Meet Gen.T
This month—the co-founder and creative director of IDISM, who talks of the barriers he’s breaking to put Hong Kong fashion on the global stage
This month—the co-founder and creative director of IDISM, Cyrus Wong, talks of the barriers he’s breaking to put Hong Kong fashion on the global stage
He always knew he wanted to be a designer, but Cyrus Wong didn’t know what kind—product, interior, fashion? They all appealed, until he saw John Galliano’s haute couture for Christian Dior. The theatrical, dramatic scenes of those fashion shows captured the young creative’s imagination and the rest, as they say, is history. Cyrus studied womenswear at Central St Martins in London and worked there with designer Huishan Zhang before returning to Hong Kong, where he co-founded his own womenswear label, IDISM, with Julio Ng, also a Central Saint Martins graduate. With runway shows at Paris Fashion Week and Centrestage Elites under his belt, the young creative director is blazing a trail for Hong Kong fashion. Here, Cyrus discusses the barriers he has overcome in his own words.
Fashion allows me to express myself better than any other form of design. I really enjoy creating fashion shows and developing the craftsmanship of garments. I like the process of making garments myself, of sewing everything. My parents thought I should go into finance but I chose to follow my passion and study fashion and become a designer.
As a designer you are independent. You have your own perspective and personality, so you need to have your own voice. That’s important as a designer. It doesn’t matter where you are from; it’s about the individual.
Hong Kong is very commercially driven. As a designer here, if you focus on clothing that is clean and simple, you have an easier time as this suits the majority of clients. If you choose to create something avantgarde and boundary-pushing, Hong Kong is a more challenging market. As a designer, I don’t think of my market, because I think having your own voice is more important; the market is a secondary concern.
Having the determination to set up your own brand is challenging. You have to think about how you can make a living. You need to make sacrifices for your passion. I’m proud to still have my passion for fashion design and to still be working in this industry. It’s important to stand out and bring something new. The market now is beyond saturated and terms like sustainability and inclusivity are thrown around so lightly. It’s no longer just about having a beautiful product; it’s what you offer in a new age of design that doesn’t already exist.
It’s tempting for designers to design for the sake of it, as products can be quickly put on social media, but this is killing creativity—everything becomes homogeneous. Designers need to look at what is around them and what has been done already, and really understand how fashion has worked over the years, and think about what, as a designer, they have to offer that’s new and relevant.