HONG KONG FASHION DESIGNERS AS CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES: OUT OF GLOBAL GARMENT PRODUCTION

Based on an ethnographic study of Hong Kong's fashion world, the article maps the working experiences and career trajectories of Hong Kong fashion designers. It traces their individualistic lifestyle to the project-based teaching methods in design schools, and goes on to examine their relative isolation in the organization structure in the export-oriented garment industry. It discusses the ambivalence of fashion design as 'a young profession', indicating both dynamism and creativity, but also a gradual closure of opportunities as designers grow older. Fashion designers experience many conflicts with bosses and businesspeople in the industry, which they understand in terms of conflicts between 'ideas' and 'money'. Drawing on Adorno, this is analysed as a basic conflictuality in the culture industries. However, unlike many of their Western counterparts, Hong Kong designers self consciously embrace the market as a basic social mechanism for the diffusion of their work. Finally, the article follows fashion designers as they set up their own labels and boutiques. It is argued that they represent a new type of entrepreneur that is distinguished from Hong Kong's old entrepreneurs by their rejection of short-term profit orientation and instrumentalism - which have otherwise been considered to be the mainstays in Hong Kong's entrepreneurial ethos. Even so, it is not easy for a small-scale name designer to stay in business in Hong Kong's competitive retail market, and the large-scale export industry shows little interest in supporting Hong Kong designer fashion. The article contributes to an analysis of the ambivalent role of non-Western cultural intermediaries in culture industries, which although they are globalized are still Euro-centric. The global flows of culture and economy are so disjunctive that while they empower Hong Kong fashion designers in some ways, they disempower them in other ways