Summer Trends

So summer is finally here in Hong Kong and it’s got the office crazy for summer wear!

We’ve all been to check out H&M, Cotton On & Zara quite a few times (1 trip is certainly not enough) and we’re all really excited about the summer trends like maxi dresses, bikinis, shorts, prints, stripes, maxi skirts, gladiator sandals and wedges.

It all started with the Bikinis we went to look at during our 3 day photo shoot. I swear we were in that section for a good 15 minutes running around yelling “OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS ONE!” holding our arms up above avoiding other shoppers to show each other our finds. I guess that’s one of the great things about fast fashion, of course, you

could end up on the beach with a couple of clones, beware!

The other day after work, Shivani and I went to H&M to do some research for our Merchandising Mix for our new web shop and spotted a lot of great prints and accessories. Shivani actually ended up getting a pair of stripy high waisted shorts and I got a printed flower tank dress.
With research in mind of course!! - Ah the wonderful world of fashion!

This entire summer shopping epidemic has got me thinking about trends for our new website and we’ve been talking about creating new styles for the brand.
We’ve also been redressing the mannequins into their new styles ready to turn the heat up.

Since we got tons of new scarves, we were experimenting different ways to tie them and we came up with some really chic fun ways to tie them

Here are our top picks for the summer!

Shivani's Pick

(Maiden Print dress)

My Pick
(Mahel Print Dress)

Kanch's Pick
(Skinny Pink Neon Belt with our Slant Print Tee)

Annie's pick

(Cheeky back top with our Choc Shorts)

Love, Petra

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com

GOD's Creative space

Today i'm passing the blogging batton back to Kanch who visited GOD (Goods of Desire's) Creative space. I'll be back for the next one though!

As weeks tend to pass us by it is often hard to keep up with all the places and people we cross paths with. This week I was happy to be in Hong Kong more than my usual amount of time which was spent seeing buyers and catching up with my team at the studio.

One of the places and people that stuck to mind particularly was our visit to the GOD offices / creative space in Shek Kip Mei. Wow!! what a cool building it was with a range of creatives from painters, photographers to fashion designers. But I must say I love Douglas's space the most.

As you walk into the space its full of beautiful vintage items and GOD's creative models and projects. The team was hard at work on multiple project with mood boards, ideas, places - you could feel the creativity osing out of the windows. Take a peek at the images they say it all.

What a super cool space, make sure to visit:

The Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kln.

Thanks for the inspiration GOD, Hong Kong

Kanch

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com

For Coco Perez!

We were really excited to hear that Perez Hilton was looking for young designers to showcase on his CocoPerez site.

After seeing this on his oh-so famous CocoPerez website, I reported back to the team and we got started on planning our short film for his site.

We're really excited about it and we're hoping that he will put us on his site, fingers crossed

Check it out and spread it around!

Thanks everyone!

Love, Petra

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com

Our Trip to PanYu

So on Wednesday Shivani, Kanch and I got up at the crack of dawn to catch our bus to Panyu which is about an hour from Guangzhou

We went with a suitcase containing 44 of our scarves..knowing what a mission this would be we were dreading it a bit. So first it was figuring out the settings on the camera - hard but once we read all the "how to" guides on the internet we were ready and left with some great shots! Mission accomplished. Great.

After two days of product shots we were ready to go home back to our Hong Kong headquarters - leaving the China office and off to flag a cab down. After waiting outside for at least 10 minutes, we started to stray away from our cab hailing and noticed there was a shop behind us, of course we went in to check it out! We saw some lovely maxi dresses and some gorgeous bags made from a really soft leather- LOVE! (Note to self. Bring more RMB next time)

After 30 odd honks while trying to catch a taxi we got one- results! In under 10 mins we got to the bus stop where we catch the bus to the Shenzhen boarder, right on time for the 7:15 pm but just our luck it was full - great we thought, would we make it home tonight? Luckily there was an 8:30pm bus (the last bus to HK) so this left us plenty of time to go do "touristy" things for an hour. We walked around a few malls all connected together by a large circular bridge.

Walking into the first mall, Shivani said, “this looks like an Indian mall” and I said “looks like a Thai mall!” I guess it wasn't quite a culture shock as we were still in China but it was lovely to get out of Hong Kong and go somewhere different- business and pleasure of course!

Walking through the streets we could feel all the stares on us, they all looked like they had never seen foreigners before! I remember walking through this indoor outdoor mall and seeing this sign- a shop called “Y PAY MORE?” Shivani and I could not stop laughing... What a perfect name for a store in Mainland China!!! To be honest Shivani and I could not get ourselves to go in. We noticed that most of the stores were a little more expensive than Hong Kong and carried a lot of the same things.

We also went to this shop that had a Zara/H&M feel to it. We went directly up to level 2- the ladies section, it was horrible!!! We walked around the store so fast, picking up nothing to have a second look and RAN back down stairs. There were actually no customers inside, quite surprising considering its size- it was HUGGE!! Wonder how they pay their rent?

We then had to time ourselves because the last bus for the night was the one we intended to catch, so if it had not left we would have been stranded, scary thought!! So we power walked through the mall like 2 crazy lady foreigners and as we did this scanned through the rest of the mall just incase we did find that perfect dress - then the stay might be worth it.

