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La Perla: Putting Women First
A woman always remembers the first time she owns La Perla lingerie. Indulgent and feminine, with an Italian-born sex appeal, the coveted luxury label remains unrivalled in its 66th year. Maintaining prime position in pop culture’s style lexicon, and famously donned by the likes of Grace Jones, Cher and Madonna in the 1970s and ’80s, today La Perla is still dressing stars such as Beyoncé and Ariana Grande. Music video and movie appearances (Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street and Rosamund Pike in A Private War, for example) continue to push the label’s allure.
As this month coincides with Chinese New Year as well as Valentine’s Day, our thoughts in fashion turn to those most intimate of garments, and how they can make us feel. But rather than just a flurry of hungry purchases of seductive pieces for lover’s day, or the traditional buying of new “lucky” red underwear, we’re also thinking of the shift in women’s demands for their lingerie, and the way these garments can empower rather than restrict. The last 12 months have also shown beautiful lounge and sleepwear inching up higher and higher in our priorities as we spend more time at home.
Perhaps this is why La Perla’s CEO, Pascal Perrier, has optimism on his mind. With a new store just opened in Hong Kong and discussions for more in the future, Perrier is banking on La Perla’s allure to grow, in line with the label’s new strategy of serving more women for more occasions.
“In spite of the difficulties Hong Kong has faced for the last two years, it remains a very important marketplace for luxury – and our commitment here remains,” says Perrier, who knows the market well, having previously lived here for 10 years. With stores at Pacific Place and Harbour City already, the latest opening hits Causeway Bay at Lee Gardens Two.
A shift to empowerment
Last year marked the 25th anniversary of La Perla’s best-selling Maison Collection, with pieces in Italian Como silk created in its Bologna atelier and hand finished with artisanal Florentine Frastaglio embroidery. Signatures such as the Macramé, Frastaglio, Leavers Lace and Soutache remain at the core of the label, but excitement comes with new Maison Contouring shapewear and the more casual, daily-wearing Imagine line, employing new techniques and fabrications with silk modal mixes, monochrome lingerie, nightwear and loungewear.
It’s a conscious shift towards modernising the brand’s offerings beyond the romantic and occasional wear we traditionally associate with it. “Last August,” says Perrier, “we introduced for the very first time in 66 years washable silk … The collection is called Dream Catcher and it’s been a phenomenal success – in 2020, you want to be able to put your lingerie in your washing machine.”
Now women are more empowered, they demand at lot more from their fashion, whether it’s workout gear or lingerie. It was therefore key for the brand to be more relevant, which is something that Perrier admits had been neglected for about two decades.
“In regard to the behavioural aspects of luxury consumption, in 2019, when I was working on the strategic plan for La Perla, we hired three anthropologists – some of the best – to study this, because that work had never been done. I wanted to devote a lot of time and research to what a modern luxury lingerie brand should be today.
So we studied the behaviour and it was very interesting – it became a pillar of our strategy going forward,” Perrier explains.
Everyday luxury
He joined La Perla in 2018, bringing with him more than three decades of luxury-industry experience – at the Gucci Group, for example, he executed the acquisitions of Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. He also spent 13 years with Burberry, nine of which were as Asia Pacific CEO, when he grew the region into the biggest for the brand. After retiring from that role, he was lured to La Perla after recognising the potential for turning around the brand’s economic misfortunes, updating its strategies and maximising its unparalleled position in the lingerie market.
“Everything that we do will have more comfort and relevance, treated in a luxury lifestyle manner, so we’ll never compromise on the quality, nor the design. The lingerie market is very crowded,” he says. “I found that luxury lingerie is the neglected corner of lingerie … partly because they never worked on the woman’s experience, which offline was not necessarily a good one.”
For example, there’s the awkwardness of getting naked in a poorly lit dressing room, helped by a saleswoman – so La Perla is working on a special lighting concept for its in-store fitting rooms, where customers will be able to choose from a range of ambiences.
Although La Perla might be associated mostly with specific romantic occasions, Perrier finds these to be “very narrow, if happy, moments”. Thus the introduction of everyday luxury lingerie is key to the brand’s grand ambitions.
