SARAHFUNG
FOUNDERANDCEOOFHULA,ARESALEMARKETPLACEFORDESIGNERCLOTHINGANDACCESSORIES.SHEWEARSASHIRTBYSONIARYKIEL,TROUSERSBYCELINEANDSHOESBYMERCEDESCASTILLO,ALLFROMHULA.But recycling comes with its own challenges. Most fabrics
are mixes of materials, which means it’s difficult, sometimes
impossible, to separate them into their raw materials for
reuse. It’s also hard to predict the amount of usable fabric
available. “We don’t know what we’ll get from the textile
waste,” says Sharon Tsang of The R Collective. “It’s a surprise
a lot of the time. Often we think we have an entire roll of
fabric and when we unroll it, we actually have a few yards.”
This is where designers need to be flexible, to adapt a
garment’s design to accommodate the limited size and often
irregular shapes of fabrics in order to generate zero waste.
Once a sustainable garment is produced, however, it
may not instantly be attractive to consumers—a failure in
marketing that Christina cites as another challenge. “We’re
all working in little silos,” she says. “Designers,
even among their team, don’t really talk to each
other. They do their job and pass it on and then
someone deals with the next step.”
Fragmented communication is also a
problem on the macro scale. In the absence
of an overarching governing body policing
widespread standards, private enterprises
have taken it upon themselves to drive change,
which also results in varying standards being
put in place. “Wouldn’t it be great if there
was a universal grading for sustainability in
clothing labels like we have for nutritional
labels?” says Edwin.
HOW’S HONG KONG DOING?
Hong Kong sends 200 tonnes of textiles to
landfills every day. That represents about
10,000 garments discarded every hour. But
everyone around the table agrees that times
are changing. The city is in the midst of a
transition from the industrial age, with its focus
on the value of products, to the information
age, where we value data, design, services and
radical innovation. Young brands are disrupting
the market, challenging processes from the
ground up; and where once luxury fashion
houses dictated what is beautiful, fashion has
become a far more democratic landscape.
Hong Kong is in a unique position in this
time of transition, with its own challenges—
and successes. “When I started Hula in 2006
and there was so much money in Hong Kong,
everybody was spending like wildfire,” says
Sarah. “The city is so small, and everybody
wants to wear something new because they see
the same people when they’re out. That’s why
I set up Hula, but even now I don’t know why
people make a fuss over what I’m doing—people have been
buying pre-loved in Japan for 40 years.”
The compact nature of the city is an advantage, allowing
trends, both good and bad, to catch on with a speed
rarely seen in other big cities, including awareness of the
need to promote a sustainable lifestyle. “Hong Kong is
leapfrogging,” says H&M’s Hanna Hallin. “Three or four
years ago, you didn’t hear much about sustainability and
now everyone talks about it.”
Hong Kong’s position at the crossroad of supply chains—
with Mainland China’s garment factories on one side and
international demand on the other—makes it a fertile
environment for innovative businesses to thrive. Edwin,
who went to business school to learn how to manage