The moment that the Hong Kong singer Eason Chan Yik-Shun started wearing 1980s-style MC Hammer pants at live performances, it seemed inevitable the look would start appearing on the street and in trendy clubs.
Hong Kongers love a little drama and fantasy in their after-hours fashion. And while the territory's hip crowd takes its cues from the catwalks, style trends generally start more often on the concert stage.
In Hong Kong, I see kids follow pop idols very, very closely," says Lisa S, a top Asian fashion model who recently became a host for News Corp.'s Channel V music network. "Pop idols start new trends like those MC Hammer pants, where the crotch is close to the ankles. You see these pants a lot these days at parties."
The local fashion designer Henry Lau agrees: "People follow what the stars wear. Eason is quite famous, so what he wears can be the trend - like those pants."
Lau began to create concert costumes on commission almost immediately after his graduation from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His retail business, Spy Henry Lau, now includes six boutiques and sales to Japan, the Middle East and Britain.
For him, working on concert clothing is a great joy because the budgets are generous and producers give him creative free rein. For example, during Hacken Lee's concert series last year the singer wore a pair of wings that Lau created from sticks.
Where for a star he might make a full ballgown, Lau says he would translate the look for general sale into a heavy silk skirt with volume at the hips. Or a single embroidery method from a costume where he has used six will go on the back of a shirt.
"Hong Kong people like their sparkle," Lau says. And to begin to understand the presence of so many sequins, feathers and lace on seemingly normal Hong Kongers out on a Friday night, it is necessary to experience stadium-scale live Cantopop, as the local-language commercial music industry is called.
While an American diva like Beyoncé might slink around on stage in one midriff-baring gold lamé mini-dress, a Chinese pop music icon like Aaron Kwok will sing, as he did on tour earlier this year, in a dozen outlandish outfits (with matching headpieces), including a suit made of several pounds of Swarovski crystals.
He performed, two dozen back-up dancers in tow, without a safety harness on a custom-built, 360-degree revolving platform.
Between costume changes, he would strike a pose and shout at the audience: "Do I look handsome?"
So crucial is the concert stage to local style that when the veteran designer Judy Mann curated an exhibit on local fashion last year for the government-run Hong Kong Heritage Museum, many of the highlights were singers' concert costumes.
One, for example, was made of leather and had a hunting-trophy-sized headpiece made of antlers.
"It is such a part of the Hong Kong culture. At concerts, the stars cater to the audience which likes to see more clothes," says Mann. "It is not just a music performance but a carnival, a big party."
Even for a sophisticated chanteuse like Frances Yip, a key concert ingredient would be a show-stopping made-to-order gown by an established designer like Benny Yeung, a favorite among some of the city's most elegant socialites.
Ruby Li is another whose work on shows for artists like Kelly Chan Wai-lam and Sammy Cheng Sau-man has translated into everyday sales. Li, who has an eponymous boutique in the Causeway Bay neighborhood, ruthlessly edits her stage looks to transform them into shop merchandise.
"Hong Kong follows Japanese fashion. In Japan though, no matter what's in the look, it never seems chaotic," says Lisa S. "In Hong Kong, they like everything in one outfit - lace, flowers, sequins - I think it is connected to how chaotic the city is."
"Here, there is not a defined line between masculine and effeminate fashion like you would in the U.S. Straight guys wear very tight jeans. We have no boundaries," she adds.
Lau agrees, saying, "In other countries, like Japan, it is about the total look. Here, they focus on certain key items and that is what sells.
"For stage, I help the performance. But for retail, I will use just one detail from costumes. I still try to make people feel like as if they are onstage."
But Mann said that, at heart, Chinese people continue to be conservative, so very revealing clothes aren't popular: "We don't go all the way, but we don't want to be left behind."
