Tai Ping - An Artisan Tradition Since 1956

TAI PING PING

An An Artisan Artisan Tradition Tradition Since 1956 1956 Since

Tai Ping: An Artisan Tradition Since 1956

Tai Ping: An Artisan Tradition Since 1956

First edition published by Tai Ping Carpets, November 2019 (Hong Kong) Copyright © Tai Ping Carpets, 2019. All rights reserved.

Editor: Amelia Allsop Front cover design: Sarah Macartney Printing: Point Print Company Ltd. Published in Hong Kong ISBN: 978-988-74283-0-5 taipingcarpets.com edwardfields.com manufacturecogolin.com

contents Preface Chairman’s Introduction Chapter 1: Before Tai Ping Chapter 2: The Birth of a Brand Chapter 3: Making Strides at Home and Abroad Chapter 4: Growth and Diversification Chapter 5: From Hong Kong to China Chapter 6: Handmade Luxury for All The Artistry of Custom Rugs A Celebrated Archive Afterword from the CEO Appendix Acknowledgements

1 2 5 37 73 117 149 169 213 222 225 226 227

PREFACE Tai Ping Carpets was founded by my father Lord Lawrence Kadoorie and uncle Sir Horace Kadoorie along with a group of their friends in 1956. The company was forged in a Hong Kong that would be unrecognisable today. They were a generation who had endured the trauma of war and were then tasked with the post-war challenge of re-building the city.

Thus, the company was born in a difficult environment, but with the noble aims of providing employment to migrants and stimulating the development of industry in Hong Kong.

It is therefore a tribute both to the founders for their vision and to Tai Ping personnel for their talent and resilience that the company continues to flourish as leader in its sector over 60 years later.

The Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie

In the Preface to Tai Ping’s 1987 publication ‘Magic Carpets’ my father wrote, with typical modesty:

‘None of us had any ideas on manufacturing carpets, yet we went ahead, we embarked on this venture, and now we have the finest handmade carpet company in the world. It all began in a complete state of ignorance.’

My Family is proud to have been associated with Tai Ping since its inception and to have witnessed its successful evolution over the years.

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CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION The story of Tai Ping is not only that of an individual company, but it also reflects the extraordinary changes and development of Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region since the Second World War, and in particular of course the dramatic rise of China from the latter part of the twentieth century.

The company was founded in 1956 in a Hong Kong that had only just recovered from the trauma of the Japanese occupation of 1941 - 45. The population was surging due to immigration, and industrialisation was starting to take off.

Nicholas Colfer

Tai Ping was born out of the influx of labour from China and the need to create jobs for the rapidly increasing population.

In this way, it was a leader in Hong Kong’s industrialisation process which developed such momentum from the early 1960s.

Its Tai Po factory was one of the first industries in the otherwise rural New Territories, providing much-needed employment in the area.

Tai Ping rapidly established a unique position and reputation globally in the carpet world as leader in quality and workmanship, becoming the supplier of choice even for royalty and presidents, including Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, the White House, Élysée Palace, the King of

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Thailand and the Sultan of Brunei. The Tai Po factory was a must-visit destination for visitors to Hong Kong, and it welcomed many celebrities in its time.

In the 1960s and 70s Tai Ping expanded in Asia, with factories in the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. And, embracing industrialisation in Asia, it also diversified into other products, including luggage, ladies’ wear and packaging – largely unsuccessfully!

However, in the 1970s and 80s it successfully rode the property boom in Hong Kong as an investor and developer.

In the 1990s the company embraced the opening of China and like other Hong Kong industries migrated its manufacturing base to Guangdong Province, operating there successfully for 25 years. However, it also made investments in other China manufacturing ventures, which proved disastrous and brought the company close to bankruptcy.

It overcame this crisis, refocusing on its core competence, and as the twenty-first century dawned its premium quality reputation enabled it to expand globally, consolidating its leading position in the field.

Most recently, in 2017, Tai Ping took a very significant step to refocus on its original handmade Artisan carpet roots. It transferred all of its machine-made carpet operations to its ‘cousin company’ in Thailand, which it had established together with the Srivikorn Family in 1967.

Supported by a new state-of-the-art ‘Artisan Workshop’ in Xiamen and sales operations around the world, Tai Ping is therefore uniquely positioned as the global leader in its sector.

Thus, the story of Tai Ping is both an inspiring tale of an individual company’s innovation, flexibility and resilience in overcoming its various challenges to develop successfully over the past 60 plus years.

And it also mirrors the development and industrialisation of Asia during that period.

The success of Tai Ping is a testament to all those who have been and are associated with the company, and they are honoured and proud to have had the privilege of this association.

On behalf of the Board, I should like to thank all staff, customers and designers, past and present, for their support over the years, which has made Tai Ping the success it is today.

