mixture of different fabrics to produce unique and diverse garments with multiple ways to wear.  The latest collection of C/W COLLECTIVE is called Surreal Utility, inspired by colours of nature, and combining utility details and military elements to create a strong and powerful style.

 

“The design concept is to bring functional fashion to our daily life, and we used functional materials such as waterproof and windproof fabrics,” says Connie. “Most of the items have multiple ways of being worn, and some of them can form different shapes in order to create different styles and looks, so we are bringing life to the clothing and giving a more interesting wearing experience to our customers.”

 

“When I was young, I loved drawing and I drew a lot of funny sketches in my sketch book. I loved art and design a lot. Then I went to college to study interior design and at the same time, I joined the fashion design programme at CPTTM. In 2018, I established my own fashion label C/W Collective. Since I have a background in interior design, I always get inspiration from the city and architecture, and use a lot of geometrical forms to create my designs.”

 

This is the second time Connie has presented her brand at Macao Fashion Festival.

 

“I feel honored to be one of the participants at Macao Fashion Festival.  It’s a great opportunity to show the latest concepts of all the talented local designers. You can meet a lot of people who like fashion or who work in the fashion industry like me, and we can share our experiences and learn from each other through this event.” 

 

The last two years have of course been challenging for local designers, the fashion industry, and for the retail business as well, and this has forced many labels to concentrate on online sales platforms.

 

“We have done lots of online promotions on social media to increase exposure and awareness. Our overseas sales have been affected so we have tried to stay focus more on local sales,” says Connie.  “The Macau Government has really supported the local fashion industry, especially small individual local brands like mine. We received support from the Subsidy Programme of Fashion design and Sample Making, so we have still been able to create our collections during these tough times.”

 

So far, the young brand has launched two seasons of collections, receiving a lot of positive feedback from customers.  

 

“People really like the concept of multi-functional clothing and hybrid cuts, and the current trend is towards unisex and utility, so for the coming year, we will be doing more unisex items such as windbreakers and jackets, and creating more multi-functional details, improving our materials and details in order to give better products to our customers at the same time. Also, we would like to participate in more fashion activities in different places to gain more experience and awareness.”

 

 

 

 

On the final day of Macao Fashion Festival, the event presented a catwalk of designs by recently graduated Fashion Design Students from the University of St Joseph. One of these design students was Éffina do Rosário who graduated in 2020.  Born and raised in Macau, Éffina describes herself as Macanese Filipino, and presented her collection Xpose. The central concept of this collection is the exposure of parts of the body that are seldom celebrated or praised, to bring light to those features and encourage people to have a positive body image.  

 

“Some people around me always criticize their own bodies and that’s why I purposely did cut outs on those areas to show people that they need to really appreciate their bodies and instead of talking bad about them, start really loving themselves,” explains Éffina.  “I mostly used stretchable fabrics because what I want is for any body size to be able to wear them.”

 

The dark-coloured palette represents the sleek, energetic journey of self-discovery, associated with mystery and power, and also the dark times in which they were designed. 

 

“2020 was very difficult.  For our final projects, we all had to do it at home and we couldn’t really use the design tools we had in our university, like the laser cut machine and 3D models, because we couldn’t go inside the school. People were really struggling mentally and physically, and my clothes are quite dark and demure because of that dark time,” she notes. 

 

“One good thing about COVID though is that it really gave us time to think if we really want to pursue this career, and after COVID, suddenly, a lot of new fashion design brands have started to emerge.”

 

Since graduating, Éffina has been working as a freelance designer, and the chance to present her collection at Macao Fashion Festival has encouraged her to keep pursuing her passion.

 

“When we had our graduation fashion show at USJ it was kind of sad, because with the COVID restrictions, we couldn’t get a lot of people to see our designs.  So Macao Fashion Festival is definitely the biggest show we have done.  There were so many people and it was a bit overwhelming and eye-opening, definitely an indescribable feeling.”

 

“Since we had the fashion show, I’ve had positive comments from so many people and it’s really made me think that I really should go back and pursue this again. At least just to do some accessories.”

 

Currently Éffina is exploring different areas of design and is working on an interesting project. 

 

“Right now I’m designing and making carpets using a technique called tufting. Fashion design can always be applied to other mediums, so I’m just doing this to really experiment and explore.”