You might want to try Bonham Strand - a "social enterprise"
Bespoke tailor service helps former drug addicts get back on their feet
A bespoke menswear service aims to salvage the skills of ageing master tailors and help former drug addicts get back on their feet, writes Bernice Chan
PUBLISHED : Friday, 11 October, 2013, 12:00am
UPDATED : Monday, 25 November, 2013, 6:52pm
Bernice Chan
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Bonham Strand co-founder Jong Lee hopes the workshop will revitalise the industry. Photo: May Tse
The workroom on the sixth floor of an industrial building in Lai Chi Kok is a stark contrast to the cramped cubbyholes that elderly artisans once toiled in. A bright and airy space, it is filled with racks of unfinished jackets and tailors gathered at worktables, busily ironing sleeves, cutting fabric or stitching seams.
"Clients want to see the workshop because they want to meet the tailor who is making their suit," says Bonham Strand chairman Jong Lee Jong-chul.
We want the lion's share of the money to go to the people who make the suit JONG LEE, BONHAM STRAND
This is the heart of a social enterprise that aims to revitalise Hong Kong's waning tailoring industry while helping young former addicts learn some practical skills to help them get back on their feet.
Specialising in bespoke menswear, the venture has had its ups and downs since opening in May last year. Lee and co-founder Brian Ng didn't know much about the tailoring business. But they are happy to report that it is now finally coming together.
Lee, a 45-year-old Korean-American, came to Hong Kong five years ago to work in private equity. Two reports in the South China Morning Post within days of each other - one about how drug addiction was on the rise in the city, the other about the decline of the tailoring business - gave him the idea.
"Our theory is to try to make this a social enterprise, taking a discarded industry and discarded people [former drug addicts] and make an omelette, kind of like jujitsu capitalism," says Lee. "When your opponent has you down, how do you get back up on your feet?"
With his background in venture capital, Lee framed it in terms of acquiring distressed assets at low prices; tailoring fit the bill, although he was not buying but building a business in a distressed sector.
After a year of research on the market size and competitive landscape, Lee and Ng began to target masters, or sifu, working in places where tailors' shops were clustered, such as Mirador Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui, pitching their workshop idea.
"They thought we were crazy," says Lee.
"The Mirador Mansion tailors usually get paid by the piece and they have to supply the material themselves. They make HK$6,000 to HK$9,000 a month and have to supplement their income working as security guards," Lee says. "But here we have a workshop setting where they would get a base salary and open-ended compensation that could double their income to HK$16,000 to HK$19,000, while receiving monthly bonuses and a lunch allowance."
Video: Hong Kong bespoke tailor service helps former drug addicts get back on their feet | |
