Coffee with … Anais Mak

Do you find people in Hong Kong and in Europe have different attitudes towards fashion?

Hong Kong is a city where everyone is interested in trends and shopping in general－once they appreciate something, the next step is buying it. But if you're in Europe, you write editorials or critiques, read about it, make nice images about the things you appreciate, or buy it－buying is one of the many options. In Hong Kong, though, to participate in fashion, you just buy.

So, there's a lot of consumption power at work …

It's very inspirational. I grew up here, so it's how I've been surrounded. It's the culture here－people like to feel the ownership of products to feel that they're part of it, which means a lot of curiosity and eagerness in participating. I think it's a very honest energy and it's brave. If you're at a museum, you have distance－a comfort zone between the work and yourself. But when you actually put something on yourself, even if it's part of the experiment, I think it takes a lot of courage.

Before you started Jourden, your first capsule collection came out of a summer holiday and was bought up entirely by local fashion influencer Hilary Tsui. What was the story?

Studio Berçot gave me a nice foundation, but I was really impatient to connect with the real industry. It was the first year of college. I travelled back to Hong Kong during the holiday and worked on a one-off collection of 20 pieces, mixing different exotic leathers. I was very lucky to get introduced to both partners of (local fashion boutique) Liger－Hilary (Tsui) and Dorothy (Hui). It was very important for me to understand that a good product can communicate with an audience without any marketing or strategic plans.