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Kylie Knott

People love avocados for their creamy and nutritious green flesh. But Kinyan Lam sees them in a different light.
He’s drawn to the fruit’s tough and rough skin that, when boiled, can produce varied shades of pink.
Lam is a Hong Kong-based fashion designer who runs his eponymous label, as well as Genau Studio in Sai Kung, which specialises in natural dyes.
Craftsmanship lies at the core of both brands. So does sustainability, a critical issue in the second-most polluting industry in the world – one that creates about 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually, with fast fashion the biggest culprit.












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And it is not just clothing waste: waste-water discharge, plastic waste and the release of toxic dyes into the ecosystem also tarnish the fashion industry’s image. Biodegradable, non-toxic and non-allergenic natural dyes offer a clean alternative.
And some might be surprised by Mother Nature’s vast palette: Lam works with 440 tones of natural dyes, including hues tapped from the skins of foods such as onions, pomegranates and black turtle beans that are commonly used in Latin American dishes such as black bean soup and gallo pinto (rice and beans).
He also works with colours extracted from chestnuts – a tasty treat enjoyed roasted, boiled or mashed and used in baked desserts such as cakes and pies.
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“People assume that natural colours are dull or grey but that is not the case,” says Lam via video call from Paris, where he was showing a collection at the recent fashion week.
The glitzy event in the French capital, a magnet for top designers and A-list celebrities, is a far cry from his childhood spent on a small farm in China’s Guangdong province, surrounded by lychee and mango trees.
“I grew up among mountains, trees and animals, which inspired my love for natural dyes,” says the 29-year-old, who relocated to Hong Kong with his family aged 14. “It’s why I have a strong emotional attachment to plants and natural materials.”

A graduate of the London College of Fashion, Lam says a career in fashion never blipped his radar while he was a child running around in the countryside wearing clothes passed down from his cousin. He received new items only at Lunar New Year.
“Back then I knew nothing about fashion,” he says.
Today it’s not just his sharp, carefully crafted designs that are wowing audiences but his drive to raise the profile of artisans in the south of China.
His first collection, launched in 2020, was inspired by the traditional handmade fabric sustainably produced by the Dong community in China’s Guizhou province.
“I visited there to see the traditional ways of spinning yarn, dyeing fabric, weaving and embroidery,” he says. “It was an awe-inspiring experience.”

Hongkonger Noelle Lee loves a creative challenge. At the moment she’s making a set of wearable wings for a play in Vancouver, Canada, where she’s been based since finishing university in 2020.
What makes the assignment unusual is that she’s constructing them out of salmon-skin leather, which she also made.
Lee, 26, is part of a movement of designers breathing new life into an old craft – fish-skin leather has been around for centuries, having been used by indigenous peoples until machine-made fabrics took over.

In northeastern China, the Hezhen ethnic group has a history of making garments from fish skin, as do the Inuit in northern Canada, the Ainu ethnic minority populations in Japan and communities in Siberia, Scandinavia and Iceland.
“The process in each culture differs slightly but involves the same way of chemically restructuring the skin in order to preserve it for a longer period of time,” says Lee via video call from Vancouver.
The finished leather looks a bit like snakeskin, says Lee, and is light, thin and stronger by weight than many other types of leather. “That’s because the fibre structure in fish leather runs crosswise instead of parallel like those in cowhide or pigskin.”

Lee has been taught by a mix of mentors with different backgrounds, including Canadian-Japanese, Canadian-Chinese, local Canadians and Scandinavians.
She also did her own research, describing Fish Leather Tanning and Sewing (2012), by Swedish writer Lotta Rahme, as incredibly helpful. “I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn,” she says.
As for the process, Lee says that when a fish dies, it starts to degrade pretty much immediately, “so you need to get it into a freezer, or something to preserve it, as fast as possible”.

The scales and flesh are then removed and the skins immersed in tannins, the naturally occurring chemical compounds found in many plants.
“There’s a lot of tannins in specific kinds of tree bark and they are what traditionally would have been extracted but I get it in powder form.”
Skins are soaked for about 10 days – “depending on their size and the concentration of the soup” – and once bulked up with the absorbed tannins, the fishy smell disappears. They are ready within two weeks. Cowhide, on the other hand, takes months, says Lee.

Stretching the skin is the most labour-intensive part of the process. “If you want it soft, you have to stretch it for a long time,” she says, adding the smallest skins she’s worked with were about six inches (15cm), the biggest up to 30 inches.
While big fashion brands from John Galliano to Dior have dabbled in fish-skin leather, it’s the smaller boutique brands that are driving the movement, lured by the material’s eco-friendly traits.
Fish skin is a by-product of the seafood industry that often goes to waste. Using it as leather prevents it from going into landfills.
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But for Lee, it goes deeper than just being a sustainable fashion material.
“Some people think fashion is quite superficial, but the leather-making techniques that I’ve been taught come with specific lessons,” she says. Using every part of the fish shows respect for it.
“It’s not just the production of things, it’s what you learn from the fish, what you learn from catching the fish, what you learn from working with natural materials.
“It’s a specific relationship that you’re nurturing.”


