How The Anthology and Prologue Revolutionised Hong Kong Tailoring
Walk around the main streets of Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong and you will, sooner or later, be approached by someone offering high-quality bespoke suits at knockdown prices. Shockingly enough, they’re lying.
For years these offers have hijacked the reputation of tailoring in the territory, as chancers looked to take advantage of the huge numbers of business travellers to the region who (hopefully) had a poor grasp of what a quality suit actually was. But a growing clutch of fresh, passionate tailors, mostly based in the Central district on Hong Kong Island, have reclaimed that reputation, giving Hong Kong a new identity as a source of genuinely excellent, modern suiting and tailored menswear. The best of them will also travel to London.
Side-by-side, there’s a lot that The Anthology and Prologue have in common. Both create soft, elegant tailoring, with dropped gorges giving a more casual feel and strong Italian influences, particularly around the shoulder. Both work with the same leading cloth merchants, based in Europe and found in all the big Savile Row houses. Both have ready-to-wear ranges to sit alongside their bespoke businesses. Both are young, driven companies, with a soft spot for London.
“[London] already has such a long history of and demand for tailoring… it’s a very natural progression to expand there,” explains Buzz Tang, co-founder of The Anthology. “Deep down, [we’ve] always valued London a little more over other locations. If anything, New York might actually do better numbers, but London has a very special place in our hearts.” William Wong, the man behind Prologue’s expansion into the capital, agrees: “[The city’s] enthusiasm for the sartorial arts knows no bounds.”
Regular trips to London have been part of The Anthology’s make up pretty much as long as the brand has existed. Their first Mayfair trunk show took place around six years ago, just a few months after the brand launched; now they’re up to three per year. Over that short period of time they have developed a strong following on this side of the world, particularly for their warm-weather tailoring. My own belief is that clothes are best sourced from the climate they are intended for – for suits for hot weather, go to a tropical country like Hong Kong; for winter knits, somewhere cold like Scotland – and it would seem that London’s “Anthologists” agree to an extent: “a lot of summer-wedding attendee garments… a lot of lighter-coloured suits in linen,” Tang confirms.
Across both bespoke and RTW, the styles of both houses lend themselves well to following that trend. Those Italian influences bring with them jackets which allow for more movement; lightweight cloths allow more heat to escape when temperatures are up. Bright colours and bold patterns favoured by both, while suits look equally good, arguably better, when broken up and worn as separates.
The Anthology has drawn particular praise for a range of knitted t-shirts from its RTW collection (available online at USD$120) which encapsulate their commitment to a style which blends contemporary and classic – the wide ribbed collars are more elegant under a suit jacket than a standard tee; the cropped body and longer ribbed hem sit perfectly with the waistband of tailored trousers. It’s a modern take on 1950s preppy style. Prologue, meanwhile, look to footwear to help relax their tailored outfits even further – their Butterfly Loafers (available online for HKD$2,699; about £270) are in deerskin, the larger grain of which offers a more pronounced texture, and sport an unusual folded vamp across the instep. This, coupled with an unlined construction, give them an altogether more louche aesthetic.
The current Anthology schedule of three London visits per year is fairly ample, as trunk show standards go, and affords plenty of opportunity for clients here to order and collect bespoke commissions. Prologue, however, is about to go one step further and establish a consistent presence in St James’s. The showroom, in Princes Arcade on Piccadilly, will make appointments available year-round, something Wong hopes will substantially increase their profile.
“When we launched in 2016 we wanted to champion a new wave of relaxed tailoring,” he describes, “and what makes us an international brand is the fact we have loyal customers all over the world, including in London. Tailoring is natural [here] and we believe we will do something new with the house cut that we offer.”
In the years since 2020, with the rise of remote working and the near-complete fall of office dress codes, tastes in tailoring have dramatically changed, and a relaxed, more expressive form of sartorial dressing has become more in demand. Thanks to these two Hong Kong houses, it can be found just steps away from the spiritual home of formal English suiting.
You Might Also Like
