Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i Tatler Hong Kong

TATLER HONG KONG In 2016, the Hong Kong-based filmmaker Craig Leeson focused the world’s attention on the pollution caused by single-use plastics in his documentary A Plastic Ocean. His latest project, The Last Glaciers, presents an equally startling view of the real-life impact of global warming on the world’s ice caps. hk.asiatatler.com SHANGLIU TATLER Bai Yunfeng, the representative director, president and CEO of China Boqi Environmental Solutions Technology (Holding), discusses how his company, which focuses on new energy and local desulphurisation projects, is merging high technology with environmental protection. shangliutatler.com TATLER INDONESIA Despite her global success from collaborations with Chris Brown, French Montana and Juicy J., cover star Agnez Mo, born Agnes Monica, has remained true to her roots and refuses to live up to anyone’s expectations besides her own.…

TOM HOOPS British photographer Tom Hoops has been shooting portraits and fashion for almost 20 years. His work—which has featured actors, royals and politicians—has been exhibited internationally and appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, Porter and Leica’s S magazine. He now splits his time between the UK and Thailand, where he photographed Philip Huang and Chomwan Weeraworawit with their children (p.224) JESSICA IREDALE Jessica Iredale is a fashion journalist based in New York City. She was previously a senior editor and fashion critic at Women’s Wear Daily, covering American luxury designers and reviewing runway collections in New York, London, Milan and Paris. She has contributed to WSJ magazine and Town & Country, Surface magazine and Air Mail. For Tatler, she ponders the question: would you ever give up…

All Smiles It’d be hard not to be won over by Po Leung Kuk’s rugby-playing, art-jamming, hiking-loving leader “Chairman Ma”, who is playing his part to make the world a brighter place. “A lot of people call me a philanthropist, and I don’t particularly like that word,” says Ma Ching-nam. “I think you just have to do your bit. The culture of giving needs to be instilled. It’s not about the amount. It doesn’t have to be big. If you’re nice to people, if you smile at people, it’s a good deed already. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering.” Is there an award for Hong Kong’s nicest man? A Blunder with Brad Pitt “Oh gosh, I don’t want to remember this!”—Francis Cheng Embarrassing slip-ups: we all experience that toe-curling sensation…

What made you get involved with the Society for Aids Care (SAC)? In the 1990s, not long after I had moved to Hong Kong from New York, I attended an SAC fundraiser and successfully bid on an item in an auction. After getting to know some people on the board, I was asked to join in 2000. What are some challenges SAC is facing at the moment? An increased number of cases in young men who have sex with men, rehabilitation cases and elderly cases that require medication supervision and emotional counselling. How much money was raised at the event? The event at the Upper House raised HK$85,300. This is both a gross and net figure as The Upper House very kindly underwrote the whole event. The event was held…

ADRIAN CHENG Adrian Cheng’s New World Development is outfitting a factory in Tuen Mun that will be capable of manufacturing more than 200,000 masks per day. Cheng says: “I believe we can work together to win the battle against the epidemic, and then we can focus on business revival and bringing long-term positive changes to society.” Production is expected to start this month, and the masks will be distributed for free through non-governmental organisations to anyone who needs them. New World Development has also partnered with Master Dynamic, a leading Hong Kong nanotechnology company, to research how nanodiamonds can be used in masks to provide greater protection against bacteria and viruses. And on top of producing masks, Cheng has donated approximately HK$55 million to NGOs, schools and hospitals in Hong…

“When it comes to clothing, the attention to detail is important to me: when you give clothing detail like the cutting, styling and stitching, then it becomes fashion. In architecture as well, you could be constructing a building, but when you give it attention, form and the shape, then it becomes architecture”–WILLIAM LIM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CL3 ARCHITECTS “In clothing, you think of the fabric, the textiles and patterns. These are all elements that you see in interiors as well. Textures, textiles and patterns are things that we also try to incorporate in design”–VINCE LIM, CO-FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR, LIM + LU “In fashion I look for things that are minimalistic. Even for design, we keep things simple and modern. I look for simple, easy maintenance clothing”–KEVIN LIM, MANAGING DIRECTOR, OPENUU…

Patrick Mouratoglou is best known for being the coach of 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams, but he’s also a watch enthusiast who is partnering with Zenith. “I had the pleasure of meeting Patrick for the first time at Wimbledon last year and we immediately hit it off,” says Zenith CEO Julien Tornare. “I was captivated by his story and his charisma and determination.” Besides coaching, Mouratoglou has established an eponymous foundation, which supports aspiring tennis players who don’t have the financial resources to become professional athletes. Tennis coach and entrepreneur Patrick Mouratoglou…

