“If you want to be safe, you would buy a wig”

Vivian Luk, Vera Wang protégé and locally bred fashion designer, has been busy expanding her bespoke wedding gown business to ready-to-wear and children’s fashion (see Little Miss Luk). She tells The Loop HK about the business of creativity, from her point of view.

There’s no crystal ball

During consultation, I try to encourage my clients to understand my creative process, because the common misconception in bespoke fashion is that they don’t see the end product. But what clients don’t understand is that we’re not trying to make the dress they have in their minds: when they hire designers, we are going to be the ones designing rather than guessing what they want in their heads. We’re not mere technicians and we’re most definitely not mind readers.

Low risk, little reward

Hong Kong is a fast-paced city where we have no time to slip up, no time for re-dos, no chance for so-called “unsuccessful” items. But if you’re risk-averse, you won’t wow people. Haircuts are risky. For example, you’re leaving your head in the hands of your stylist merely based on trust. If you want to be safe, you would buy a wig because at least you’d know exactly what it’ll look like and how it’ll fit on your head.

Leave it to me

Creativity is about collaboration: a good creator will try to understand clients’ likes, dislikes, what enhances their strengths, hide their insecurities, reveal who he or she really is. But at the end of the day you can’t, for example, hold the hairdresser’s hand when he’s cutting your hair or dictate everything a chef does in the kitchen after you’ve already placed an order at a restaurant. The control leaves your hands after you’ve made your choice.

Creativity is a way of life

In school, a lot of parents and teachers emphasize the importance of having creativity, but they just deliver it exclusively in visual arts and crafts. But creativity isn’t just visual arts. It’s in everything we do. It’s in our cognitive makeup. It’s not something that’s only relevant in a single subject.

No labels, please

The reason why I started my ready-to-wear collection and Little Miss Luk was because I love doing contrasting things; I hate being pigeonholed. Creativity dies when you stop questioning the norm and you forget that things can be done differently. Never let anyone tell you how something should be done. Don’t categorize yourself into social labels.