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Macau-born fashion designer Steven Tai explores his city’s coolest boutiques and shops
Macau-born fashion designer Steven Tai explores his city’s coolest boutiques and shops
In many famous cities, you can always find iconic landmarks and happening hotspots, but there are also cool neighbourhoods waiting to be explored. These are areas where up-and-coming artists, trendmakers and young entrepreneurs – attracted by affordable spaces and urban vibes befitting their style – run shops and offer experiences that blend cosmopolitanism with local culture.
In Tokyo, moody cafes characterise Tomigaya in the Shibuya district. In London, an artsy and diverse crowd is gathering in Peckham. In New York, Fort Greene in the borough of Brooklyn is famed for its great lunch spots, wine bars and eclectic shops.
And in Macau, a mere 15-minute walk from the hustle and bustle around the Ruins of St Paul’s will bring you to the historic St Lazarus District. Here, time seems to move more slowly amid the southern European buildings, cobblestone streets and quiet alleyways. In recent years, quaint cafes and hip boutiques have emerged to become neighbours with the area’s decades-old businesses.
If you come here, you might run into fashion designer Steven Tai, a Macau native who hails from a family that ran a garment factory in the city. He moved to Canada at the age of nine and completed his schooling there before going to London at age 23 to study fashion design at the renowned arts college Central Saint Martins.
Shortly after graduation, Tai won a fashion competition in France at which the legendary Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto was a guest judge. The award propelled Tai’s career – he launched his own label in 2012, and has shown at fashion weeks in cities such as London, Berlin and Shanghai.
He also brought the family business into his work. “My mother was thinking of closing the factory and retiring. But I suggested downsizing it, keeping a team and having it make clothes for my label exclusively,” he explains.
That seemed like a perfect arrangement, but over time, Tai came to feel as if commercial concerns were overshadowing his true passion for fashion. That led him to put his label on pause.
“The school I went to puts more emphasis on creativity, and I am also one who wants to follow my own heart. But towards the latter years, I was under pressure to design what we felt clients would buy,” he says. “And I thought to myself, ‘How is this different from working for a company?’ It defeated the purpose of having my own label.”
After some soul searching, Tai found the solution: returning to Macau to focus on growing his family’s factory business. “When I was overseas, I came in contact with a lot of labels interested in having our factory manufacture for them,” he says. “If I can grow the factory to the point where it can stand on its own, then it may be time for me to start thinking about running my own label again.”
Relocating to his birthplace has not only allowed Tai to get reacquainted with the culture of Macau, but it has also introduced him to the city’s growing artistic and creative community. His factory now helps up-and-coming local designers with production, and he also taps into his own experience to act as a mentor to these young entrepreneurs.
Watch the video to follow Tai around Macau’s St Lazarus District as he explores fashion boutiques along with a bookstore and other places where the city’s artists, creatives and culturists are pursuing their passions.