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Queen’s Road, Hong Kong, 1860s

before tai ping Lawrence Kadoorie

Bonham Strand, Hong Kong, 1860s Previous page (overleaf): a view of Central and Victoria Harbour from near Flagstaff House, 1870s

Hard work and good fortune have brought us back to the position which we now enjoy, our greatest pleasure being that we have been able to assist some of the less fortunate of our friends who have known better days.’

Previous page: a panoramic view of the Victoria Harbour Left: an ornately decorated Parsee house on Lyndhurst Terrace Above: the Hong Kong waterfront, known as the Praya, showing the offices of Jardine Matheson & Co., 1860s

Tai Ping carpets was founded in Hong Kong in 1956 amidst a period of tremendous global upheaval: in the aftermath of war, against the backdrop of global mass population movements and the shifting identities of entrepôt trading cities to manufacturing bases. To understand Tai Ping is to understand the history of Hong Kong, home to fishermen and villagers who traded in pearls, salt and fish long before the arrival of the British. Hong Kong Island was ceded by the Qing dynasty to Great Britain ‘in perpetuity’ under the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, a result of its defeat in the First Opium War. In 1860 the Kowloon Peninsula, consisting of eight square miles, was ceded to Britain under the Convention of Peking. Nearly 40 years later the New Territories, adjacent to Kowloon and demarcated by Boundary Street, was

leased to Britain for 99 years in 1898.

Over time Hong Kong became a booming port and thriving metropolis. As a centre of entrepôt trade with China, it attracted a multi-cultural, diverse population keen to trade under the auspices and legal protection of the British Empire. It became home to a Chinese merchant class from Canton, the Portuguese from Macau, American, French and German traders, British civil servants, Parsees, Armenians, Sikhs and Muslims from India, Eurasians, who often acted as compradors, as well as Baghdadi Jews from Iraq, India and China.

Chinese refugees also sought refuge in Hong Kong during the upheavals of the Tai Ping Rebellion (1851-1864), the republican revolution of 1911, the Sino-Japanese War and later, the Chinese Civil War of the 1940s and turmoil of the 1950s.

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One of the most prominent families at the centre of this colonial melting pot was the Kadoorie Family - Baghdadi Jews who followed in the footsteps of the Sassoons to tread the well-worn Silk Road from Baghdad to Bombay in India, then on to China’s treaty ports, and eventually to Hong Kong in 1880.

They became naturalised British citizens and joined a small coterie of Baghdadi families, including the Sassoons, the Gubbays and the Somechs, who started out in the brokerage business before expanding into a diverse array of commercial interests, including natural resources (in particular rubber), utilities, property, construction, manufacturing and tourism in the port cities

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of Shanghai and Hong Kong. It was Elly Kadoorie (later Sir), founder of this business dynasty and father to Lawrence Kadoorie (later Lord) and Horace Kadoorie (later Sir), who first arrived in the British colony. He was followed by his brother Ellis Kadoorie (later Sir), who joined him in 1883. Together they made shrewd business investments in respected local companies such as China Light & Power (CLP) – the energy provider for Kowloon and the New Territories – and The Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels, owners of the world-famous Peninsula Hotels and the Peak Tram. As the brothers’ wealth grew, so did their social conscience. By the turn of the century, Elly and Ellis had

laid the foundations for a comprehensive philanthropic programme in Hong Kong, China and around the world. This included non-denominational schools for Hong Kong’s Chinese and Indian communities – complemented by school facilities in China and India proper – as well as collaboration with global philanthropic enterprises such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a French-Jewish organisation committed to spreading enlightenment principles in the Middle East through the creation of schools for the Jewish and Muslim communities of Iraq, Iran and Syria (see page 15).

Clockwise from top left: CLP’s Hok Un power station, 1920s The Peak Tram, 1910 The Peninsula Hotel situated opposite the Kowloon-Canton Railway, Hong Kong Right: the Kadoorie Family, from left to right: Horace Kadoorie, Elly Kadoorie and Lawrence Kadoorie

LINEN ATELIERS OF THE MIDDLE EAST The Kadoorie Family have long been involved with charitable endeavours across the globe.

Elly Kadoorie’s philosophy was that ‘wealth is a sacred trust to be administered for the good of society’, and staying true to his word, he and his brother Ellis built schools, hospitals and other charitable institutions in Hong Kong, China, India, and the Middle East. One of their earliest charitable benefactions helped encourage artisanal skills amongst young women, echoing the ethos of Tai Ping some 50 years later.

The Family’s first foray into the world of textiles came in 1903, when Elly Kadoorie sponsored a new building through the AIU for the Lady Laura Kadoorie School in Baghdad, Iraq. An atelier was built as an annexe to the school in 1922, which provided poorer students, often orphans, training in couture so that they could find employment after graduation and become self-sufficient. Profits from the sale of clothes and linen went to the operation of the atelier and were also donated to students.

