“Since 1952”.

There might be quite a few Hong Kong tailor houses that can boast of a history as long as WW Chan’s.

In 1960s, the golden age of Hong Kong tailoring, there were as many as 15,000 tailors around.

Tailor houses were everywhere: in the arcades of the Peninsula; on the bustling Nathan Road; at the corners of the century-old Stone Slabs Street.

Their customers were from everywhere: British bureaucrats in the colonial government; American sailors on leave from the Vietnam warzone; grassroot teens getting their first suit for a precious family portrait.

Fast forward to 2024. Probably dozens of those tailor houses are still standing, tucked away in shaggy old buildings. They survived the trial of time.

But surviving isn’t the same as thriving.

Starting out on Wuhu Street in the 1950s, WW Chan is still going strong in 2024, housed in Entertainment Building, in the heart of the city’s CBD.

It did more than just surviving. It evolved; it thrived; and it made its name in the global classic menswear scene of the internet era.

All these years exploring classic men style, the concept of “timeless” has always fascinated me. Times change. People change. Tastes change. What makes a style “timeless” and transcend the challenge of time?

And perhaps just as intriguing, is a business in this field that has turned “timeless” itself.

So, what is WW Chan’s secret?

Walking up the marble stairs of Entertainment Building, I can’t help but marvel at the long way WW Chan has come since its humble beginning.

Chan Wing Wah, the very WW Chan who founded the brand, started out as an apprentice at the age of 14, graduating from the Shanghai Cutting and Tailoring College in 1943 – the certificate is still proudly displayed in the shop.

After the war, Chan moved to Hong Kong and opened his first workshop in Kowloon. His early clients included the Taipans of the Swire Group, who were so impressed at his craftsmanship that they awarded him contracts to make uniforms for the conglomerate’s new venture – Cathay Pacific Airways.

70 years on, as I open the door to WW Chan’s latest Hong Kong storefront, I’m greeted by Patrick Chu, who has been with WW Chan since 1986.

An astute gentleman with a reserved sense of pride, Patrick strikes me as an embodiment of the brand’s evolution over half a century.

Having served the brand for nearly 40 years, you can imagine he’s a young man no more.

But his vast expertise and pride in this traditional craft have not stopped him from catching up with the modern trends in tailoring, and embracing them to grow the business without compromising on the brand’s ethos.

With roots traced to the legendary Shanghai Red Gang tailors, WW Chan first impressed me with a traditional style resembling conservative British tailoring.

But as “dressing down” became the global menswear trend, the Italian tailoring style, with less structure and more chill, increasingly dominates the classical menswear circles around the world. From WW Chan’s recent work, it looks like they’re adapting to this trend.

“People these days like to ask what our house style is. Is it more British? Is it more Italian? The thing is, we never really wanted to confine ourselves to a certain house style,” Patrick explains, “If you look at the origin of the Shanghai Red Gang tailors, you’ll understand this.”

The so-called Shanghai Red Gang originally refers to the tailors from Fenghua, Ningbo. Initially, they were called the “Feng Gang”. The name gradually turned into “Red Gang” as Red and Feng sound the same in the local Wu dialect.

Red Gang tailors made their name in Shanghai, East Asia’s most buzzling metropolis in the early 20th century. Back then, the Shanghai tailoring scene, formed by these Red Gang tailors, became the epitome of tailoring in the Far East.

The first Red Gang tailors learned their trades from western tailors, with a heavy British influence. “But you must remember, suit making was an imported culture. Unlike the British, the Italians, or any other Europeans, the Chinese weren’t bound by a longstanding tradition.”

“So, my answer to this is that, rather than having a specific house style, here we follow the way of our Red Gang forefathers – What matters most is what the client wants,” Patrick concludes.

‘Or maybe what matters most is the tailor’s professional judgement?’ I ask.

Patrick gives me a wry smile.

I get it.

The struggle is real.

As a barber, I face that same question every day – what you think is the best for the client, and what they believe work best, don’t often align. It’s my role to advise and recommend based on my acumen; but whether or not the client sees the same, is another matter.

Same goes for the tailor’s work.