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Sustainability

Fish skin leather, onion peel dyes: sustainable fashion designers from Hong Kong put their own spin on traditional crafts

Hong Kong-born, Vancouver-based Noelle Lee works with a natural tanning process to transform fish skin (mostly salmon) to leather. Photo: Noelle Lee


Some of the plants Hong Kong fashion designer Kinyan Lam works with at his Genau Studio, in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district, which focuses on sustainable natural dyes. Photo: Courtesy of Kinyan Lam

Fabrics painted with natural dyes from Lam’s Genau Studio. Photo: Courtesy of Kinyan Lam

Lam works at his studio in Sai Kung. Photo: Courtesy of Kinyan Lam

Lee uses a natural tanning process to transform fish skin – mostly salmon – into leather. Photo: Noelle Lee

Lam descales Pacific salmon skins as part of her leather-making process. Photo: Kyra Fay

Pacific salmon skins are de-fleshed as part of Lam’s leather-making process. Photo: Kyra Fay

Fashion designer Noelle Lee. Photo: Kyra Fay

The plastic in our clothing threatens our planet – what are the alternatives? Insiders acknowledge ‘no easy task’ in phasing synthetics out

The Ruffle Tunnel Gown Cloud dress by Mirror Palais. Marcelo Gaia, the creative director of the label, was called out on TikTok for his brand’s use of semi-synthetic fabric rayon in the dress. Photo: Mirror Palais

Evidence suggests our continued plastic use – including the synthetic clothes we wear, wash and throw away – is causing a rise in global warming and biodiversity loss. Photo: Shutterstock

Workers produce garments at a workshop in China. Photo: Getty Images

The backlash against synthetic fabrics like polyester and rayon – as used in the Mirror Palais Ruffle Tunnel Gown Cloud dress – is primarily because of their negative environmental impacts. Photo: Mirror Palais

A look from the Patrick McDowell x Guildhall autumn/winter 2024 fashion show. Patrick McDowell creates pieces using materials that are designed to last for a lifetime. Photo: Instagram/@patrick__mcdowell

Why the most sustainable fashion solution yet could be clothes made out of algae

An algae dress that is the result of a collaboration between sustainable fashion researcher Charlotte McCurdy and designer Phillip Lim.

A translucent mac made from algae by Charlotte McCurdy, a researcher, designer and assistant professor at Arizona State University.

Clothes coloured with algae-based dye from Algaeing, an Israeli start-up.

McCurdy and Lim’s algae dress.

A T-shirt dyed with black algae from Vollebak. Photo: Vollebak

Turn food waste into dye and cut down on organic rubbish that ends up in Hong Kong’s landfills

Eric Cheung, the co-founder of Dyelicious. Photo: Jane Zhang

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The 2024 Fashion Issue

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Looks by British gunsmith and sporting brand James Purdey & Sons. The well-heeled country set has taken to stalking the fashion runways as blue-blooded brands bring their quintessentially rural collections into the urban mainstream.

Erdem partnered with Barbour for its spring/summer 2024 collection.

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Looks from the Saks Potts autumn/winter 2024 collection. The childhood friends behind the Copenhagen-based label talke about how it was born out of their failed quest for a colourful coat in the monochrome-obsessed capital of Denmark.

Looks from Saks Potts autumn/winter 2024 collection.

One of Saks Potts’ signature shearling coats.

Saks Potts founders Catherine Saks and Barbara Potts launched the brand in 2014.

A look from the Saks Potts autumn/winter 2024 collection.

Looks from the Saks Potts autumn/winter 2024 collection.

Potts and Saks have managed to build a 20-strong team of people who live and breathe their brand. 

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Alison Loehnis as a child.

Loehnis in May 2023. Growing up, fashion was always representative of self-expression and freedom for her.

Loehnis joined Net-a-Porter in 2007. 

10 iconic looks in Asian cinema, from that Bruce Lee jumpsuit to Akira’s biker in a bomber jacket to Faye Wong’s chopped hair in Chungking Express

Bruce Lee in a still from Game of Death. Photo: Criterion Collection

Faye Wong in a still from Chungking Express (1994). With her chopped hair and effervescent personality, the Cantopop star encapsulated the energy of the 1990s in this movie. We look at some other looks in Asian movies whose looks have been influential.

Meiko Kaji in a still from Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (1972).

Chow Yun-fat in a still from A Better Tomorrow.

A still from Akira. 

Jacklyn Wu (left) with Andy Lau in a still from A Moment of Romance.

