Tuesday night featured yet another opening party for Beijing Club. Readers of Hong Kong Hustle might wonder what the fuss is about, since you’ve known about the place for quite some time. Tuesday’s opening was calculated to appeal to a different audience than the normal patrons of the club. The event was handled by Occasions, Hong Kong’s premier event organizer, who can guarantee a certain high-end crowd. Though it may sound strange to outsiders, this multi-opening strategy actually works! (more…)

The work of celebrated American photographer Terry Richardson is featured in the final installment of Diesel’s BRAVE gallery series.

Active in fashion and celebrity circles, Terry Richardson is known for his frank, sometimes sexually charged portraits. His subjects have included Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gallo, Chloe Sevigny, Karl Lagerfeld, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Jay Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, Johnny Knoxville, Pharell Williams, and countless denizens of the streets he has roamed with his camera. Home-town creative favorite, Michael Lau will also lend his hand to the exhibition.

The show opens on December 1st, and closes on December 23rd. The Diesel BRAVE gallery is located at 20 Queens Road in Central across from The Landmark shopping center. Opening hours are from 11:00 - 8pm six days a week, closed on Mondays. Don’t miss it!

Saturday night was hectic in typical Hong Kong fashion. Dragon-i’s fifth anniversary began with a dinner at 8:30 followed by a special d.j. set by Boy George as the climax of the evening. I had to skip the dinner to attend a friend’s barbecue in Shek O, which is the farthest point out on Hong Kong Island. On the rare occasion that I’m in that part of town, I normally go to Big Wave Bay, which is a little more secluded than the often crowded Shek O beach. I must admit, I was reluctant to miss Dragon-i’s dinner to trek out to the opposite side of the island. But on Friday night, for a barbecue with a group of friends, the setting couldn’t have been more beautiful. (more…)

Last month I read something about the latest installment of Hollywood’s Batman franchise coming to shoot in Hong Kong. I didn’t think too much about it until I was running a small errand in my neighborhood and I stumbled upon the set. (more…)

LCX held a big event last Saturday for their expansion into Causeway Bay. This is their second location, the first being in Harbour City / Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. LCX is sort of like a mall within a mall. It’s a collection of trendy youth-oriented brands clustered together. They sell mid-range to high end designer fashion, cosmetics and lifestyle products. The strategy behind LCX is smart - once your target consumer is at one boutique, chances are they will also browse another shop intended for the same demographic. So, how do you get busy Hong Kong shoppers to know about your new store? (more…)

In town for an MTV Music Awards special promotion, New York Hip Hop group Mobb Deep made their first appearance ever in Hong Kong. Without Prodigy, the group’s main M.C., the crew was comprised of Havoc (the other founding member,) in addition to Big Noyd, D.C. and The Alchemist (a top Hip Hop producer.) (more…)

I can still remember the first night Dragon-i (more commonly known by the abbreviated ‘D.I.’) opened. It was packed with people and it felt as though a new era in Hong Kong nightlife had just begun. The energy, environment, and mixture of people was unlike anywhere else. (more…)

Last week I stopped by the opening of the new DevilCLOT store in Soho. It’s a temporary boutique, only open for a month and a half, until the end of December. (For more background info, please see my previous post here.)

Endo from Devilock was in the house, along with Edison from CLOT, and Madsaki (pictured above from left to right).

Earlier in the day I had passed by and watched through the window as they applied the finishing touches. (more…)

In stark contrast to the majority of new shopping centers which seem to have an absence of local culture, the new Delay No More Mall located in Causeway Bay takes exactly the opposite approach. A quick look at the exterior of the retail space appears calculated to broadcast Hong Kong culture and style.

This departure from the norm is in line with the strategy of the G.O.D. brand who is the organizer of the new shopping center. G.O.D. currently operates several shops that retail a range of household products and clothing bearing signatures of life in the city. Everything from their pajamas emblazoned with old Hong Kong buildings, to their notorious play-on-word t-shirts, contain elements of the city’s colorful (and sometimes profane,) local traditions. (more…)

Saturday night I went to Kowloon Tong to check out the Cut & Paste Digital Design Tournament. Based on the interesting underlying concept of a live design competition, I was intrigued to catch it firsthand.

Arriving at the curiously named Innocentre, a facility financed by the government to promote design (whose website doesn’t even work,) I stepped in and saw the event already underway. Several huge video panels hung over a group of computer workstations with the designers busily interacting below. The sizable crowd - a larger turnout than I had expected, were craning their necks for a look at the designs being hatched. (more…)