Indeed, rather than sticking to a certain house style, it’s more about customizing the cut to the curves of a client’s body, to the purpose to the garment, and to the properties of the fabric. After all, the essence of bespoke tailoring is to create a unique suit for a unique client, for a unique purpose.

And the very unique suit I’m commissioning this time, will be made up of a brown Loro Piana fabric, with 71% wool, 15% silk, 14% linen – concocted for the summer time.

In Hong Kong, it’s a common misconception that suits must be unbearably stuffy in summer. Well, if you ask me, Hong Kong summer is unbearable even if you go out naked. But with the right fabric and construction, wearing suits in the scorching heat is not as torturous as you think.

In fact, I prefer linen shirts and open-weave trousers to cotton t-shirts and shorts, not just because they look better – they actually cool you better than cotton. Put on some open-weave trousers and stand in the middle of a MTR cabin, and as the train moves, feel the breeze go right through the fabric and cools your thigh, and you’ll get what I mean.

As we discuss the specs of my suit, Patrick shares stories from his decades of experience in the trade.

“Double vent is the most common these days. Back when I was green it was a different world.”

That was a time when the boxy, ventless Armani power suit dominated the suiting style. At the same time, ready-to-wear suits became widely available. For the young, ordering suits in a tailor house as their fathers didn’t just seem old-fashioned. It was a lot pricier than off-the-rack options – and what’s the difference anyway?

(Image Courtesy of GQ - Style Evolution: The Armani Suit)

“For Hong Kong tailors, the 90s was a tough time”, Patrick shakes his head.

Hoping to catch up, Hong Kong tailors experimented with new Italian fabrics. But unlike the British fabrics that they were familiar with, Italian fabrics with higher thread count were a lot more challenging to work with. They shrank easily under heat, complicating the workflow.

“Unlike canvassed bespoke suits, ready-to-wear suits were fused to work around these issues. That makes it even harder for tailors to compete.”

Difficult as it was, WW Chan made it. In the early 2000s, Peter Chan, the son of WW Chan who had taken over the brand’s operation, decided to expand into the very same place where the WW Chan story began – Shanghai.

So, Peter Chan moved to Shanghai for the new venture. Guess who was left to run the Hong Kong storefront.

Yes, of course. Starting out in 1986 as a store assistant, Patrick became the General Manager, and gradually, the face of the brand’s Hong Kong presence.

“Speaking of house style, it’s kind of funny when you think of that time. No one talked about house style back then. All tailor houses in Hong Kong had the same style. Our clients had practically the same style anyway. Mostly middle-aged men. Lots of expats.”

Don’t mind me. Just enjoying a bit of a self-appreciation moment.

It all changed in the internet age. Thanks in part to Styleforum’s Hong Kong Tailor Thread, WW Chan was not only known to the local elite circles and the niche groups of clients who frequented the brand’s annual overseas trunk shows. It became a big name in the thriving online community of classic menswear enthusiasts. Unlike the old-days clientele, these new patrons tend to be loaded with research and reviews, coming in full of expectations and opinions.

“That’s when the house style question began to come up,” Patrick smiles.

It was a pivoting time for Hong Kong’s tailoring scene. The concept of classic menswear was revitalized with a modern twist, becoming a trend for the young men worldwide exploring a sophisticated dressing style with depth and heritage.

As Mark Cho and Alan See founded The Armoury in 2010, it signified the moment this trend touched ground in the city. Responding to the increasing local clientele, WW Chan relocated to Entertainment Building in 2013, at the heart of the city’s CBD, to be closer to where most of its patrons – bankers, lawyers and professionals alike – work and live.

“Ever since WW Chan opened his first workshop, we’d been in Kowloon all along. For foreign clients that wasn’t really a problem – it’s just Hong Kong anyway. But for locals, it was quite a bit of difference,” Patrick reckons, “I had a client telling me he recommended us to his colleagues, who raised eyebrows the moment they heard Kowloon. It’s not really a big harbor in between (Hong Kong Island and Kowloon), but the psychological distance it makes, you have no idea.”

So there it is, after more than 60 years of business spanning a few generations, WW Chan navigated the tides and storms of Hong Kong’s tailoring industry, cementing its prestige among both local and worldwide bespoke tailoring scenes.