We made a quick stop at 7/11 buying only that to fuel our sugar levels - sour skittles and m&m’s.

Needless to say our window shopping trip was fun, there were some great skirts and dresses and we'll definitely be back soon!

Zai Jian Da Jia!

Love, Petra

Photoshoot, Day Three- Models, models, models

Photoshoot, Day Three- Models, models, models!

Today was a blast; I can’t believe it’s already over.
We all met at our office at 8am to prep the models for hair and make-up. While they were getting their hair and makeup did, Kanch, Shivani and I packed up 20 items of clothing, and chose where our first location would be.

We decided to shoot mainly in the MTR stations around Hong Kong because each station had some really great coloured walls, and each station was a different colour.

We hired our lovely van guy for the day and our first stop was Heng Fa Chuen which was a red MTR station. Our gorgeous models got into their first outfits and we made our way into the station after being dropped off.

We had to rush and get our shots before the MTR guys kicked us out. Which they did, four times-hhaha. So we left the station and shot outside an apartment complex.
It was pretty intense keeping up with everything because we had to change the models jewellery and accessories nearly every 5 minutes. And trust me; we had A LOT of jewellery to shoot!

We then went to Shau Kei Wan MTR which was a beautiful royal blue/purple colour. Our models had already changed for their third look so we were right on schedule or even ahead of schedule! We then had to say goodbye to our blonde bombshell model Nic because she had another casting to go to but we couldn’t be happier with her shots : )

Our next stop was Sai Wan Ho which was a bright yellow station, and finally Quarry Bay, where we shot outside the station and then inside which was an aqua colour. We aimed to finish at 7pm but we finished at 4:45 instead. We are so overwhelmed that everything came together- I must admit, there were a few hiccups on the way! But everything turned out great and we shot more than we had anticipated.

What a rollercoaster ride. Our photoshoots were such a success and the KC team would like to thank everyone that made this possible.

Hair & Make up: Gurjit Kaur http://www.makeupbygurjit.com/

Models: Nicoline Hansson & Uny Chiu

Photographer: Markus

Love, Petra

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com

Photoshoot Day Two - Products, products, products and more..

Day two of shooting and our team was to meet at 0830 hours (yes military operation talk) for a quick meeting with the gang to briefly discuss and plan our day.

After stocking up on coca cola and coffee we jumped into a taxi and headed to pick up our trusty photographer on the way to Ap Lei Chau.

We started with our concept shots for our Heart Earrings and coming up with cool inventive ideas for placement and banner shots for our new online shopping website. We then moved on to shoot concept shoots of our vibrant new scarves.
We all came up with some great ideas which led us to folding and rolling our scarves for ages!

I remember Kanch saying “its 5 now guys, let’s move on to the next concept” I was like, “FIVE?!!” Time had gone by so quickly and we only had till 6:30pm so we moved on to the next shot which Shivani had to watch origami tutorials for!

So after 6 coffees and 5 Colas between the three of us, the day was over. We packed all products and equipment into our 6 of our XL recyclable bags and headed home- I mean back to the office.

We got back to the office exhausted. We unloaded and ironed a couple of outfits ready for tomorrows model concept shots, and despite having to wake up even earlier tomorrow we went to H&M to check out the bikinis, girls huh?

With love,
Petra

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com

Photoshoot Day One - An intern's prespective

Today we asked Petra, our faithful intern to share her views, feelings and insights on her first 3 day photo shoot:

Day 1: 7pm - Laughing from over exhaustion

Quite excited to be on my first three day photo shoot for which I and another intern (Shivani) were in charge of from start to finish - felt like my baby was about to be born.

So here we go after a long trip to China the day before, we started at the office at 8am -lately it seems our hours at work have been endless this results to living in our second home (also known as our scared studio space or office) has rendered us absolute delight.

The team at Kanchan Couture has been super busy developing, testing, planning, brainstorming and researching as we’ve developed our very first line of jewellery along with a new collection of scarves and belts. As this has been in the making for a couple of months now, it is really quite cool to see our vision and products come to life.




We all got up extra early to prepare everything for the shoot - this included packing, labeling, counting products and double checking the run down for the 3 days shoot. For the first two days we were kindly lent a beautiful office space of a dear friend of Kanch. And on day 3 we plan to shoot out door (which is def my favorite).


Getting on location we unpacked all of our products and equipment and got straight into shooting. The first set up in terms of getting the color-ing right with the lights etc took much longer than I had expected which I was later told that it always take time for the first set up and then its smooth sailing from there. Note to self: next shoot incorporate this into the time schedule.

We started with our Heart Earrings which we previously launched on Groupon Hong Kong. Next was the new animal charm collection. We got some great shots for our new look book and the colors of all our products are so fun and playful they make you want to play with them all day.

As the day ended - we got on the bus laughing at all the silly jokes of the day and planning our team trip to ocean park.

Feeling satisfied and looking forward to another day on concept shots tomorrow.

Stay tuned for day two update!

With Love,

Petra

Enquiries: +852 2117 1782 | info@kanchancouture.com

www.kanchancouture.com | www.kanchancouture-bridal.com