La Perla — women first
There’ve been radical changes, too, in the way Asian women wear lingerie. This intimate product, once considered almost taboo, has become more of an open discussion and indulgence, in which both comfort and fit are important. Maison Contouring, the brand’s latest shapewear line, is a sign of that understanding, with pieces innovatively designed to support and create a smooth sculpted silhouette, skimming curves seamlessly.
The label’s rich archives remain a source of inspiration and there are plans to create a La Perla museum, as well as setting up pop-up displays in shopping malls that inform shoppers of the brand’s heritage, fabrics, details and construction – and how it’s modernised.
Lingerie is not there to seduce but rather to enhance self-confidence and beauty, as well as provide ample opportunities for self-indulgence. The La Perla ethos is that women are beautiful because they feel beautiful and, says Perrier, “our job, duty and passion is to develop this feeling everywhere”. Along those lines, a La Perla charity foundation to be launched later this year will address women’s education, health, empowerment and equality.
Another exciting announcement is a capsule collection with the London-based couturier Ralph and Russo (both brands belong to the same group, share a similar DNA and are all about womenswear and craftsmanship). Inspired by endless summers, sun-kissed aesthetics, tropical prints and vibrant hues, the line will land in May, with Hong Kong and China being earmarked for its selective distribution.
The brand’s evolution, transformation and growth will be based upon balancing modernity, art and function, while pioneering beautiful products that serve the female form. That rich Italian artisanal heritage comes with a powerful pop-culture kudos, one that goes hand in hand with founder Ada Masotti’s revolutionary, intricate craftmanship, which resulted in pieces that would be treasured for a lifetime.
“Many lingerie brands were communicating through the lens of a man,” says Perrier. “Yes, that can resonate, but the La Perla strategy going forward is to serve women, by women, and made by women for women. Any visual conversation we would have would be through a woman’s lens … and this is very different from other brands.”
The post La Perla: Putting Women First appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.
All of Em: Emily Lam-Ho on Giving Back and her Next Big Venture
Emily Lam-Ho is many things: a mother of two, a champion of sustainability and a mentor to women everywhere. She opens up about why she feels so strongly about giving back, and her next venture to build an even better future for generations to come.
We’re interviewing Emily Lam-Ho in unusual times. If things had any semblance of normality, interviews with our cover personalities would typically take place in perhaps their favourite restaurant or hotel, or a private club over sips of coffee, or snuck in between takes during photoshoots, over the din of moving sets as their stylists touched up their hair and makeup. But as yet another wave of Covid-19 surged over our heads, we peered at Lam-Ho across our laptop screen as she peered back at us, quietly hunched over a child’s chair in what’s clearly her son’s bedroom.
She starts with an apology: “Can you hear me now? Sorry I’m in my son’s room because this is the only computer with Skype installed.”
At one point, her son barges in; gently and firmly she ushers him out. Moments later he charges back in, this time with an entourage in tow. “This is the norm now,” she says wryly after marching the children out and closing the door behind them. “They walked into my board meeting the other day and everyone laughed. But everyone’s very understanding and sympathetic, especially after Covid, where everyone has to work from home. It’s really changed the setting.”
Neither rowdy kids nor coronavirus were going to get in the way of Lam-Ho’s mission to make the world a better place, however. In fact, she credits her two children as the reason for all that she does: “Having kids has magnified everything, all my values, everything that’s important to me by a million times.”
Why Emily Gives Back
She can trace it all back to college when she started volunteering. From building a school in Gambia – “My mother was very, very against it. If you ask her, I think she’s still a bit scarred,” she says – to running an orphanage in Grenada and working with Teach for China in Yunnan, Lam-Ho has always felt responsible for extending her help to others outside of her own privileged circle.
“When it comes to seeing something that’s so out of your ordinary world, it really changes your perspective on life and everything else. I wouldn’t say it shattered my world, but it certainly broadened it,” she says. “The world's big and there’s a lot of people out there who need help. And I think that was really my turning point in wanting to do something different and really make a difference.”
Lam-Ho now juggles her time between several ventures, all of which are aimed at empowering others and making the world a more sustainable place. Tycoon Peter Lam may be her father, but it’s the last thing Lam-Ho wants to talk about. She sounds almost exasperated as she says, “Sustainability doesn’t even have anything to do with my father’s businesses.”