Nearly every Hollywood frontman comes equipped with a top-shelf timepiece, whether it’s Marlon Brando playing Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979) or Bill Paxton as treasure hunter Brock Lovett, who descends into the Titanic’s watery remains. And what do these action heroes have in common? They wear a killer Rolex. It’s important to note that these actors were not paid to wear these watches, nor were they part of any larger product placement deal. Rolex is simply part of cinematic history and continues to be the personal choice of directors who want to subtly portray sophisticated style in their characters. More recently, Rolex has entered a partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and counts filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Martin Scorsese among…

FRANGIPANI EL NIDO This minimalist boutique hotel is adorned with gorgeous rattan pieces from homegrown Philippine furniture brand E Murio. But your eyes will surely be drawn to the suite’s floor-to-ceiling windows, which lovingly frame the island’s sparkling waters and jagged limestone formations. LAGÙN HOTEL EL NIDO Aside from the eclectic interiors by Cecille Ravelas and local design work by Palawan’s Jama Mapun indigenous tribeswomen, the real highlight of this town hotel is its roof deck pool, which boasts a majestic karst mountain backdrop that epitomises El Nido. MAREMEGMEG BEACH CLUB Built into the jungle behind it, this well-appointed cliff side beach resort designed by Eric Lopez offers the best of both worlds—unadulterated ocean views from its chic rooms as well as direct access to one of El Nido’s most…

Over the past few months, under the spectre of a global health crisis that requires all of us to question our very way of living, it hasn’t always been easy to look forward with optimism and a clear sense of purpose. As our friends and colleagues around the region adapt to extreme measures designed to stem further spread of the coronavirus, as borders close and markets quake, it is a natural reaction to seek shelter through this storm—to stay in one place, to isolate. But it is also important that we choose to use this moment to reflect on our own responsibilities and how we can do better for our communities, both literal, in the case of our families and neighbors, and symbolic, in the sense of industries and leaders.…

1 SOFAR HONG KONG Sofar Sounds started with a casual gig in the founder’s living room in London in 2009. Now, the organisation runs similarly intimate shows at secret locations across the globe, with each performance featuring three local acts. In Wong Chuk Hang on April 1, then Central on April 24. sofarsounds.com/hong-kong 8 REEL TO REEL FILM HERITAGE 2020 Dedicated to collecting and preserving motion pictures from around the world, the Reel to Reel Institute showcases the film history of Hong Kong—as well as surrounding areas and other Chinese-speaking nations—encompassing a range of different film formats. At the Hong Kong Film Archive until April 20. urbtix.hk 10 HKPO: JURASSIC PARK IN CONCERT Experience the classic 1990s dinosaur film coming to life accompanied by a stunning live performance of John…

“I was always an artist growing up,” says Dara Huang, an architect, designer and founder of studio Design Haus Liberty in London, which has worked on projects for Cartier, LVMH and the Four Seasons, as well as luxury homes, galleries and plush offices. “When I attended college, my parents wanted me to pick a professional degree and I thought architecture aligned the most with art. It’s totally different than what I could have ever imagined, but all for the better.” Huang didn’t grow up surrounded by inspirational design. Her father was a scientist at Nasa, having emigrated to Florida with her mother from their native Taiwan. “Coming from the suburbs of America, the definition of good architecture was cookie-cutter houses,” says Huang. “I wasn’t exposed to great architecture like the…

DRIES VAN NOTEN X CHRISTIAN LACROIX Last September, Belgian designer Dries van Noten invited French couturier Christian Lacroix, who retired in 2009, for a one-off collaboration, an attempt to bring beauty and buoyancy to a rather grim political and environmental moment. The result was a collection of golden ruffled hems, delicious jacquards and splashes of feathers—the best of Van Noten’s pattern-clashing and Lacroix’s love of opulence. Expect it in stores this month. PRADA X RAF SIMONS After Belgian designer Raf Simons made dramatic exits from Jil Sander, Christian Dior and Calvin Klein, many wondered where he might land next. The answer was revealed during Milan Fashion Week when one of fashion’s most prominent designers, Miuccia Prada, announced a joined creative-directorship with Simons starting April 2. Unlike other collaborations, this would…

TAKING FLIGHT Taiwanese jeweller Cindy Chao, who is celebrating her company’s 15th anniversary this year, has had her 2008 Black Label Masterpiece I Ruby Butterfly Brooch inducted into the permanent collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Black Label Masterpiece I Ruby Butterfly Brooch by Cindy Chao The Art Jewel IN THE ROUGH Louis Vuitton has unveiled its latest purchase: the world’s second-largest rough diamond, Sewelô. About the size of a tennis ball, the 1,785-carat blackened stone is the largest rough diamond ever found in Botswana and recently made its international debut at the brand’s Place Vendôme store in Paris. LOVE LETTERS Paying tribute to the late American artist Cy Twombly’s swirling calligraphy, Graff’s high jewellery collection Inspired by Twombly features glittering loops of diamonds that are handset…