From Wuhu Street to Entertainment Building, it has come a long way. This neo-gothic building, a combination of classical and modern architectures, seems the perfect spot to house a time-tested bespoke tailor brand dedicated to classic menswear with a modern twist.

So, “what is WW Chan’s timeless secret?” finally, I can’t help but throw this at Patrick. I feel like an HR guy in a job interview teasing a candidate with a question with little substance.

“There’s no big secret. Just sticking to our principles and quality.”

Hey Patrick, this ain’t gonna cut it, not for our readers.

And by this point, if you’re smart enough to wonder why we got to talk so much over a suit ordering session: no, we didn’t. I asked Patrick out for lunch afterwards and a lot of this is from another conversation that went on over dim sums instead. But for cinematic effects, mixing up a couple timelines won’t hurt, eh? Big fan of Christopher Nolan here, btw.

Anyway, I get it. It sounds like a sloppy, cliché answer, but as a small business owner myself, I understand fully how difficult that “sticking” could be, especially when you’re talking about sticking for over 70 years.

“I remember this client, a young graduate who just got his first job in finance. He came in hoping to order a ‘slim-cut’ suit. We tried our best to cater to that, made it as ‘slim’ as we thought still reasonable, and in the meantime took efforts to explain why tightening certain areas further would neither look crisp nor be comfortable. We got to a point, a middle ground, where we could both agree on. And when he picked up the suit he was happy with how it turned out.”

‘…but?’ I ask, seeing a but coming.

“But still, when his friends and girlfriend saw it, they asked whether he was wearing his dad’s suit. So, as you can imagine, he was no longer happy about it.”

‘Bummer…’ I feel the pain.

“But…”(I don’t see this second one coming) “he came again in a year, promoted at work, with new peers dressing in more sophisticated suits. He said, ‘Patrick, I want a new suit fitting the way you suggested, back at the very beginning.’”

‘Well, at least he came back,’ I say, my turn to give a wry smile.

And indeed, for a suit, you still have a first fitting, second fitting (that’s the number of fittings you get at WW Chan anyway), for making adjustment, for working towards a point where both sides will agree on.

For hair though, it’s different. Once it’s done, it’s done. If you don’t like it, it takes a month to grow back, and that month is unbearably long. I’ve been there myself. I know.

So, when I work on a new client, I tend to lean on the safer side at the beginning, inclining more towards their preferences, and gradually pitching bolder advice to them as we understand each other better.

I guess it’s simply an eternal struggle for us all – barbers, tailors, anyone who sells products or services crafted proudly from their own professional acumen. The eternal struggle between the artisan’s judgment and the client’s preferences.

In an ideal world where perfect information and communication existed, clients would know exactly what they need, and would be able to convey that with complete accuracy. Same goes for barbers and tailors delivering their judgement and suggestions.

In such a world, we could always find out the exact point where the artisan’s thoughts and the clients’ ones intersect.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, I’d say – that isn’t the world we live in. Ideals are distant, if not outright untouchable.

Still, we’re tempted by our deeper selves to reach up to those ideals. We spend time, effort and money to chase them. Because, whenever we get close to them, being just a tat bit away from them, that satisfaction makes everything worth it.

And how close will you get?

That depends on how well the interaction goes.

I’d say it’s this very urge that has culminated the interactions on the 8th floor of Entertainment Building every day. This urge lures us up its marble stairs, visualizing our best conversation with the best tailors up there. We want this time to be the best, the closest ever to perfection.

And perhaps, this same, never-ending pursuit by men in different times, is precisely the secret.

With a head full of stories and a stomach full of har gows, I walk Patrick back to the neo-gothic commercial building where he’d just spent 11 years of his professional life.

“A friend of mine wants to make a documentary about Hong Kong tailors. I said why not, it will mean something to have our stories told – when we’re still here to tell them.”

‘Absolutely. And I’ll try my best to tell this story I know,’ I wave my hand, with utmost respect for the man who has so well preserved the timeless secret of a timeless business.

Patrick smiles - his characteristically reserved, classy smile - and vanishes into the marbled hallway.

And there you have it, the debut story of Goodman Chronicle.

The Timeless Secret – My WW Chan Bespoke Tailoring Story