Critical Summary of Guest Speaker Lecture:

On May 8^th 2014, Southampton welcomed two guest speakers from Hong Kong. Victor Tong, a lecturer in Fashion and Image design at the Hong Kong Design Institute, and Pacino Wang, award winning designer whose clothing has been worn by Hong Kong celebrities, came in to educate students of Solent University.

Due to an unfortunate clash of commitments, I had to return home for two days, which resulted in my misfortune of the inability to attend the lecture. This has led me to make my own research to find out more about what they discussed. The topics of the lecture were ‘The Fashion Battlefield in China’ and ‘Chinese Opera Mask Art and Chinese Tradition’.

As a result of finding nothing on ‘The Fashion Battlefield in China’ through the internet, I had a brief discussion with a classmate who informed me of the general concept of the topic. In China it is extremely difficult to get yourself started due to the minimal space and financial expenses. Pacino Wang shared his difficulties in starting up as a Designer and the struggles he faced. He shared his experiences with having to experiment with various layouts in his minute shops so that he could display his clothes ingeniously to create a highly efficient way for all items to be visible. The struggle in shop capacity comes from the main root of the problem, the high and competitive prices of property. It became a vicious cycle and he explained how hard the struggle to emerge as a designer was. From this, Wang shared his success with the students and presented impressive collections via image.

Victor Tong then went on to share his knowledge of the topic ‘Chinese Opera Mask Art and Chinese Tradition’. I searched the Chinese Opera masks and found some beautiful designs. I was intrigued to discover how the different colours were all used to portray a character’s role and illustrate their emotional state and general character. Each colour has a metaphorical meaning to be an obvious help of the understanding of character for the viewers. Gold and silver (metallics) are often used for gods and spirits. Red indicates loyalty, intelligence and bravery. Purple represents sophistication. White is used on the villain and suggests they are sinister, evil and suspicious. Blue often indicates a neutral character and represents somebody who is very loyal. But blue can also suggest stubborness. Green represents a violent character with a lack of self control. Black can show the character is fierce and rough, but can also mean they may be neutral.

Yellow indicates ambition but can also mean they are sly. Pink often suggests the character is comedic. These colours were either worn in masks, or painted on to the actors’ faces.

After researching these topics, it really saddens me that I could not attend the lecture as they appear to be very interesting points of conversation. Questions I would have loved to ask would include:

·                Is it still very hard to emerge as a fashion designer in China?

·                Why is it so expensive?

·                Do Chinese Operas still happen today?