“I have to work harder than everyone else – I want to prove that I’m there because of my own merits, not because of anything else. And it’s a challenge I sometimes still face, that the credit I’m due is sometimes given to my family or other people, when in fact it’s been my own hard work. It’s a misconception that many people have.” She pauses for a moment and adds, “It’s something that never leaves you – it’s a double-edged sword in some ways.”
Emily Lam-Ho on Empowering Women
In 2018, Lam-Ho launched Empact28, an investment company that provides funding for women entrepreneurs and corporations that are making a positive impact on social and environmental issues. Empact28 is a portmanteau word of “impact” and her name “Em”, and the 28 is a nod to the early-stage venture capital company S28, which her husband Kent Ho started.
Empowering women is a cause dear to Lam-Ho’s heart, who personally feels that it was the women around her who shaped her to become the strong leader she is today. “I’m lucky in the sense that every single boss that I’ve had since I graduated has been a really strong woman mentor,” she says.
Her first boss was Alice Mong, who’s currently executive director of the Asia Society Hong Kong. “She really showed me from the beginning what very strong female leadership looked like and she had a big impact on me,” says Lam-Ho. She first met Mong while she was a student at USC, and the latter in Committee 100, a non-profit organisation founded by architect IM Pei and cellist Yo-Yo Ma as a bridge between the US and China. Following her internship, Lam-Ho continued to work for Mong while she finished her Masters in Columbia. Back in Hong Kong, the pair remain good friends.
"It's very important to have good women mentors"
Emily Lam-Ho
Lam-Ho’s second boss was Helena Wai, who was head of corporate broking at CLSA and later vice-chairman. A woman of influence, Wai is now managing director at investment bank Jefferies. “She was very hard on me,” Lam-Ho recalls. “But she really taught me a lot of things that I needed to know about the market, about trading.”
“I think it’s very important to have good women mentors. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to support similar people with a similar mindset. I think a lot of people just really need a chance. Everyone needs a chance and everyone needs support, wherever they are in their business journey. Support is always nice, whatever direction it’s coming from,” says Lam-Ho.
Empact28 has invested in companies such as Thousand Fell, which has an end goal of producing zero-waste footwear; Yellow Leaf Hammocks trains women and mothers in impoverished communities in Thailand to weave hammocks from sustainable materials; and there’s also Dirty Labs, a cleaning-product company that uses cutting-edge bio enzymes and emerging green chemistry rather than harsh chemicals.
On Championing Sustainability
Lam-Ho has made commendable inroads in environmental protection in Hong Kong, too. She co-founded EcoDrive in 2018 alongside 11 women, self- starters, lawyers and entrepreneurs – but, most importantly, mothers – brought together by a shared concern over plastic pollution, and who all passionately want to make Hong Kong a better place for their children.
It had one simple mission: to promote an awareness and reduction of single-use plastics. Through community outreach, screenings, panel discussions and organised beach clean-ups, the 11 ladies encouraged people to start small for a great impact.
“I learned from EcoDrive that starting small is very important,” says Lam-Ho. “Every little bit counts. For example, if I’m completely zero-waste and vegan, but everyone else in my circle carries on as they are, that’s not going to make an impact. The collective impact is the most important. If everybody makes a little bit of change, a bit of adjustment in their life – I’m not asking you to completely change your lifestyle, just a slight change – you might then want to take another step.”
"Starting small is very important. Every little bit counts"
Emily Lam-Ho
And that’s why EcoDrive focuses solely on reducing single-use plastics. The group has been so successful in the past two years of campaigning that this year it’s launching its biggest project to date. In time for the festive season, EcoDrive is partnering with PinkFong!, the Korean company that’s brought the infuriatingly catchy children’s rhyme, “Baby Shark”, into our collective lives. The collaboration will result in a new music video aimed at reducing single-use plastic to the tune of “Baby Shark”, a particularly meaningful and educational project that Lam-Ho is extremely happy about. She hums the song in case we didn’t know it (believe me, we do) and says, “It’s actually their first cross-promotion with an NGO, so we’re very excited because the reach is going to be in the millions.”
