Exhibition | Taste of Summer Fashion at K11 Art Mall

Miss Fruity

It really has been forever since I updated my blog (one year almost to the day!), but I want to share with you guys one of my most exciting recent projects! It's an exhibition called The Taste of Summer Fashion and it's in collaboration with K11, a mall here in Hong Kong that combines shopping and art.

Their team had seen my Hong Kong Street Food art print (above) and wanted something similar for their fashion event for summer. Since K11 prides itself on being the world's first Art Mall (they even have a Yinka Shonibare in the foyer) one of the mall's features are a group of these giant showcases built into each level of the shopping center and that was where I was going to exhibit my work.

Photo courtesy of Object A

We decided on a Street Food x Fashion concept and I got to work sketching all 10 of the characters. I only had about 1 month for the project from conception to the final installation - so it was a bit crazy but I loved the feeling of diving into creating this world of characters.

I've been watching a lot of Ru Paul's Drag Race this year so when coming up with the ideas for each character I would ask myself "If this was the theme for the runway challenge what would I make and wear?" 

Here are all the Misses I created for the exhibition each inspired by a food item commonly eaten here in Hong Kong:

 Miss Peach Bun, Miss Ice Cream, Miss Iced Lemon Tea

 Miss Tofu Flower, Miss Egg Waffle, Miss French Toast

Miss Siu Mai, Miss Egg Tart, Miss Fish Ball

K11 had a really sweet film crew and we created a few videos together, here is the most recent where I talk a little more about my inspirations for Miss French Toast and Miss Ice Cream, we're also doing a giveaway for a Taste of Summer Fashion sticker pack so don't forget to follow the instructions on their Facebook page to enter.

I ♡ Brown Lipsticks

Hello guys from New York City!
I'm here again this summer in one of my favourite cities in the world, I love being here in during the summer months so much. This year, I'm taking two continuing education classes at The School of Visual Arts, Intro to Animation - where I made this little gif, it was my first time working on a Cintiq!

Since being in the States I've been having so much fun playing with the makeup looks that are trendy here, hellooooo nude, brown and mauve liquid matte lipsticks and super defined brown eyeshadows. I've been obsessed with watching makeup videos while I've been here, so this little gif is an ode to all those Youtube gurus and to those much coveted Kylie Lip Kits. True Brown K?

On the other days, I'm also taking an etching class, I love the hands on aspect of print-making so much and wished I got to do it more in Hong Kong.

With all these different art activities, museum hopping and picnicking by the Hudson river on the weekends I really feel I like I'm at summer camp. It's been so nice to relax here and experiment creatively after a busy year. I'm so so happy.

Hope you guys are having a great summer too! Don't forget to take some time off for yourself and learn something new.

Keep up to date with me during my NYC summer on my Instagram @kittynwong.

Fashionary Illustration Workshop + Metrobooks Exhibition Photo Diary

Guess what! Thanks to the wonderful folks at Fashionary, you can now go check out one of my illustrations on display at Metrobooks in Times Square. They organized an exhibition for the book store's grand opening at Times Square in Causeway Bay featuring 9 other talented illustrators from around the world.

I thought this would be a really good chance for me to make a whole Fashionary blog post as I also got to lead a really amazing fashion illustration workshop with them this past March. It was in the gorgeous newly renovated Page One bookstore in TST. I was really nervous but I spent a few weeks prepping with the awesome team at Fashionary.

This is always my strategy. I always think about this quote by John C Jay, Wieden+Kennedy’s Executive Creative Director, if I have a new project I'm really nervous about: "Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.". I just make sure I do lots of prepping and practicing and set aside time to do so and then I can confidently walk into that project and really feel excited about doing it. This strategy has always served me really well (ok, minus that one time I tried to design a complete wedding suite on Adobe Illustrator, CTRL + ALT + DELETE! I still don't really know how AI works.).

After a short demo, everyone settled down with their own set of watercolours and Fashionary template paper and I lead us with step by step directions on how to create the illustrations, first using pencil to sketch, Copic markers for the skin and then finally watecolour for the clothing.  

We then practiced the face on a separate piece of paper before committing to drawing it on our final illustration, it takes the pressure off and you know what they say, practice makes perfect progress.

Vikki Yau was the other illustrator from the day, she lead the Copic Marker workshop in the afternoon and she's also the editor of Fashionary Hand.

My wonderful students and I! I hope everyone had as much fun at creating their own fashion illustrations as I did teaching the workshop.

And shout out to one of the attendees Alyn for her sweet review and blogpost about the workshop! Thank you so much!

CLICK for photos of the Metrobooks Fashion Illustration Exhibition.

Sketches / #Girlboss in NYC

I finally blogged! It's been forever, I've been hanging out all summer long in the greatest city in the world, New York City! And it really is the greatest city, there are a million great events to go to everyday, drawing events, comic jams, outdoor movies, yoga in Central Park. And yesterday was Sophia Amoruso's paperback book launch for #GIRLBOSS at Barnes & Noble in Union Square.

I remember first discovering the Nasty Gal website in university when one of my cool girl classmates told me about it, I loved it and always checked back to see what was new. They have such a strong look. You could just tell all the women at the event were huge fans too, everyone had that Nasty Gal 'look', there was lots of black, in mesh, lace and lacey mesh, 'marsala' (which Sophia said was huge for this season), floppy hats, dark lips and platform shoes. So while we waited for the event to start, there was a lot of marshaling to be done seeing as there were 500+ eager gals there, I made some sketches to pass the time.

Sophia had lots of awesome wisdom tid-bits during the talk, some of my faves were:

"Money looks better in your bank than on your feet." Cha-Ching! So true.

On creating your dream job.
"Professionalize what you love doing, that's what I did with vintage clothing."

From a Q+A from an aspiring stylist.
"Take quality photos of all your looks, get a Squarespace. Archive everything."

Well you know I love female role models (Hi Hillary!) and the entrepreneur spirit, so of course I can't wait to finally read the book. Plus! The book has amazing badassy illustrations by Jo Radcliffe.

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