Patrick Lam
Patrick Lam
HONG KONG
“Don’t underestimate your ability. You are able to do more for the environment.”
Seeing fashion companies abandon their garment and fabric samples without much care raised alarms for Patrick Lam. When he found a pile of unwanted garment samples at his workplace, he decided to reconstruct them into something new, alongside end-of-rolls sourced from Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po fabric district.
“I want to attract consumers of fast fashion to re-examine the industry and reduce their wasteful impact of chasing seasonal trends,” shares Patrick, who holds a BA (Hons) in Fashion Design from Nottingham Trent University and a Higher Diploma in Fashion Design from the Hong Kong Design Institute.
Inspired by the British ‘Mod’ subculture of the 1960s and their customisation of Vespa scooters, Patrick set to work on his collection, ‘The Mods.’ Like the early ‘Mods’ who wore military jackets to prevent stains from contaminating their expensive suits while riding bikes, army coats became a prevalent part of his design, combined with spliced suit and denim elements. ‘Mods’ were also part of the working class, so Patrick chose denim to honour the labourers’ style of clothing from that time period.
The collection also uses reconstruction techniques to transform discarded garment samples made mainly from cotton and nylon with high durability, including a knitted polo shirt, knitted fleece sweatshirt, and polyester trousers. Other surplus fabrics, sourced from friends and the Sham Shui Po fabric district in Hong Kong, are used to match the design as a whole.
Oversized tailoring allows for flexibility so that even when bodies change, wearers can still fit into the garments. In designing for low impact on the environment, Patrick opts to keep the materials as-is, avoiding additional wash effects.
“People are not paying attention to the quality of clothes, but only the trendy styles,” Patrick laments. Forgoing trends, he instead highlights the values of quality and proportion with timeless military silhouettes, creating a classic look that will keep the design in use for longer.
Patrick also envisions the potential to tailor his suits for his consumers, allowing them to select fabrics and colours to cultivate a sense of ownership for their clothes, thus prolonging their use through emotional attachment. The participatory process also allows people to gain a sense of achievement, raise their awareness of fashion's environmental impact, and reduce the chances of garments being discarded.
In his creative process, Patrick also embraces zero-waste pattern techniques, turning leftover fabrics into details such as trimmings within the collection. “The process of fashioning something new out of old fabric gives me a great sense of achievement and keeps me designing sustainably.”