The original “Baby Shark” song has now been played more than 7 billion times, and was recently crowned the most-watched-video ever on YouTube, surpassing the previous record held by “Despacito”, the pop smash hit by Luis Fonsi and Justin Bieber. The “Baby Shark” collaboration is poised to make a huge impact on the generation it needed to impress the most – the young.
“Every single kid loves that song. And every parent … if I hear it another time I might need a drink of wine,” she says with a laugh.
Throughout our conversation with Lam-Ho, she’s most animated when talking about collaborations, be it the PinkFong! and EcoDrive music video that’s about to break the internet, or an event she did with Chloe and Yellow Leaf Hammocks two years ago.
Her eyes light up as she recalls the party.
“They weaved leaf hammocks basically in the same colour scheme as Chloé’s spring/summer collection. We did a promotion on top of H Queen’s and it was great,” she says. “It was supporting a fashion brand that I love and also working with a company I support as a social enterprise, which helps women in real time and gives them work.
“I love cross-promotions. I think it’s so important that everyone supports each other. And I love connecting people together. I love matchmaking, whether it’s with friends or whether it’s with companies,” she continues.
EcoDrive, for all its great causes, is somewhat limiting, its sole focus being on reducing single uses for plastic. But for Lam-Ho, there was so much more in the realm of sustainability where she wanted to do good. “Sustainability is like a rabbit hole, right? You learn more about it and you fall deeper and deeper into it,” she says.
"Sustainability is like a rabbit hole. You learn more about it and you fall deeper and deeper into it"
Emily Lam-Ho
Building a Better Future
What she’s come to realise is that more people than we think are intimidated by the word sustainability, much in the way that people get thrown off by the word feminist. “You’re either zero or 100 percent. You’re either sustainable or you’re not sustainable. ‘Oh Emily is in sustainability and therefore she has to be vegan and zero-waste.’ I still eat meat, I’m not vegan,” she says. “I feel like there’s a lot of in-between. And for me, it’s all about starting small. For you, it might be that you want to start your sustainability journey because you care about animals and therefore you want to eat less meat. For others, it might be other reasons. Living sustainably should be easy, light-hearted and non-judgmental.”
Ever since Covid, Lam-Ho – like many of us – has become more conscious about health and wellbeing, taking time to step back and think about what really is important in our lives. Sustainability and empowerment clearly are her forte, and in this time of crisis it’s propelled her to think about her next venture.
8Shades is her next big idea, a venture she talks about in public for the first time during this interview. It’s set to launch very soon and is a project that naturally connects all the dots for Lam-Ho. “I wanted to create a platform that can ease people into sustainability, because even though I’m already into sustainability, there’s still so much that I need to learn.”
Lam-Ho came up with the name 8Shades to represent how everyone can adopt a different shade – from light to dark green – on their sustainability journey. “There’s no right or wrong way to be sustainable. Carpooling helps. Cutting down on meat consumption helps. Using a reusable water bottle helps. Sorting out your recycling helps. Every little thing helps. Each little change can make a huge difference if it’s multiplied by a million times,” she says.
When 8Shades launches, we can expect to follow Lam-Ho as she goes through her personal journey, as well as tune in to other contributors to watch their progress. “Sometimes it’s very hard to convey the concept of sustainability to the public, no matter how willing people are to learn. I personally have that problem too, and I understand people’s frustration sometimes, because they feel like they’re so unempowered that they can’t do anything,” says Lam-Ho.
“But there are such simple steps that you can follow, understand and grasp to become more sustainable. I’m here to share my lifestyle because that’s what I’m doing too. This is what I’m learning, this is what I’m doing. I’m going to talk about sustainability and beauty, about sustainability and lifestyle, sustainability and food.”
Lam-Ho doesn’t seem to realise this yet, but she’s born to become an educator, in a way fulfilling her childhood dreams of becoming a teacher. Due to the many hats she wears and the roles she juggles, it all comes back to two common themes: education and empowerment, be it through her work in sustainability and environmental protection, or equally in her work to empower women, the young and the underprivileged.