Faye Wong in a still from Chungking Express.

Maggie Cheung in a still from In the Mood for Love.

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Tadanobu Asano in a still from Ichi the Killer.

Choi Min-sik in a still from Oldboy.

Things to do in Florence, and where to stay: see the art – Uffizi Gallery, Michelangelo’s David – and Ferragamo’s shoes, and shop on the Ponte Vecchio

A statue on display in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, Italy, home to Michelangelo’s David. Photo: Getty Images

The Palazzo Spini Feroni, home to a museum devoted to the history of the Ferragamo luxury brand from its founding by shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo. It is one of many things to see in the Italian Renaissance city that hosts the annual Pitti Uomo menswear fashion shows. Photo: Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis via Getty Images

Men’s fashion is celebrated in Florence at Pitti Uomo, the semi-annual trade show that is almost as much theatre as it is business. 

Well-dressed men are a fixture at Pitti Uomo, in Florence, Italy. 

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 The Galleria dell’Accademia Museum, in Florence, is home to Michelangelo’s David. Photo: Getty Images

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An image shot by Hong Kong photographer Leung Yat-ting, who goes by the name Leungmo. Her work has graced the pages of fashion magazines Vogue HK,  Grazia and Elle Men.. Photo courtesy of Leungmo


Hong Kong photographer Leung Yat-ting, aka Leungmo, has worked with Nikon, fashion magazines and celebrities including singer Joyce Cheng. She opens up about what inspires her and gives tips for those starting out in photography. Photo: courtesy of Leungmo

A photo by Leung. Her work has graced the pages of fashion magazines Vogue HK, Grazia and Elle Men. Photo: courtesy of Leungmo

A photo by Leung. Photo: courtesy of Leungmo 

While Leung gets inspiration from everywhere, nature is her biggest source. Photo: Leungmo 

A photo from Leung’s All Good exhibition, which featured photos of Hongkongers wearing protective gear during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: Leungmo 

How in Hong Kong an amusing T-shirt slogan could land you in hot water in today’s ‘easily offended’ climate

T-shirts with unusual messages can often be seen in Hong Kong. Photo: Instagram/hongkongtshirtpatrol

Unusual T-shirts in Hong Kong. Photo: Instagram /@hongkongtshirtpatrol

Laminated brow trend has got nothing on eyebrow styles of ancient China – drawn to look like feathers, tadpoles, daggers or silkworm cocoons

Depending on the fashions of the period, some of the brows that ancient and medieval Chinese women drew on their own faces would be considered bizarre and even comical today. Photo: Getty Images

Laminated eyebrows are trending these days, but thousands of years ago in ancient China women shaped their eyebrows in more extreme ways. A city governor in the Han dynasty (74 to 48BC) was impeached for helping his wife with her eye make-up. Photo: Shutterstock 

Laminated brows have been treated with a perming lotion – the hairs have been teased apart, straightened and combed upwards. Women in ancient China did far more radical styling of their eyebrows. Photo: Shutterstock

From The Wizard of Oz to Taylor Swift, graphic T-shirts can pack a political or social punch – but only sometimes

Taylor Swift performs onstage during her Eras tour in 2023 in California. Graphic T-shirts like the one she is wearing here can often pack a political or social punch even when they are not intended to by their designers. Photo: Getty Images

One of the T-shirts Swift wore.

Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael (left) of the pop group Wham!, arriving in London in 1984. Photo: Getty Images

Art from the Jenny Holzer exhibition at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in 2023 in Dusseldorf, Germany. Photo: Getty Images

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Yusheng is a newly popular Chinese dish for prosperity that doesn’t break the bank. It is part of a growing trend of “quiet luxury” in Chinese food that eschews ostentatious ingredients such as abalone and sea cucumber. Photo: Shutterstock

Yusheng originated in Malaysia and Singapore, but has become popular in recent years thanks to social media. Photo: Getty Images

Each component of yusheng represents a desire for the year ahead – mostly involving wealth. Photo: Jenny Lau

Sarah Snook as Shiv Roy in a still from HBO’s Succession. Photo: HBO

Poon choi has humble origins in Hong Kong’s rural walled villages. Photo: Jenny Lau

Yusheng is about eating for wealth, not eating wealth; there’s a difference. Photo: Jenny Lau

Kinyan Lam specialises in natural dyes, working with hues tapped from the skins of foods such as onions, pomegranates and black turtle beans
Noelle Lee is breathing new life into the old craft of fish-skin leather, which is light, thin and stronger by weight than many other types of leather, she says


Hong Kong fashion designers describe how they use sustainable materials such as natural dyes made from foods like onion peel and pomegranates, and leather made from fish skin.


Fashion in Hong Kong and China

Food and Drinks

Hong Kong

Environment