William Cheung Suk Ping - Costume Designer
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goosemaster
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wow!
very nice Tung. thanks. Cool mag covers!
very nice Tung. thanks. Cool mag covers!
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From the International Herald Tribune:
By design, he remains behind-the-scenes star
By Alexandra A. Seno International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2006
HONG KONG Who can forget the late Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing in 1990's "Days of Being Wild"? Cheung struts through one of the best films ever made in Hong Kong, achingly handsome as a 1960s cad, hair slicked back, knit sports shirt tucked into his high-waist belted trousers, looking just so cool, and just too dangerous.
For this and other memorable films by the Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, much credit must go to William Chang Suk-ping. With a reputation in the industry as a shy and quiet genius who almost always declines to speak to the press about himself, Chang is best known as Wong's frequent collaborator - as art director, costume designer and editor.
"Editing is about proportion, rhythm," he said in a rare interview. On his career as Hong Kong's most brilliant art director-costume designer, he said simply that he begins by asking: "What is the ambience?" Chang, whose soft-spoken manner belies his firm opinions about many things, creates worlds as he thinks they should seem: just the right interiors in which he can see the actors, wearing just the right clothes.
China's master of ambience created the look of Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, in figure-hugging vintage cheongsam and high hair, negotiating the mournful distance between her character's Hong Kong tenement and the neighborhood food stall for the 2000 Wong opus, "In the Mood for Love." This year, as Wong's first English-language feature, "The Lady from Shanghai," begins shooting, Chang will pour Nicole Kidman into his film noir vision of the "Paris of the East" in its heyday.
"Actually, I don't like period that much, but I can do it," he said with a laugh. His secrets: research on eBay and watching old films on local television and the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. For ideas, he said, "I just walk around, watch TV, just live and let things come." He doesn't think his work has a signature, saying, "If you can tell that it is mine, then I should stop. Each time, I have to have moved on."
True enough, there is not a vintage cheongsam in sight in a Wilson Yip Wai-sun action film scheduled for cinemas this summer called "Dragon Tiger Gate," based on a famous kung fu comic book. As the project's "stylist consultant," Chang created 1970s-inspired "very street" costumes and hairstyles and makeup for the main characters, played by the martial arts star Donnie Yen and the Hong Kong actors Nicholas Tse Ting-fung and Shawn Yue. Chang designed the looks based on his interpretation of "Chinese modern" against the set's abundance of monks, temples and modern cars.
His ability to conjure up the feeling of times past may win rave reviews internationally, but Chang said he probably enjoys contemporary work more.
In addition to films, Chang is also much sought in the advertising world, anonymously directing the aesthetics of several popular campaigns for mass brands like SK II skin care.
Chang also works extensively as an interior designer, in private residences and commercial spaces. He recently created a very modern foreign teachers' dormitory at Guangdong's Shantou University for Li Ka-shing, whom Forbes calls Asia's richest businessman, and he's currently working on an urban spa in the heart of Hong Kong's business district.
Even when Chang is shooting a film, he has non-cinema projects under way.
Maggie Cheung said: "William is a supersensitive, supertalented person. He has eyes that see things sharper. Because of this, Wong Kar-wai films would not be what they are without William."
Chang is near-obsessive in his attention to detail. In "Days of Being Wild," for instance, he made the stars don era-appropriate underwear, which explains the visible panty lines on the actresses. His job is to help the actors create "real" characters and scenes, he said.
By the time he was 14, Chang had seen enough movies to know that he wanted to make films. He adored classic cinema from Europe and the Chinese-speaking world. In the early 1970s, by sheer determination, he wrangled an introduction to the groundbreaking female director Cecile Tang Shu-shuen and got crew work on her set. Chang's father, who owned warehouses in Hong Kong, finally agreed to pay for film school in Vancouver but said, "Don't tell our relatives." His formal education completed, Chang returned to Hong Kong in 1976 and by the 1990s had clearly established an astonishing career.
Despite many offers over the years both in Asia and from Hollywood, Chang has turned down movie projects that he thinks are "too big." He is only half joking when he says, "So many people, so many horses, so many props. Forget it. Too much work. And then the shoot is so far away where it's too cold. I'm too old."
Aside from being extremely busy and extremely private, Chang, 52, rarely gives interviews because he thinks he is just repeating himself. "I haven't changed. Inside I keep the same passion for films," he said in the same understated style with which he seems to live his life.
At home, he said, his entire personal wardrobe consists of T-shirts, four pairs of jeans and four jackets, including the neon-yellow windbreaker he was wearing. He owns only two pairs of footwear at any given time: a pair of sports shoes that he uses until they fall apart, and a pair of black leather ones - he smiled broadly - "for film festivals." While all cameras are on Wong and the actors, often he is there, walking anonymously down the red carpet.
"I don't like fashion. It's transitory," he said. Nevertheless, in the consciousness of those who have seen his work, the images and ambience he has created in Hong Kong films live long, indelible.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/05/style/fmlede6.php
By design, he remains behind-the-scenes star
By Alexandra A. Seno International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 2006
HONG KONG Who can forget the late Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing in 1990's "Days of Being Wild"? Cheung struts through one of the best films ever made in Hong Kong, achingly handsome as a 1960s cad, hair slicked back, knit sports shirt tucked into his high-waist belted trousers, looking just so cool, and just too dangerous.