Two of the most iconic timepieces in existence came into being within a span of five years in the 1970s—the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus. Both were inspired by aquatic motifs: the former, vintage diving helmets; the latter, ships’ portholes. Both were the brainchildren of the late, great Gérald Genta, the most important watch designer of the 20th century. And pivotally, both featured integrated bracelets, eschewing the standard lug and springbar set-up affixing most watch straps, and instead seamlessly uniting case and bracelet. They defined and dominated a new market sector occupied by high-priced, exquisitely crafted, sporty steel timepieces. As historian and head of complications at Audemars Piguet’s manufacturing facility, Michael Friedman researches the evolution of the watchmaker’s complex movements. “The 1972 stainless-steel Royal Oak created an…

36 This 36mm case is larger than most women’s wristwatches, but it allows for a more detailed dial. Proof that bigger’s always better 1989 Since its debut in 1989, the Premier collection has been used by Harry Winston to demonstrate the maison’s different artistic crafts. The collection’s distinctive diamond-set lugs at 12 and 6 o’clock recall the arched entrance to the brand’s Fifth Avenue Flagship boutique in New York ROSE GOLD The soft but rich intensity of rose gold enhances this watch’s overall presence, which is further elevated by romantic shades of lilac, rose and cream. Now that’s hard to resist MICROMOSAIC A special type of mosaic that uses unusually small pieces of glass or enamel-like material, micromosaic is the technique behind this captivating depiction of a peacock, an animal…

Clinging to the side of a mountain, buffeted by relentless gales, Craig Leeson stands frozen in fear. “I’m as far out of my comfort zone as I can possibly go,” he says, fighting for breath in the thin air, his polarised glasses reflecting a jagged black and white landscape as far as the eye can see. It is pure determination that will push him to face his phobia of heights again and again as cameras roll continually. He wants the world to be scared too—only for a different reason. Leeson’s 2016 documentary A Plastic Ocean shed light on how single-use items were polluting the planet. For his next project, the Hong Kong-based filmmaker and journalist swapped his snorkel for skis to document another environmental catastrophe for his next documentary—The Last…

In 1994, Korean-American artist Nam June Paik had a dream. Sourcing 52 bulky Sony television monitors, he assembled the objects into a wall-like structure and set the screens to play electronically generated images and video clips. Like cells, these screens appear to respond to one another; some feature the same faces or objects, while others link up to create phantasmagoric bursts of colour. The effect is entirely overwhelming—and echoes the dense infotainment of YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and other apps and websites widely used today. This is Paik’s Internet Dream, a work which prophesised our current hyper-connected world. The artist also predicted the phenomenon of an “electronic superhighway” in a 1974 essay, written 15 years before the World Wide Web was invented. Tellingly, he spoke not just of the practicality of…

In a world fixated on novelty, the wine industry manages time and again to make tradition seem like the hot new thing. Go to any region that once had a raging battle between barriquepraising, fruit-fixated modernists and dusty cellared, terroir-obsessed traditionalists and you’ll find scant producers eager to be lumped into the forward-facing camp. In Australia and California, young winemakers will talk up their savoury, “traditional”, wines and even European producers with very clean, fruit-focused wines still tout their “traditional” chops. Then there’s the natural wine movement where everything is jumbled up with a pseudo-historical fixation on minimising intervention (as if anything could be more modern than deliberately eschewing available technology for purely philosophical reasons). So, to celebrate the spring season, here are a few ways to think about “tradition”…

The Beast from the East—an enormous snowstorm that battered the UK at the end of February—nearly ended this month’s cover shoot before it began. The crew woke to sub-zero temperatures, howling winds and a blanket of snow on the ground, so were ready to give up on their plans to photograph cover star Craig Leeson outdoors in a London park—but Leeson was determined to push ahead. Leeson, who is best known for directing the 2016 documentary A Plastic Ocean, is used to extreme temperatures. Over the past few years, the filmmaker and journalist has travelled to some of the coldest places on the planet as part of his mission to record the rapid and worrying melting of glaciers for his next documentary, The Last Glaciers, which is set to be…

