D-mop, one of Hong Kong’s hippest fashion retail chains launched a cross-branded phone with Nokia on Wednesday night. The event was held at their flagship shop on 8 Kingston Street in Causeway Bay.

“Crossovers,” as they are commonly referred to, are essentially double, or sometimes triple branded products. Crossovers are often written about in the abbreviated form: Somebrand x Somebrand, with an ‘x’ in the middle. At one point two years ago, you could barely turn a page in a local fashion magazine without seeing some sort of crossover being touted. In Hong Kong, even mainstream businesses such as McDonald’s got into the act, adapting the advertising technique for their own limited edition items.

From a marketing standpoint, collaborations like this make sense. Harnessing the power of combining multiple brands opens products up to a greater numbers of potential consumers. Fans of both brands may be interested in acquiring the hybrid product.

The best crossovers blend brands together elegantly, creating something cohesive yet fresh. When crossover fever began several years ago in Hong Kong, the market became quickly flooded with awkward collaborations that were poorly thought out and just didn’t work. At their worst, the items seemed almost grafted together with no apparent logic.

For a successful crossover there are two routes to take, you can either build a product that combines the essence or mystique of each brand in a natural way, or you can aim for the opposite end of the spectrum, a deliberate, high-contrast clash.

As one of the city’s top style innovators, D-mop was chosen by Nokia to tap into the stores’ reputation as a beacon of cutting-edge fashion. Crossovers typically employ a sort of trickle-down theory: a high-end version of a product given to the right people will raise the cool factor of normal products. By offering a limited edition phone with D-mop, Nokia hopes to create demand among trendy locals, thereby giving the N76 phone a cool rep.

To tell you the truth, I was too busy socializing to have a good look at the phone!

The music for the night was provided by two of Hong Kong’s top creatives, Calvin Ho (on the right,) and Vicky Lam. Calvin is a veteran Hong Kong graphic designer, and the man behind Atomic Attack. D-mop invited Calvin to create graphics for the Nokia collaboration. Vicky is a famous local fashion designer and was the originator of the Blues Heroes brand as well as R.C.B.