For this and other memorable films by the Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, much credit must go to William Chang Suk-ping. With a reputation in the industry as a shy and quiet genius who almost always declines to speak to the press about himself, Chang is best known as Wong's frequent collaborator - as art director, costume designer and editor.
"Editing is about proportion, rhythm," he said in a rare interview. On his career as Hong Kong's most brilliant art director-costume designer, he said simply that he begins by asking: "What is the ambience?" Chang, whose soft-spoken manner belies his firm opinions about many things, creates worlds as he thinks they should seem: just the right interiors in which he can see the actors, wearing just the right clothes.
China's master of ambience created the look of Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, in figure-hugging vintage cheongsam and high hair, negotiating the mournful distance between her character's Hong Kong tenement and the neighborhood food stall for the 2000 Wong opus, "In the Mood for Love." This year, as Wong's first English-language feature, "The Lady from Shanghai," begins shooting, Chang will pour Nicole Kidman into his film noir vision of the "Paris of the East" in its heyday.
"Actually, I don't like period that much, but I can do it," he said with a laugh. His secrets: research on eBay and watching old films on local television and the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. For ideas, he said, "I just walk around, watch TV, just live and let things come." He doesn't think his work has a signature, saying, "If you can tell that it is mine, then I should stop. Each time, I have to have moved on."
True enough, there is not a vintage cheongsam in sight in a Wilson Yip Wai-sun action film scheduled for cinemas this summer called "Dragon Tiger Gate," based on a famous kung fu comic book. As the project's "stylist consultant," Chang created 1970s-inspired "very street" costumes and hairstyles and makeup for the main characters, played by the martial arts star Donnie Yen and the Hong Kong actors Nicholas Tse Ting-fung and Shawn Yue. Chang designed the looks based on his interpretation of "Chinese modern" against the set's abundance of monks, temples and modern cars.
His ability to conjure up the feeling of times past may win rave reviews internationally, but Chang said he probably enjoys contemporary work more.
In addition to films, Chang is also much sought in the advertising world, anonymously directing the aesthetics of several popular campaigns for mass brands like SK II skin care.
Chang also works extensively as an interior designer, in private residences and commercial spaces. He recently created a very modern foreign teachers' dormitory at Guangdong's Shantou University for Li Ka-shing, whom Forbes calls Asia's richest businessman, and he's currently working on an urban spa in the heart of Hong Kong's business district.
Even when Chang is shooting a film, he has non-cinema projects under way.
Maggie Cheung said: "William is a supersensitive, supertalented person. He has eyes that see things sharper. Because of this, Wong Kar-wai films would not be what they are without William."
Chang is near-obsessive in his attention to detail. In "Days of Being Wild," for instance, he made the stars don era-appropriate underwear, which explains the visible panty lines on the actresses. His job is to help the actors create "real" characters and scenes, he said.
By the time he was 14, Chang had seen enough movies to know that he wanted to make films. He adored classic cinema from Europe and the Chinese-speaking world. In the early 1970s, by sheer determination, he wrangled an introduction to the groundbreaking female director Cecile Tang Shu-shuen and got crew work on her set. Chang's father, who owned warehouses in Hong Kong, finally agreed to pay for film school in Vancouver but said, "Don't tell our relatives." His formal education completed, Chang returned to Hong Kong in 1976 and by the 1990s had clearly established an astonishing career.
Despite many offers over the years both in Asia and from Hollywood, Chang has turned down movie projects that he thinks are "too big." He is only half joking when he says, "So many people, so many horses, so many props. Forget it. Too much work. And then the shoot is so far away where it's too cold. I'm too old."
Aside from being extremely busy and extremely private, Chang, 52, rarely gives interviews because he thinks he is just repeating himself. "I haven't changed. Inside I keep the same passion for films," he said in the same understated style with which he seems to live his life.
At home, he said, his entire personal wardrobe consists of T-shirts, four pairs of jeans and four jackets, including the neon-yellow windbreaker he was wearing. He owns only two pairs of footwear at any given time: a pair of sports shoes that he uses until they fall apart, and a pair of black leather ones - he smiled broadly - "for film festivals." While all cameras are on Wong and the actors, often he is there, walking anonymously down the red carpet.
"I don't like fashion. It's transitory," he said. Nevertheless, in the consciousness of those who have seen his work, the images and ambience he has created in Hong Kong films live long, indelible.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/05/style/fmlede6.php
I read an interview with the Shanghainese tailor who worked for him, an old guy, and I remember he said the most important thing, if you ever go to a tailor for the cheongsum, is to make sure that the curve of the back hugs your body perfectly. If it's a poor fit there, it isn't worth paying a lot for. 
Also, the material used in the costumes In the Mood for Love is really considered "cheap" materials (not embroidered silks), but because he has an eye for it, it looks supercool instead.
Also, the material used in the costumes In the Mood for Love is really considered "cheap" materials (not embroidered silks), but because he has an eye for it, it looks supercool instead.BellaStyle
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awesome stuff!
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