The Guardian looks at Hong Kong

Alex was asked by The Guardian to write an article about his favourite Hong Kong shops that really reflect the city that continue to be successful despite rapid development of the neigbourhoods that they are found in.The article is below and you can visit the link here. It runs in the paper on Tuesday when The Guardian releases its Hong Kong City Guide which we can’t wait to see what else they have found.

Series: Top 10 city guides

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Top 10 shops in Hong Kong

As well as plenty of malls, Hong Kong has its share of quirky, unusual shops. Alex Daye of Hong Kong tailor Moustache knows where to go for spices, fabrics or even kung fu shoes

• As featured in our Hong Kong city guide which launches on Tuesday, 3 July

• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 30 June 2012 10.00 BST
• Comments (…)

The write stuff … Man Luen Choon, Hong Kong. Photograph: Alex Day /Moustache

Man Luen Choon

Given that it is situated on the second floor of a nondescript office building down a busy lane filled with market stalls between Des Voeux and Connaught Roads in Central, Man Luen Choon is not the sort of place you’ll just stumble across. A 50-year-old, family-run emporium dedicated to the art of Chinese scroll painting, this large, airy space is stacked with handmade paper, giant calligraphy brushes and ceramic ink pots, and exudes the quiet sophistication of Chinese culture which is not always so evident in workaday, street-level Hong Kong. It also stocks a fantastic selection of art and architecture books, as well as instructional books and videos.
• 2F Harvest Building, 29-35 Wing Kut Street, Central, +852 2544 6965, manluenchoon.com. Open Mon-Fri 10am-6.30pm, Sat 10am-5.30pm, Sun and public holidays by appointment

Yuan Heng Spice Co

Photograph: Alex Daye/MoustacheThe Yuan Heng Spice Co is one of many odd little shops and stalls in the alleyways between the antique shops of Hollywood Road and the tourist tat of Cat Street. Most of these businesses exist to service the trade in antiquities – of both the high and low variety – for which the area is famous. Iron welders repair hardware, noodle stalls feed workers and shoppers, and junk collectors scavenge for old photographs – often of the x-rated variety – to sell in the alleyways and sidestreets. Not so Yuan Heng – this emporium deals in whole spices: giant sticks of cinnamon, ancient orange peel, whole Sichuan peppercorns anΩd all sorts of other exotic spices in neatly marked hessian sacks spill on to the streets. If in doubt, follow your nose: it’s an olfactory oasis in a not always sweet-smelling part of town, especially come summer when diesel fumes and wet market odours drift up the hill on the morning fog.
• 19 Tung Street, Sheung Wan, +852 2542 0275, yp.com.hk/yuanhengspice. Open Mon-Sat 9am-6pm

Kung Fu Shoe Kiosk

Photograph: Harry TemplePerhaps an even less likely survivor on the new Hollywood Road, cheek by jowl with British designer Ilse Crawford’s residential development at 226 (prices of which rival those on the Peak) is another small green kiosk. These tiny stalls, doled out by the British to curb the rampant roadside marketeering after the population explosion of the mid-20th century, still dot the city, and this one deals in made-to-measure Chinese kung fu shoes. It is located, again, on an old stone staircase, and one suspects the brisker trade these days is in repairing the Manolo Blahniks and Christian Louboutins – battered by the vertiginous streets of Hong Kong – belonging to the neighbourhood’s posh new residents, This is somewhat sad given that this is the last establishment in the city specialising in handmade Chinese shoes.
• Hollywood Road, just before Pound Lane and next to bFelix furniture, Sheung Wan

Hip Wo Housewares

Photograph: Alex Daye/MoustacheHip Wo Housewares, another hold-out among the cafes and art galleries of western Hollywood Road, is a fabulously quintessential Hong Kong shop selling a little bit of everything you need but never knew you did. Crates of astonishingly low-priced canvas plimsolls and brightly coloured rain boots spill on to the pavement. Inside, the shopkeeper and his wife behind the counter are dwarfed by glass display cases neatly overflowing with printed pyjamas and underwear left over from the 1970s. The shop’s aisles are stocked with all the necessities of urban Chinese living: big thermoses, rice cookers, soup bowls, woks and the like. A real, honest-to -God “Mom and Pop Shop”.
• 180A Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, +852 2546 3671

Western Market

Photograph: Scott S. Warren/National Geographic Society/CorbisHong Kong’s oldest surviving market building, Western Market, a lone Edwardian fantasy surrounded by the brutalist office buildings the city is more famous for, is home to a handful of cafes, florists and souvenir shops on the ground floor and a giant dim sum palace that doubles as a ballroom on the top. The real draw, though, is the fabulous fabric market on the mezzanine level, filled with deadstock worsted suiting and vintage printed silks, cotton poplin shirting and canvas upholstery fabrics, in addition to Chinese brocades and Thai silk. Though it is pricier, and certainly much smaller, than markets in Sham Shui Po, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, the quality of the selection is, on the whole, much better.
• 323 Des Voeux Road, Sheung Wan, +852 6029 2675, westernmarket.com.hk/eng

Hair Cut Shop

Photograph: Alex Daye/MoustacheIt’s hard to imagine a less likely place for this tin-shed barber’s shop than in the shadow of the CentreStage tower, home to two of Hong Kong’s trendiest eateries, The Press Room and Classified. And it’s even harder to imagine how the little green kiosk could possibly have survived the construction of its mammoth neighbour. Located at the foot of one of Hong Kong’s surviving ladder streets – crumbling stone stairways leading up to the Mid-Levels, built by the British in pre-escalator days – and filled with delightful old implements of the trade, this one-chair shop is open infrequently and attracts a diminishing crowd of mainly local men as old as the stairs themselves.
• Shing Wong Street and Hollywood Road (behind CentreStage, 108 Hollywood Road), Sheung Wan