She already recognises her influence on her young children. “I was so proud when my son walked over to a friend of ours who was using a plastic bottle and told him, ‘Uncle, why are you using a plastic water bottle? It’s not good for you.’ And at a school interview, one of the projects my son had to do was talk about his passions. He’s only five, but he’s grasped all the environmental concepts I’ve told him before. He explained the entire recycling system we had at home. I just told him to speak from his heart, everything that mommy taught him. I almost cried, because that was when I felt as if I’ve impacted his life. At the end of the day, this was all for him.”
To lead by example sometimes really is the best way to spread the word.
CREDITS:
COMMISSIONING ART DIRECTIOR SEPFRY NG
PHOTOGRAPHY KAON
CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING ANSON LAU
MAKE-UP GARY CHUNG
HAIR LORRAINE LAM AT HAIR CULTURE
BACKSETTING R WORKSHOP
SET PAINTER YUK@R WORKSHOP
ALL OUTFITS GIORGIO ARMANI
JEWELLERY CHAUMET
The post All of Em: Emily Lam-Ho on Giving Back and her Next Big Venture appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.
All of Em: Emily Lam-Ho on Giving Back and her Next Big Venture
Emily Lam-Ho is many things: a mother of two, a champion of sustainability and a mentor to women everywhere. She opens up about why she feels so strongly about giving back, and her next venture to build an even better future for generations to come.
We’re interviewing Emily Lam-Ho in unusual times. If things had any semblance of normality, interviews with our cover personalities would typically take place in perhaps their favourite restaurant or hotel, or a private club over sips of coffee, or snuck in between takes during photoshoots, over the din of moving sets as their stylists touched up their hair and makeup. But as yet another wave of Covid-19 surged over our heads, we peered at Lam-Ho across our laptop screen as she peered back at us, quietly hunched over a child’s chair in what’s clearly her son’s bedroom.
She starts with an apology: “Can you hear me now? Sorry I’m in my son’s room because this is the only computer with Skype installed.”
At one point, her son barges in; gently and firmly she ushers him out. Moments later he charges back in, this time with an entourage in tow. “This is the norm now,” she says wryly after marching the children out and closing the door behind them. “They walked into my board meeting the other day and everyone laughed. But everyone’s very understanding and sympathetic, especially after Covid, where everyone has to work from home. It’s really changed the setting.”
Neither rowdy kids nor coronavirus were going to get in the way of Lam-Ho’s mission to make the world a better place, however. In fact, she credits her two children as the reason for all that she does: “Having kids has magnified everything, all my values, everything that’s important to me by a million times.”
Why Emily Gives Back
She can trace it all back to college when she started volunteering. From building a school in Gambia – “My mother was very, very against it. If you ask her, I think she’s still a bit scarred,” she says – to running an orphanage in Grenada and working with Teach for China in Yunnan, Lam-Ho has always felt responsible for extending her help to others outside of her own privileged circle.
“When it comes to seeing something that’s so out of your ordinary world, it really changes your perspective on life and everything else. I wouldn’t say it shattered my world, but it certainly broadened it,” she says. “The world's big and there’s a lot of people out there who need help. And I think that was really my turning point in wanting to do something different and really make a difference.”
Lam-Ho now juggles her time between several ventures, all of which are aimed at empowering others and making the world a more sustainable place. Tycoon Peter Lam may be her father, but it’s the last thing Lam-Ho wants to talk about. She sounds almost exasperated as she says, “Sustainability doesn’t even have anything to do with my father’s businesses.”
“I have to work harder than everyone else – I want to prove that I’m there because of my own merits, not because of anything else. And it’s a challenge I sometimes still face, that the credit I’m due is sometimes given to my family or other people, when in fact it’s been my own hard work. It’s a misconception that many people have.” She pauses for a moment and adds, “It’s something that never leaves you – it’s a double-edged sword in some ways.”
Emily Lam-Ho on Empowering Women
In 2018, Lam-Ho launched Empact28, an investment company that provides funding for women entrepreneurs and corporations that are making a positive impact on social and environmental issues. Empact28 is a portmanteau word of “impact” and her name “Em”, and the 28 is a nod to the early-stage venture capital company S28, which her husband Kent Ho started.
Empowering women is a cause dear to Lam-Ho’s heart, who personally feels that it was the women around her who shaped her to become the strong leader she is today. “I’m lucky in the sense that every single boss that I’ve had since I graduated has been a really strong woman mentor,” she says.
