Behind the scenes at Pacific Place's Whimsical Gallop

3 days ago
3 min read

The popular mall has transformed into a pastel wonderland of giant horses and floral blooms for Chinese New Year. Carolynne Dear caught up with the artists behind the decorations

Whimsical Gallop at Pacific Place - the display is open until the beginning of March

Pacific Place is renowned for its stunning decorations, both over the Christmas season and then again, just a few weeks later, for Chinese New Year.

This year, the giant Christmas Grand Central installation has swiftly made way for Whimsical Gallop, a very different presentation to usher in the year of the fire horse. The new display comprises a Spring Bloom Gallop pavilion in the Garden Court, with three horses placed around a five-metre gazebo house, a further floral display in the centre of the mall focused around an AI fai chun booth, and a dramatic three-and-a-half metre horse poised in mid-gallop at the mall entrance at Park Court.

But at the heart of the celebration are the painstakingly embroidered creations of Hong Kong atelier, YLYstudio. Studio directors Lilian Tsang and Matt Hui put in a massive 1,000 hours of work (“actually more, we just stopped counting at 1,000,” admits Matt) to create almost 600 embroidered ornaments to embellish the leaping horses, using thousands of sequins, threads and ribbons sourced from all over the world.

Whimsical Gallop at Pacific Place - local designers Lilian Tsang and Matt Hui are the creatives behind the project

The embroidery pieces use auspicious motifs created by Tsang and Hui, who have attempted to marry Chinese and western beliefs. Lucky Chinese imagery such as clouds and blossoms are mixed with western-style lucky charms like four leaf clovers, ladybirds and coins. Every stitch carries blessings into the new year and each of the eight designs can be viewed with a detailed description inside the gazebo house in the Garden Court.

The pair were first approached by the project team charged with creating the Pacific Place Chinese New Year display in September last year and started work in November, having first established how they were going to translate the ‘pink, whimsical’ brief into embroidery. They say one of the biggest challenges was ensuring the materials required were sourced and delivered on time. Silk organza is the base of every piece and then they required beading, threads, sequins, ribbons and more from countries including Japan, China and France.

The pair met several years ago at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where they were studying for fashion design degrees. Tsang was particularly interested in embroidery and beading and went on to study with Chanel in Paris, producing exquisite embroidery for designer clothing. Meanwhile, Hui went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London before working for Pringle in Scotland and Shanghai Tang back in Hong Kong. He is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Hong Kong. Together they launched fashion label YLYstudio in 2017 and also run workshops in needlework and embroidery. Previous students stepped up for the Pacific Place project, helping with some of the workload.

Whimsical Gallop at Pacific Place - the embroidery designs are displayed in the gazebo house

“It’s been a huge experience,” says Tsang. “The scale of this project is the biggest we’ve ever attempted.”

Both admit to feeling “pretty amazing” when their work was finally incorporated into the display. “We literally saw it all for the first time hours before the media launch,” explains Hui. The embroidery is indeed stunning and adds depth to the pastel parade of horses and blooms.

When pressed about the next project, they say they'll be taking a little time out first. “We’ll be putting our needles away for a little while now,” says Hui.

With Chinese New Year just around the corner, they certainly deserve the break.

Whimsical Gallop, until March 3; live tap and jazz performances, 3.30pm, February 14 and 21; Lion Dance Parade, 1pm, February 23; Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong.