Take-5: Women’s Day
Hey guys? Just for one day … don’t mansplain anything to the women in your lives.
We could make a bunch of “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” and “I Am Woman” jokes, but what’s the point? You either get why we need something like International Women’s Day (and Pride Day, and Black History Month, and International Day of Persons with Disabilities) or you don’t. First recognised officially by the United Nations on March 8, 1977 and gratingly still necessary, IWD was actually designed to bring attention to gender equality in work, education and the home, reproductive rights – or lack thereof – and ongoing, pandemic abuse of and violence against women. It’s not perfect; IWD is a descendant of the voting rights movement of the early 20th century, which was a bunch of white women wondering how they were excluded from the polls but *sniff* Black/indigenous/Jewish/Asian men were not. Hopefully we’ve come a long way, even with a ways to go, as Helen said.
The UN is theming this year’s IWD2023 on digital technology and how Siri is going to level the gender playing field. In all seriousness the idea is to leverage tech for greater access, opportunity and equality. In the meantime, we’re going to keep it incredibly light by those standards this Women’s Day and just point you in the direction of five (thereabouts) smart, cool, creative sistahs in Hong Kong (mostly) that are doing something great for themselves, for women, and for the rest of us in general.
Beam Bold
| By: Audra Gordon
After 11 years in Hong Kong, Caribbean-born New Yorker Audra Gordon did what tons of bankers here do: She gave it up for a second career. In fashion. Inspired by an African road trip, Gordon founded Beam Bold in 2018 and worked out of her living room during COVID. Now based in a Sham Shui Po studio, Gordon’s vibrant, vivacious resort wear grew from a no black/no grey/no navy/no bland credo. “I want to invoke joy,” she explains of the mini, maxi and midi shirts, skirts and dresses in inclusive XXXS to 3XL. Circular, sustainable Beam Bold customises to reduce waste, digitally prints its fabrics on natural fibres to reduce water use, and sends 1% of profits off to organisations tackling textile waste in Africa. And let’s be real: it’s always resort weather in Hong Kong. Go crazy.
Savour Cinema
| By: Alison Tan and Amanda Kwan
Salt and pepper. Oil and vinegar. Har gau and siu mai. Few things go together so well. Same for dinner and a movie, which Alison Tan and Amanda Kwan decided to upgrade during the pandemic. Just because we were all stuck at home doesn’t mean movie night needed to be Netflix and Deliveroo. The duo reinterprets beloved films through food, cocktails, costuming and music, and delivers them all to diners during key scenes – after some serious research and venue prep. Kwan and Tan’s recent favourite pivoted on Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 Chungking Express, which threw up a gauntlet in delivering on the film’s “cha chaan teng table settings and decor to classic Hong Kong bites and sips such as char siu gai daan and yuenyeung.” Perhaps this week you’d care to see what the duo can do with Norris Wong’s My Prince Edward. Or Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King. Or Strange Days by Kathryn Bigelow. No fears, though. You won’t be in danger of a mob hit during The Godfather.
Instagram: @SavourCinema
VVVVnho
| By:
Vivian Ho
Artist, illustrator, painter, muralist and Wesleyan University grad, Vivian Ho sprang onto Hong Kong’s art scene in 2014 after knocking it out of the park at that year’s Affordable Art Fair, and she’s gotten a fair amount of international attention since. What’s to love? Just take a look at her bright colours, vivid lines, and ultra-vibrant interpretation of Hong Kong’s urban space and culture. Surreal, jarring, intimate, alien and, despite a heightened aesthetic, familiar. She’s nailed the city. And like any truly modern artist, you can get an original Ho in NFT format too. Check out more of her stuff on her Instagram account or at SHOUT Art Hub and Gallery.
Instagram: @vvvvnho
Remembering Xi Xi
| By: Louise Law, Dorothy Tse, Wong Yi
Hong Kong Book Prize winner Dorothy Tse Hiu Hung, Fleurs des lettres editor Wong Yi and Spicy Fish Cultural Production director Louise Law Lok-man are the current authorial heavy hitters taking to the podium on March 12 at the HKILF for “Remembering Xi Xi, Her Life, Her Work, Her Hong Kong.” Xi (Cheung Yin), best known for 1979’s My City (which inspired director Fruit Chan’s 2015 doc) and the essay “Shops,” | 店鋪 was the first Hongkonger to win the Newman Prize for Chinese literature in 2019, but she was well known at home for her intimate, insightful prose about the city’s working class and how the evolving city was impacting it. Xi died in 2022, but her legacy looms large, and Tse, Wong and Yi are ideally positioned to introduce anyone not familiar with her work. No better time to start.
Fenty Beauty
| By: Rihanna
Fine, she’s not from Hong Kong. She’s not some up-and-coming, struggling artist. It’s shopping. But Robyn Fenty is the kind of forward-thinking, independent, somehow grounded woman we aspire to be. And after that DGAF Superbowl halftime performance/pregnancy announcement we want to get behind her even more. The Fenty Beauty line that’s taken her away from the studio for so long (waah!) just launched its Icon Velvet Liquid Lipstick. Kind of like the brand’s immovable lip paint, Icon comes in five universal shades (The Bread Winn’R, The MVP, HBIC, C-Suite’Heart and, duh, Riri), for our dark skinned and melanin-challenged sisters alike. It’s masks off, so time to work, work, work, work, work.