Yat Pit

Yat Pit is a Hong Kong-based clothing brand bringing awareness to Chinese culture and its Clothes that draw inspiration from Bruce Lee, Hong Kong pop culture while being genuinely in touch with the city’s youth culture. Yat Pit (meaning ‘one stroke’ in Cantonese) was conceived a few years ago through the diasporic collaboration between two designers – Hongkonger On-Ying Lai and Britain-born Chinese Jason Mui. At its core, the clothing brand sought, and is still seeking, to revive, secure and ensure Chinese fashion design has an essential place in your wardrobe. Instead of a cliché runway setup, Lai and Mui have set up market stalls. Like the ones iconic to the area where the cool kid friends will double up as a model and sale associates for the latest collection, creating a real, see-now-buy-now experience. They are indeed just a different and unique Chinese clothing brand that really inspired me to perform a photoshoot with high end luxury clothing brand. I wanted to get on their level and hire a Chinese Model, I found Grace which fitted perfectly because of her sense of style. Since the beginning of the Qin Dynasty back in 221BC, China had already developed a distinct direction in fashion, which evolved beautifully over the centuries. Luxury clothing was well-tailored, robe-like, colourfully patterned, loose and flowing, layered and appropriately accessorised. Then all of that wonder and creativity came to an abrupt halt due to the Cultural Revolution. 5,000 years of Chinese fashion just evaporated and was mostly left to the West to romanticise. 

An unknown photographer called Issac Lam shot a photo for Yan Pit, a simple on location shot of a Chinese female with a cigarette not looking rather happy. The background does link with China because of the Chinese letters, the red colour and the actual model being Chinese. Here’s what it looks like:

The designers imagine how Chinese youth might dress if the Cultural Revolution hadn’t taken place. They take cues from traditional Chinese clothes to do so – garments which, from dynasty to dynasty, have maintained a similarly bulky, gender-neutral silhouette. Rooted in their love for and interest in their heritage, Lai and Mui are showing a different side to Chinese style one that’s far from the West’s orientalist and, all too often, appropriative clichés.

Yat Pit is really creative in their industry and they work really well together to create new genres of fashion. They difeintevely connect strongly with my projects idea as they explore the history of chinese fashion and try to modernise it. My whole project is literally inspired by their work and their ideas. The thing I learnt from their clothing design is to not be ashamed of traditional clothes and even if you are then try and make it more contemporary by customising ir or adding other garments/ accessories on top of it.