RAISING THE STEAKS RUBIA Epicurean Group’s latest offering celebrates premium hand-reared Rubia Gallega beef from northern Spain and delivers a menu of taberna-inspired dishes matched with Spanish wines. rubia.hk DYNAMIC DUO LUCALE Opened by two Italian chefs—Alessandro Angelini and Luca De Berardinis, formerly of Angelini’s and the Conrad hotel respectively—Lucale is a cosy Sai Ying Pun restaurant serving homemade pasta as well as authentically Italian meat and seafood. lucalehk.com LUNCH MODE YARDBIRD HONG KONG The city’s best-known yakitori specialist has started opening for lunch for the first time—don’t miss the unctuous chicken ramen or the schnitzel served with chicken soup, rice, pickles and salad. yardbirdrestaurant.com KEEP CALM & DINE OUT UNITED WE DINE Tatler Dining has joined forces with other food media in Hong Kong to encourage the public to…

HELICOPTER PARAGLIDING As Hong Kong’s skies become cluttered with aircraft and airborne sightseeing tours become more common, showing guests around via helicopter no longer has quite the shine it used to. Unless you can charter your own craft and negotiate a route away from the traffic, seeing Hong Kong from the windows of a rotored vehicle seems rather, well … basic. For a truly breathtaking experience that’s zero carbon to boot, go paragliding. This niche sport makes the most of the city’s vertiginous landscape, giving a tranquil bird’s eye view of a rarely seen side of the skyline. You’ll spend the day hiking to one of 10 official paragliding zones—such as Lantau in the west, Ma On Shan in the east or Shek O in the south. Strapped to a…

From a young age, Gerardo Salandra had an interest in technology. It was instilled in him by his engineer father, who encouraged his children to take apart anything that broke at home and try to fix it. Years later, Salandra began his career with stints at IBM and running app Runtastic, before moving from El Salvador to Hong Kong to undertake an MBA. It was here that he set up the Artificial Intelligence Society of Hong Kong to encourage the development of AI. He started giving talks on the subject, particularly relating to chatbots—software that simulates human conversation—which led to LVMH becoming Rocketbots’ first customer. Building chatbots was a profitable business until the market evolved and the start-up was forced to adapt by focusing instead on providing the tools needed…

MINIATURE PAINTING Mother-of-pearl serves as the decor for numerous métiers d’art designs and Arceau Équateur’s dial features a whimsical miniature painting of two yellow-feathered birds 54 Watchmakers are able to highlight their expertise in artisan crafts by producing timepieces with highly decorative dials. The face of each Arceau Équateur takes 54 hours to create 12 We all want our timepieces to have an air of exclusivity about them and limited-edition watches add something invaluable to any collection. There are only 12 Arceau Équateur timepieces—good luck getting yours PINK SAPPHIRES From deep-red rubies to forest-green emeralds, coloured gemstones are very much in vogue. Although the best-known sapphire variety is cornflower-blue, the jewel comes in a range of hues. Sixty pink sapphires adorn this timepiece’s bezel Hermès is an illustrious name in…

Of all the questions you could’ve asked of a responsible human being in the 21st century in our collective journey to attain a more sustainable, conscientious lifestyle, why did it have to be this one: would you ever give up travel in the name of climate change? We are all now acutely aware of the real-life impact on this fragile planet we inhabit of what once seemed like harmless, everyday habits. So we gave up fast fashion. We gave up single-use plastic bags and water bottles. We gave up straws. But must we really give up travel, a subject that only in recent times was considered a noble pursuit of the global-minded citizen? Actually, when I was asked that question a few weeks ago, it was rather uncomplicated from a…

Jakarta has always been prone to floods, but this was something else entirely. On the first day of this year, the Indonesian capital was inundated by nearly half a metre of rain. Two rivers overflowed their banks. Drains couldn’t handle the downpour and flash floods ripped through the city. Sixty-six people were killed and 60,000 were displaced from their homes. The following month, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency made a declaration: the floods were caused by climate change. “In addition to the increase of rainfall intensity and the continuation of extreme conditions, it turns out that the temperature of Indonesia has also significantly increased,” said the agency’s head, Dwikorita Karnawati. There is no doubt that flooding will become more frequent and more severe in the coming years. It was…

Fashion designers have always been obsessed with youth. They parade teenage models down runways, favour millennials over boomers and fall all over themselves to court the latest fresh-faced Hollywood stars. Not Philip Huang—his closest collaborators are grandmas. “It was April 2015, and we went on this road trip to find the indigo grandmas,” recalls Huang. He had recently left his home in New York, where he had enjoyed a successful modelling career, to relocate to Bangkok with his wife, Chomwan Weeraworawit, a co-founder of creative consultancy Mysterious Ordinary and an expert on intellectual property in the textiles industry. The couple had long been intrigued by how clothes and colours are made, having attended indigo dye-making workshops years earlier, and so were intrigued when they started hearing stories of communities in…