Editor’s Note
Many people will tut, roll their eyes and complain at the sight of discarded plastic bottles along hiking trails, bloated supermarket bags clogging the sea and bins belching polystyrene boxes, but only a few will take action. Yolanda Choy-tang is one of the few. Concerned by the city’s escalating litter epidemic, the founding partner of Central Weddings launched her own personal war on rubbish. Armed with garbage bags, Yolanda would march off on long walks and not return until she’d picked up every single piece of trash. But it was a losing battle and despite her best efforts, rubbish would relentlessly reappear. After sharing her frustrations with friends and business colleagues, Yolanda soon found herself surrounded by like-minded women all committed to fighting single-use plastic in Hong Kong—and so the non-profit organisation Ecodrive was born. Meet all 11 founding members in Anti-plastic Fantastic on page 204 and hear about their plans to clean-up the city.
The fragility of the planet and the threat of climate change also weigh heavily on the mind of our cover star, Dee Poon, the managing director of brands and distribution for the Esquel Group. After dealing with the devastating aftermath of a flash flood at one of the group’s manufacturing facilities in Foshan, she’s now on a mission to promote environmentally-sound practices at her company, which makes more than 100 million cotton shirts a year. Turn to Creating a Climate of Change on page 156 to read about the sustainability-focused forum Dee will host in November at Esquel’s new sustainable manufacturing site and eco-tourism park in Guilin.
After Hong Kong Tatler chief content officer and managing director Sean Fitzpatrick flew to France to interview Lenny Kravitz, he described the experiene as “one of those defining moments in the annals of Cool Things I Have Done.” Read his illuminating chat with the legendary rock star in When Lenny Met Dom on page 174.
At the time of going to print, the film Crazy Rich Asians had just opened in the US and shot straight to number one at the box office. In a calm moment before the Hollywood storm, we sat down with the author of the book it’s based on, Kevin Kwan, who opened up his family photo album and shared some of the childhood memories that inspired his writing. Read the full story in Where It All Began on page 182.