Her first boss was Alice Mong, who’s currently executive director of the Asia Society Hong Kong. “She really showed me from the beginning what very strong female leadership looked like and she had a big impact on me,” says Lam-Ho. She first met Mong while she was a student at USC, and the latter in Committee 100, a non-profit organisation founded by architect IM Pei and cellist Yo-Yo Ma as a bridge between the US and China. Following her internship, Lam-Ho continued to work for Mong while she finished her Masters in Columbia. Back in Hong Kong, the pair remain good friends.
"It's very important to have good women mentors"
Emily Lam-Ho
Lam-Ho’s second boss was Helena Wai, who was head of corporate broking at CLSA and later vice-chairman. A woman of influence, Wai is now managing director at investment bank Jefferies. “She was very hard on me,” Lam-Ho recalls. “But she really taught me a lot of things that I needed to know about the market, about trading.”
“I think it’s very important to have good women mentors. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to support similar people with a similar mindset. I think a lot of people just really need a chance. Everyone needs a chance and everyone needs support, wherever they are in their business journey. Support is always nice, whatever direction it’s coming from,” says Lam-Ho.
Empact28 has invested in companies such as Thousand Fell, which has an end goal of producing zero-waste footwear; Yellow Leaf Hammocks trains women and mothers in impoverished communities in Thailand to weave hammocks from sustainable materials; and there’s also Dirty Labs, a cleaning-product company that uses cutting-edge bio enzymes and emerging green chemistry rather than harsh chemicals.
On Championing Sustainability
Lam-Ho has made commendable inroads in environmental protection in Hong Kong, too. She co-founded EcoDrive in 2018 alongside 11 women, self- starters, lawyers and entrepreneurs – but, most importantly, mothers – brought together by a shared concern over plastic pollution, and who all passionately want to make Hong Kong a better place for their children.
It had one simple mission: to promote an awareness and reduction of single-use plastics. Through community outreach, screenings, panel discussions and organised beach clean-ups, the 11 ladies encouraged people to start small for a great impact.
“I learned from EcoDrive that starting small is very important,” says Lam-Ho. “Every little bit counts. For example, if I’m completely zero-waste and vegan, but everyone else in my circle carries on as they are, that’s not going to make an impact. The collective impact is the most important. If everybody makes a little bit of change, a bit of adjustment in their life – I’m not asking you to completely change your lifestyle, just a slight change – you might then want to take another step.”
"Starting small is very important. Every little bit counts"
Emily Lam-Ho
And that’s why EcoDrive focuses solely on reducing single-use plastics. The group has been so successful in the past two years of campaigning that this year it’s launching its biggest project to date. In time for the festive season, EcoDrive is partnering with PinkFong!, the Korean company that’s brought the infuriatingly catchy children’s rhyme, “Baby Shark”, into our collective lives. The collaboration will result in a new music video aimed at reducing single-use plastic to the tune of “Baby Shark”, a particularly meaningful and educational project that Lam-Ho is extremely happy about. She hums the song in case we didn’t know it (believe me, we do) and says, “It’s actually their first cross-promotion with an NGO, so we’re very excited because the reach is going to be in the millions.”
The original “Baby Shark” song has now been played more than 7 billion times, and was recently crowned the most-watched-video ever on YouTube, surpassing the previous record held by “Despacito”, the pop smash hit by Luis Fonsi and Justin Bieber. The “Baby Shark” collaboration is poised to make a huge impact on the generation it needed to impress the most – the young.
“Every single kid loves that song. And every parent … if I hear it another time I might need a drink of wine,” she says with a laugh.
Throughout our conversation with Lam-Ho, she’s most animated when talking about collaborations, be it the PinkFong! and EcoDrive music video that’s about to break the internet, or an event she did with Chloe and Yellow Leaf Hammocks two years ago.
Her eyes light up as she recalls the party.
“They weaved leaf hammocks basically in the same colour scheme as Chloé’s spring/summer collection. We did a promotion on top of H Queen’s and it was great,” she says. “It was supporting a fashion brand that I love and also working with a company I support as a social enterprise, which helps women in real time and gives them work.
