Photographic Memories of a Fashion Trip: Ken Scott and Yves St. Laurent in the Far East

Libera brings European Fashion to Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia, 1974

Last week, I welcomed you to the world of Mei-Ling Chan, a Chinese Singaporean model and fashion-coordinator who, as I wrote, occupied “a role in the early globalization of fashion as an intermediary—a cultural connector jumping between worlds, translating the East to the West and the West to the East.” Whether planning and hosting fashion shows for European and American brands at the Hong Kong Hilton in the early 1960s, modeling for Hong Kong brands in the American Midwest in the mid-60s, posing for Emilio Pucci and other designers in Europe at the end of the decade, or coordinating transcontinental fashion tours across Asia throughout the Seventies, her work was about translating fashion across cultures.

Mei Ling Chan at the Eagle’s Nest, Hong Kong Hilton, 1965. Photo by Henry Talbot.

My first exposure to Mei-Ling was through this editorial in the July 1975 issue of Libera, which I’ve described previously as the “Italian Viva.” Chan, with sponsorships from Thai Burin Singapore Airlines, Revlon, BR Makeup of Bangkok, and the Hilton and Hyatt Hotel groups, organized a tour of the spring/summer 1975 collections of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche and Ken Scott across Asia—and invited Libera to tag along too. Libera sent socialite and wife of architect Piero Sartogo, Adriana Sartogo, to act as dual writer and fashion editor, with Cristina Ghergo as photographer. After Mei-Ling hosted designer Ken Scott for a fashion show luncheon at the Eagle’s Nest at the Hong Kong Hilton, she and the Libera team headed out on an adventure across the Far East. The Libera team photographed on location—first around the harbor in Hong Kong, then on Bali beaches and by Thai temples—with Chan hosting fashion shows at all of these locations. Two white models and one Chinese model accompanied the team, with Mei-Ling also appearing in two fashion photographs. I wish I could find out more about the trip itself and how it came about, but there is no mention of this trip, Chan, or Sartogo in the 2018 biography of Libera publisher Adelina Tattilo.

Libera, July 1975.