FIFTY SHADES OF WHITE
VIOLA CHAN, who’s been designing wedding gowns for more than 25 years, was the first Chinese woman to be appointed as creative director at Oleg Cassini. She tells florence tsai how she became a designer and how working with a single colour can be challenging
Ever since I was a girl, I’ve been interested in fashion design,” muses Viola Chan as we sit in her 2,000-squarefoot showroom above Kowloon Bay. “My grandfather was in the entertainment business and I used to accompany him to watch the previews before the shows opened. The actors and actresses would often be there, and what sparked my interest in fashion was seeing and admiring how they’d dress so glamorously, even if they were only going to a preview,” she says.
Chan also credits her grandmother as a strong influence on her style: “She was a fashionable lady; she had a new wardrobe every season,” she says.
That sheer enjoyment at seeing the different gowns and dresses propelled her towards the fashion industry. She studied at London College of Fashion then spent many years in the United States, though she still feels she never really left Hong Kong, where she was born and where her roots are.
Nonetheless, her years in New York and Miami were hugely influential, in particular the time she spent with Oleg Cassini, who introduced her to bridal design and became her mentor. Cassini, who died in 2006, famously dressed half of Hollywood and also helped create Jacqueline Kennedy’s “Jackie Look”; Chan became the first Chinese creative director of design for the Oleg Cassini Collection in 2015.
Chan, whose House of VC multi-brand boutique carries several bridal labels as well as her own, has also worked with Vera Wang, Jenny Packham, Marchesa, Zac Posen and Melissa Sweet. In recent years, individual clients have included Hong Kong celebrities
Carol “Do Do” Cheng, Kay Tse, Gillian Chung, Astrid Chan, Joey Wong and Sisley Choi, as well as international names such as Taylor Swift.
According to Chan, “the perfect wedding dress is the one where the bride has the happiest smile on her face as soon as she puts it on. It doesn’t have to be a gown that I personally would like, but it’s more about one that the bride feels special in and which to her is the perfect wedding gown.”
“Trends come and go, so my style is more considerate; I’d characterise it as modern contemporary,” says Chan, whose own wardrobe tends to comprise timeless pieces – the clothes she wears today can effortlessly be worn in five to 10 years’ time, depending on how she styles them.
When creating her collections, Chan relies upon a talented team that deals with everything from design, fabric sourcing, beading development, seamstresses, pattern makers, trend forecasting and costing. Research on embellishments, silhouettes and necklines of the moment is usually done when travelling to Europe or other parts of the world, depending on where they launch. Her fabric team sources particular materials, hues and lab dips, processes that can get complicated.
“We’re a global company, so our standards are very strict,” says Chan, who bases her lab dips on three light sources. This standard applies more towards bridesmaids dresses, but as bridal gowns can have different fabric combinations, all of these need to go through a lab dip to ensure that, for instance, the satin matches the organza, or the mesh matches the lining.
For Chan, the most difficult part about bridal design is the limited colour palette. “Switching from the whole spectrum of colours to a white gown was challenging for me,” she says. “Another obstacle was realising that there are specific needs for different countries, based on their culture.”
Being an international bridal designer, Chan also needs to be ultra-sensitive about cultural differences around the globe. “Designing for different countries means I need to be considerate towards the type of look for each individual place,” she says. “There’s a great amount of detail that goes into one gown.”