Urban sartoria – Christine L men’s tailoring, Hong Kong

Nowadays when we talked about tailoring for men, more or less it also takes us to think about the tailor or the artisan himself, his personal style and taste, his creation, and sometimes, even his persona, how he presented himself in social media, wearing his own tailoring creations, and the mix-&-match combination from each season, etc.; as we notice, it’s all about male mostly, and I guess, one of the reason is a male tailor or artisan knows what he wants to dress like (or at least strive to dress himself to someone he looked up to), and create something that expresses his own style, also, something that he will wear and feel comfortable with before creating these impeccable tailoring menswear for others. While we gentlemen can do that very well, some of the female artisans and creative directors, who lives in our times now, can do that just as well and impeccable as any other fellow men’s tailors or artisans do, and one of it, was hidden in my own city, the hustling-bustling Hong Kong, a female founder of her own men’s tailoring brand – Christine L.

Located in one of key shopping district on the Hong Kong Island side, Causeway Bay, Christine L is like a little refuge of menswear in the middle of a concrete jungle. Founded her own brand since almost a decade ago, Christine started to discover her passion about classic men’s tailoring, and decided to choose the path as a young entrepreneur and creative director, to create custom shirts for her male clients by working with skilled local tailors, gradually with her work began to flourish, Christine then branched out her business to work on wedding tailoring for gentlemen, before landing to do men’s classic tailoring as what we see today. When I was visiting Christine and being in her studio during one of the weekend, it’s quite amazing how a welcoming and passionate young lady, can run such a cozy, efficient and impeccable atelier studio by herself, surrounded with the tailoring pieces, both custom shirts and suits, which, each piece of clothing is classic but contemporary, with a twist of innovation and refinement that interprets the 'urban sartoria' of Hong Kong’s tailoring style today, in her own vision and aesthetic.

Looking at the impeccably made custom shirts by Christine L for instance, which the soft and comfortable cotton fabric is pretty irresistible, either it’s for office work purpose or off-work hours, all made in Korea by skilled tailors in a fitted cut, pretty much an iconic Asian cut I would say, with innovative details from contrasting color stitching button holes, to double collar in different colors, or, the signature ‘canvased’ cuffs with interesting floral fabric on the reverse side of the cuff, which shows something playful yet classic.

While for suiting collection, instead of an iconic ‘house’ cut, Christine’s idea is to create an impeccable suit that fits her client’s body well, and makes the wearer looks smart and confident. Fabric selection ranged from renowned fabric mills around the world, classic and timeless fabrics from superfine wool to linen, with a gentle yet structured shoulder, tapered fit 2 buttoned single-breasted jacket in a shorter torso, which the silhouette is very much Asian fit again that compliments her custom shirts collection; paired with a slender cut trousers to finish the entire assemble, the tailoring menswear by Christine L literally interprets the modernity of Hong Kong’s contemporary tailoring from a female’s perspective and style.

As a side note, for custom shirts making, it takes about 2 weeks, while for tailoring menswear, that takes about 4 weeks, prior booking for tailoring appointment will be highly recommended. One more thing, do have a look with the 2 watercolor paintings at the entrance of her atelier studio that were done by Christine herself, you will probably be amazed by her talent not simply on tailoring menswear, but also in contemporary art as well.

Image courtesy of Christine L, Hong Kong

https://www.christinel.hk/