“I love cross-promotions. I think it’s so important that everyone supports each other. And I love connecting people together. I love matchmaking, whether it’s with friends or whether it’s with companies,” she continues.
EcoDrive, for all its great causes, is somewhat limiting, its sole focus being on reducing single uses for plastic. But for Lam-Ho, there was so much more in the realm of sustainability where she wanted to do good. “Sustainability is like a rabbit hole, right? You learn more about it and you fall deeper and deeper into it,” she says.
"Sustainability is like a rabbit hole. You learn more about it and you fall deeper and deeper into it"
Emily Lam-Ho
Building a Better Future
What she’s come to realise is that more people than we think are intimidated by the word sustainability, much in the way that people get thrown off by the word feminist. “You’re either zero or 100 percent. You’re either sustainable or you’re not sustainable. ‘Oh Emily is in sustainability and therefore she has to be vegan and zero-waste.’ I still eat meat, I’m not vegan,” she says. “I feel like there’s a lot of in-between. And for me, it’s all about starting small. For you, it might be that you want to start your sustainability journey because you care about animals and therefore you want to eat less meat. For others, it might be other reasons. Living sustainably should be easy, light-hearted and non-judgmental.”
Ever since Covid, Lam-Ho – like many of us – has become more conscious about health and wellbeing, taking time to step back and think about what really is important in our lives. Sustainability and empowerment clearly are her forte, and in this time of crisis it’s propelled her to think about her next venture.
8Shades is her next big idea, a venture she talks about in public for the first time during this interview. It’s set to launch very soon and is a project that naturally connects all the dots for Lam-Ho. “I wanted to create a platform that can ease people into sustainability, because even though I’m already into sustainability, there’s still so much that I need to learn.”
Lam-Ho came up with the name 8Shades to represent how everyone can adopt a different shade – from light to dark green – on their sustainability journey. “There’s no right or wrong way to be sustainable. Carpooling helps. Cutting down on meat consumption helps. Using a reusable water bottle helps. Sorting out your recycling helps. Every little thing helps. Each little change can make a huge difference if it’s multiplied by a million times,” she says.
When 8Shades launches, we can expect to follow Lam-Ho as she goes through her personal journey, as well as tune in to other contributors to watch their progress. “Sometimes it’s very hard to convey the concept of sustainability to the public, no matter how willing people are to learn. I personally have that problem too, and I understand people’s frustration sometimes, because they feel like they’re so unempowered that they can’t do anything,” says Lam-Ho.
“But there are such simple steps that you can follow, understand and grasp to become more sustainable. I’m here to share my lifestyle because that’s what I’m doing too. This is what I’m learning, this is what I’m doing. I’m going to talk about sustainability and beauty, about sustainability and lifestyle, sustainability and food.”
Lam-Ho doesn’t seem to realise this yet, but she’s born to become an educator, in a way fulfilling her childhood dreams of becoming a teacher. Due to the many hats she wears and the roles she juggles, it all comes back to two common themes: education and empowerment, be it through her work in sustainability and environmental protection, or equally in her work to empower women, the young and the underprivileged.
She already recognises her influence on her young children. “I was so proud when my son walked over to a friend of ours who was using a plastic bottle and told him, ‘Uncle, why are you using a plastic water bottle? It’s not good for you.’ And at a school interview, one of the projects my son had to do was talk about his passions. He’s only five, but he’s grasped all the environmental concepts I’ve told him before. He explained the entire recycling system we had at home. I just told him to speak from his heart, everything that mommy taught him. I almost cried, because that was when I felt as if I’ve impacted his life. At the end of the day, this was all for him.”
To lead by example sometimes really is the best way to spread the word.
CREDITS:
COMMISSIONING ART DIRECTIOR SEPFRY NG
PHOTOGRAPHY KAON
CREATIVE DIRECTION & STYLING ANSON LAU
MAKE-UP GARY CHUNG
HAIR LORRAINE LAM AT HAIR CULTURE
BACKSETTING R WORKSHOP
SET PAINTER YUK@R WORKSHOP
ALL OUTFITS GIORGIO ARMANI
JEWELLERY CHAUMET
The post All of Em: Emily Lam-Ho on Giving Back and her Next Big Venture appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.
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