When the fashion designer Han Chong, 43, was growing up on the Malaysian island of Penang in the 1980s, he always looked forward to the 15 days of festivities, beginning in January or February, that signaled the start of the lunar calendar. “Those are some of my happiest memories,” he said recently, recalling how his extended family would congregate in and around his father’s store in George Town — which sold Chinese delicacies like lap cheong (cured sausage) and dried pork jerky — to gossip, cook, eat, exchange lai see (red envelopes containing money) and watch the local lion-dance troupes perform. Seeing his mother and aunts wearing their finest clothes for the occasion also piqued Chong’s interest in fashion. “I loved watching them put so much effort into dressing up,” he said.
At 23, Chong moved to London to study women’s wear at Central Saint Martins; after graduating, he went on to co-found his first label, Three Floor, with Yvonne Hoang, in 2011, before leaving to launch his own brand, Self Portrait, in 2013. In the decade since, Chong’s polished, ultrafeminine designs — in particular his dresses, which often feature delicate detailing such as broderie anglaise and skin-baring cutouts — have earned the label fans including Beyoncé, Selena Gomez and Michelle Obama. “Our clothes let women feel like themselves,” Chong said of his approach to fashion. The brand’s revenue has doubled year over year since 2020, when Chong shifted his focus to Asia, eventually opening 41 stores in the region. It has also diversified: Chong recently added a children’s line, a range of handbags and a bridal collection to the mix. Last year, he purchased the intellectual property and assets of the designer Roland Mouret’s namesake brand — founded in 1998 and known for its form-fitting evening dresses — relaunching the company with Mouret as creative director.
In the 20 years since he left Malaysia, Chong has been eager to keep up the traditions of his childhood. And so, on a recent Saturday evening, he gathered friends at the five-floor Brutalist townhouse he shares with his partner, the architect Andreas Kostopoulos, in East London for an early Lunar New Year celebration. Wanting to bring a taste of his home country to the occasion, he enlisted the Malaysian Chinese chef Ping Coombes — who won the BBC cooking show “Master Chef UK” in 2014 and went on to launch her own supper club and cookery school — to create a special banquet for the evening. His guests included the fashion journalist Susanna Lau and her two children, Nico, 6, and Casper, 3 months; Lau’s partner, the record label owner Jaimie Hodgson; Tiffany Hsu, the fashion buying director of Mytheresa.com and her husband, the artist William Streng; the composer and pianist Rosey Chan; the model Eliza Rutson Pang; and the fashion designers Steven Ma, Soohee Park and Robert Wun.
