Hong Kong people: fashionable, or fashion-conscious?

All of my life, I've heard that Hong Kong people are among the most fashionable people in the world. Now that I've lived in Hong Kong for a while, and now that I'm a bit older and wiser, I'd like to challenge this notion and to demote Hong Kong people from "fashionable" to merely "fashion-conscious".

What's the difference between being fashionable and fashion-conscious? I believe that to be fashionable is to be on top of fashion trends and to be able to discern between what is tasteful and what is not. Perhaps the most brave and cutting-edge, such as Madonna, are willing to push the envelope, but extremely few people fit in that category. To be fashion-conscious, on the other hand, seems to mean simply being aware of one's own appearance, but not necessarily being tasteful or discriminating about it.

Hong Kong (as well as most developed places in Asia) is a place where the nouveau riche and the aspiring nouveau riche make up the bulk of the population. The nouveau riche, or "newly rich", like to show off their wealth, some of them rather eager to proclaim that they are not poor and that their newfound wealth has brought them social status and respectability. In their minds, because they have money, and because they can afford expensive things, they are better than they were before, and they are better than people who cannot afford expensive things. All too often, I hear people show off how proud they are of paying too much for things. Some so-called friends of mine made fun of me for wearing plain white t-shirts from Giordano that cost about $5 CAD, while showing off the silly t-shirts they were wearing, t-shirts in the $20-30 CAD range that sport silly nonsensical words like "Christmas Hotdog!", t-shirts that may have been imported from Japan and designed by cool designers employed by companies like Esprit. I bit my tongue. No use saying anything. You can't win when you argue against stupid people who don't know that they're stupid.

Unfortunately, Hong Kong peoples' desire to show off their wealth is not matched by their sense of taste. Hong Kong people are very very conscious of luxury brands, perhaps more than people in any other place in the world. EVERYBODY, including Filipino maids, schoolchildren, grandparents, and ESPECIALLY girls and women of all ages, knows of all of the luxury brands out there. Hong Kong people like to say, "___ is 'in' this year." How do they know? They read it in magazines, watch it on TV, and they see what their favourite celebrities are wearing.

Let's face it: Hong Kong people are suckers. The Taiwanese, Korean, and PRC housewives who buy $1000 USD purses, and expensive cosmetics are suckers. Fools. Fodder for marketing departments. Consumers who foolishly part with their money in exchange for overpriced things they do not need. Suckers who buy what they are told to buy.


To be fair, I must say that while Hong Kong people tend to be more fashion-conscious than people in Taiwan, China, and South Korea, at least they're relatively less foolish than the people in the aforementioned places. In South Korea and Taiwan, for example, it seems that nearly half of the women in their forties and fifties dye their hair orange and try to dress and act as though they're teenagers. I can't help but chuckle when I see such women, most of whom are beyond help, buying expensive cosmetics at department stores. They think they look GOOD like that? I think they look more like circus clowns. If I ever become a gigalo, I'd have to charge 5 figures (USD) if they ever want my services. I'd probably need a lot of liquid courage, and even a little blue pill or two, to do the job.

In some ways, Hong Kong has always been ahead of the curve, but only because of a small group of refined people who have adopted the best of British tastes. They know exactly how to tie a tie, which tie patterns and colours are appropriate and which are not, exactly how long the sleeves of a shirt and coat should be, etc. These are people who own Church's hand-made English leather shoes rather than Kenneth Coles, and get their shirts and suits tailored rather than buy off-the-rack Versace. They prefer the classic designs of Aquascutum, Lanvin, and Gieves and Hawkes to flashier and more trendy designs of Kenzo, Paul Smith, and DKNY. When such people buy things, their concerns are respectability, craftsmanship, and perhaps even durability and value-for-money. These people also understand that haute couture is not for everyday people or everyday wear, and that only mobile phone salesmen wear purple shirts. An important thing to note is that the higher you go up the occupation ladder, the more you dress like these such people.

To go a bit off topic here, I don't know why such fashion houses even have fashion shows, the kind in which models strut down runways, if no one is going to wear that stuff anyway. If you pay $100-200 USD for a pair of jeans, how much goes to the "designer", how much goes to the people in Bangladesh or China who sew the jeans together, and how much goes to the supermodels employed by these labels? Do you really want to subsidize the lavish lifestyle of the Versace family, or of models who think they are better than you because they THINK they are more beautiful than you? What's wrong with $20 USD jeans? Or $5 USD jeans, for that matter? The Bangladeshis and Chinese seamstresses will make the same amount anyway. And how complicated is it to design a basic plain t-shirt or undershirt? Why do people buy Armani t-shirts and undershirts, and why do they spend $20-30 USD on them? Undershirts are worn underneath clothes, anyway.

If you're not going to be either fashionable or fashion-conscious, at least try to be sensible.