Kawai Wong (born Wong Ka Wai (黃家惠) ; 4 February 1986) is a magazine editor, writer and fashion stylist. She started her Hong Kong journalism career with

Time Out Hong Kong ''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide. In 2012, the London edition becam ...

in 2010 and went on to edit the Shopping & Style section. Wong helped to re-invent the section by adding new regular fixtures such as Things We Love About... and Style Agenda. Her notable works include a one-on-one interview with Tom Ford in 2011 and a six-hour interview with the "King of Asian Pop" Eason Chan in 2012. Wong also contributed to the official website of Hong Kong Tourism Board and translated articles for the arts webzine City Reborn. She had worked with Sasha Slater at

London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

and

Hilary Alexander Hilary Alexander (5 February 1946 – 5 February 2023) was a New Zealand-born British journalist and past fashion director of the '' Daily Telegraph''. She was twice named Journalist of the Year (1997 and 2003) in the British Fashion Awards. ...

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

. Wanderlister+ dubbed Wong a "tough as nail interviewer" in 2012.

Early life and background

Wong was born in Hong Kong and was educated at New Territories Heung Yee Kuk Yuen Long District Secondary School. She was briefly exchanged to Singapore's Zhonghua Secondary School in 2000. After spending a year as the chairperson of her Hong Kong school's Student Association, Wong won a scholarship to study in the UK before reading

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

. She became the

fashion editor A fashion editor is a person that supervises the process of creating, developing and presenting content for the fashion department of a magazine, Web site, newspaper or television program. The work of a fashion editor can be quite varied and may h ...

of the college's weekly newspaper

Felix Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...

, where she creative directed a fashion photoshoot in association with

Oxfam Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. History Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...

and Toni&Guy. She also interviewed Bruce Pask (of

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

T Magazine), Harold Tillman and

for the student newspaper. Wong was the editor of the college's annual arts magazine, Phoenix.

Career

At Time Out Hong Kong, Wong interviewed fashion figures Tom Ford, Victoria Beckham, Anna Dello Russo,

Gareth Pugh Gareth Pugh (born 31 August 1981) is an English fashion designer"Gareth Pugh: Fashion Designer."

, Henry Holland,

Richard Nicoll Richard Philip Nicoll (15 September 197721 October 2016) was an English fashion designer, best known for his work on modernist classics with the coined term "night-to-day" versatility. Nicoll was awarded three Association Nationale pour le Dé ...

, Christian Audigier, Georgina Goodman, Kevin Carrigan, as well as helping to expand the Made in Hong Kong section to put hitherto little known design talents on the Hong Kong media map. Wong was the first in the English media to write feature length articles about Hong Kong fashion icon Joey Ma and fashion designer Singchin Lo of Plotz. Wong also pioneered new fixtures in the magazine, including Things We Love About... and Style Agenda. Wong creative directed fashion shoots involving notable Chinese celebrities including Sammi Cheng, Wyman Wong and Eason Chan. Apart from entertainment and fashion related works, Wong also participates in cultural and political writing. In 2010, Wong interviewed comic artist

Lau Wan Kit Lau Wan-kit (, born on July 19, 1966), also known as Jeffrey Lau, is a comic artist from Hong Kong. Lau joined the comics business field as a comics assistant in 1985, and became an artist in 1988 with his first work "Anti-ROCK" in ''Comics For ...

about his top-selling pop-up book. In 2011, Wong wrote an article documenting the verbal gaffes of Henry Tang, one of the three candidates running for the

2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election The 2012 Hong Kong Chief Executive election was held on 25 March 2012 to select the Chief Executive of Hong Kong (CE), the highest office in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), by a 1,193-member Election Committee (EC) to replac ...

. Political blog Biglychee dubbed the writing "hilarious". In 2012, Wong mediated a question and answer session with celebrity jeweller Stephen Webster at

Liberatum Liberatum is an international cultural diplomacy organisation, multimedia and cultural content company founded by Pablo Ganguli in 2001. It creates and presents multidisciplinary artistic platforms and promotes contemporary arts, film, media, ...

Hong Kong. Wong has also interviewed

Pablo Ganguli Pablo Ganguli is an entrepreneur, artist, producer, director and impresario who has created and directed several international festivals, movements and summits of arts, literature, media, film, fashion and culture, through his organisation Libe ...

, editorial director of Vogue China

Angelica Cheung Angelica Cheung (born April 24, 1966, in Beijing) is a Chinese fashion journalist and the founding editor-in-chief of ''Vogue China'', launching its first issue in 2005. Previously editorial director of ''Elle China'' and editor-in-chief of ''Ma ...

amongst many other social/cultural figures.

Tom Ford

Wong's Time Out interview with Tom Ford in 2011 was reprinted in Dubai, Beirut, Beijing, Amsterdam and London. The interview courted internet controversy, leading to a widespread online debate . The interview was discussed on

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

, Huffington Post and many other online media outlets.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wong, Kawai 1986 births Living people Fashion stylists Chinese fashion journalists Alumni of Imperial College London Hong Kong journalists Hong Kong women journalists Chinese journalists 21st-century Chinese journalists 21st-century Chinese women journalists