Siu Woo Trading Co

Photograph: Alex Daye/MoustacheThe Siu Woo Trading Company, adjacent to Western Market in Sheung Wan, sells all manner of inexpensive bamboo, rattan and straw housewares: rugs and rubbish bins, placemats and picnic hampers. It’s even got rattan dog carriers – in multiple sizes! Siu Woo also stocks a full range of kitchen utensils, crockery and hardware, all tidily arranged on the small shop’s shelves, though the basketry is the main draw. It was established in 1958, and the elderly assistant still counts out change on an abacus.
• 94 Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan, +852 2544 2049

Lee Kung Man Knitting Factory

Photograph: Alex Daye/MoustacheFounded in Guangzhou in 1928, the Lee Kung Man Knitting Factory is one of the oldest private clothing companies in China, with four outlets in Hong Kong, selling men’s and women’s underwear with the Cicada brand name. Their no-nonsense cardigans and T-shirts, neatly stacked in glass display cases, are often made from a coarse and bafflingly heavy – given the climate – greige cotton, so their success here is something of a mystery, but will certainly please hipsters from more northerly latitudes. They do, however, have possibly the best logo in all of China and are excellent candidates for a heritage brand revival, once the Chinese market begins to demand one.
• 111 Wing Lok Street, Sheung Wan, +852 2543 8579, leekungman.com

Woo Ping Optical Co

Photograph: Alex Daye/MoustacheFurther afield in North Point, Woo Ping Optical Company, established in 1974, stocks a wonderfully eclectic mix of stock from the 1960s and 1970s, vintage and new Japanese frames, generally of the big, plastic and nerdy variety, and usually for a song. It is probably the primary reason every other young guy you see on the street here looks like Elvis Costello. Just look for the sign with a giant pair of coke-bottle glasses. The couple who run Woo Ping couldn’t be nicer; though their English might be a bit rusty, do be sure to ask them to see the stock not on display, as there are many hidden treasures. Woo Ping might seem obscure, but they do count plenty of local celebrities among their customers, like the unforgettable happy lady Shum Din-ha, tycoon Li Ka-shing and singer Eason Chan.
• 278 King’s Road, North Point, +852 2571 7810

Linva Tailor

Founded in 1965, Linva Tailor is Hong Kong’s most famous purveyor of Cheongsams – the high collared, traditional Chinese dresses still worn by Chinese women, alebeit rarely. Located on a busy pedestrian street underneath the Mid-Levels escalator, and headed by 68-year old master tailor Sifu Ching-Wah Leung, Linva is a shrine to this vanishing craft, with old wooden closets stuffed with fine, often flamboyantly patterned silk dresses. The shop window is crammed with finished and almost finished garments encrusted with beads and sequins, embroidered dragons and vibrant coloured cut velvets. When local film star Maggie Cheung needs a new Cheongsam, this is where she comes.
• 38 Cochrane Street, Central, +852 2544 2456

• Alex Daye is the co-owner of tailor Moustache and writes the travel blog jadaye.wordpress.com

An invitation from all of us here at Moustache

The invitation to our tailoring salon

Moustache is going to be in Tokyo from July 10th – 14th for our inaugural tailoring salon. For 4 days we will be setting up camp at the lovely Midori.So in the Naka Meguro neighbourhood showing our wares and suiting up the dapper gentlemen of Tokyo. As well as showcasing our Bespoke tailoring, we will be presenting our new collection of leather goods designed again in collaboration with Stiibu. The shop will have an environment created by our usual visual conspirator Mr. James Dignan who will be doing portraits of people that come by the shop and other things that catch his eye so that the walls will grow with artwork each day. And the furniture and lighting will be provided by the very stylish Ms. Valeria Onofri who makes amazing furniture and lighting all from vintage components and is based in Rome. Pictures of her work below. James and Valeria add the perfect backdrop to our tailoring and we are very excited to create a magical environment with them in the Midori.So!

Midori.So, the location for both the tailoring salon and the Bearded Lady party.

Midori.So, the location for our tailoring salon. The building is a 40 year old 3 story apartment that was abandoned and the team that we are working with in Japan have acquired the building and done an amazing job with the interior ( photos of that will follow during our pop up shop!) but have left the exterior as is following the reasoning of why would you want to change such a romantic looking facade? Hong Kong developers take note!

The amazing furniture & lighting of Valeria Onofri which will be appearing at our shop.

Midori.So has lots of exciting plans for the building and we will report on those when we return. The building has only just opened and we are very honored to be a part of their programme.

Of course July calls for another Bearded Lady party! We have decided that taking our monthly cabaret party to Tokyo was an excellent way to wrap up the week of our tailoring Salon. And the last day just happens to be Saturday July 14th which is Bastille Day, we are going for a theme of Surrealism and Dada. Paris , July 14th 1933 is the date. Some of our usual crew of entertainers are coming up to Tokyo from Hong Kong with us and some will be new to us joining our merry band in Tokyo. We are very excited by this merging of our 2 cities in our world of cabaret and music. Below is the invitation, drawn once again by James Dignan and we hope to see some of our Hong Kong faces there!