Atelier students with their embroidered linens at the Lady Laura Kadoorie School in Baghdad, Iraq, 1930s

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In the late 1920s, Elly began to cede control of his business empire to his sons, Lawrence and Horace, who became equal partners in the business in 1927. While Horace was based in Shanghai, overseeing controlling stakes in Shanghai Gas, Shanghai Land and Shanghai Wharf, as well as a complex web of rubber interests in Malaya and Java, Lawrence took care of the Family’s interests in Hong Kong. From his wood-panelled office in St George’s Building overlooking the busy harbour, Lawrence managed the minutiae of day-to-day business activities and served on the boards of many prominent Hong Kong companies. The inter-war period

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also marked Lawrence’s first foray into government committee work. One of his most significant contributions to public life before World War Two was on the government’s War Revenue Committee (1940), which proposed a ‘one-off’ tax donation to support the Allied war effort. It invariably had longlasting implications as income tax was introduced to Hong Kong shortly after!

In the post-war years, Lawrence’s proven business acumen and political insights saw him increasingly sought out as a member of government consultation committees.

From left to right: income tax cartoon featured in The Hong Kong Sunday Herald, 1941 Lawrence Kadoorie at his desk, 1940s Next page: St George’s Building, the Kadoorie Family’s Head Office, pictured in the 1950s

pre-war industry The 1930s continued as the 1920s had begun: hurtling down a path of social, economic and administrative change in a way very particular to Hong Kong’s status as a British colony closely impacted by events in China.

The economy began to reveal new trends which flowed from the world’s evolving economic conditions, with Hong Kong becoming one of the principal ports in the world. Another change indicative of this decade was the development of industry, such as the re-introduction of the textile industry. Hong Kong’s oldest industry – ship building – continued apace, whilst other goods manufactured in the colony during this time included soya products, knitted wear, rattan furniture, rubber shoes, flashlight torches, batteries, rope and cement.

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Advertisement for The Hongkong Rope Manufacturing Co., 1930s

Clockwise from left to right: A rope maker plies his trade Tailors vie for business on Wellington Street The Empress of Canada stationed in Kowloon Docks, Hong Kong, 1930s

In 1937 the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out and parts of China, including Shanghai, were occupied by Japanese forces.

By December, as Chinese refugees crossed the border from South China into Hong Kong to escape the Japanese invasion of Canton, the government hastily erected refugee camps to accommodate its fast-growing refugee population. Cholera outbreaks were common, and blankets, food and other necessities were donated to the refugees by Hong Kong residents. Meanwhile, in Europe, where a violent Nazi regime was driving out 20

Jews from Nazi-occupied territories and persecuting those who remained, another refugee crisis was unfolding. As Europe and the West closed its doors to Jewish refugees, they sought alternative havens elsewhere.

One such safe haven was the visa-free port of Shanghai, known as the ‘port of last resort’. The Kadoories, along with other Baghdadi Jews in Shanghai, helped these new arrivals through the creation of the Shanghai Jewish Youth Association (SJYA), which provided free schooling, meals and medical services to refugee children.

Shanghai Jewish Youth Association students pose for a picture, Shanghai, late 1930s

Jewish refugees in a boarding house in the Hongkew Ghetto and on Shanghai’s streets, 1930s – 1940s

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As historian Philip Snow has written, Hong Kong entered the 1940s with its ‘serenity unimpaired’. Despite the Japanese advance and the colony’s growing refugee crisis, the pace of Hong Kong’s frenetic social life continued undisturbed. The head of Hong Kong’s Medical Services, Dr Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, captured this business as usual attitude when he wrote of the ‘endless exchange of dinner parties, drinks and dancing in big hotels’. Although Hong Kong’s expatriate communities were seemingly unperturbed by events in the Mainland, official preparations were rolled out to defend Hong Kong. However, when the Japanese attacked Hong Kong on 8 December 1941, the colony proved indefensible and Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on Christmas Day. Civilians of Allied nationality were rounded up and interned in the Stanley Internment Camp.

The Kadoorie Family were among the internees and in 1942 they were shipped to Shanghai where they spent the duration of the war in Cha Pei Internment Camp. Elly fell gravely ill and died in 1944. By the end of World War Two, the Family had lost nearly everything, their business assets being in countries which had been badly ravaged by war, both in Asia and Europe. As soon as Shanghai was liberated in August 1945, Lawrence Kadoorie made plans to return to Hong Kong. He was the first British civilian from Shanghai to arrive in the colony in September 1945.

Military procession in celebration of Hong Kong’s liberation, October 1945

Lawrence Kadoorie

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Concentrated living under these crowded conditions was a never-to-be-forgotten experience leaving its impression in our future outlook on life, bitter but perhaps salutary medicine and, in retrospect, I can say it provided a clearer perspective, a better understanding of true values and a greater tolerance in dealing with people.’

Above: a British soldier and New Territories family in the days after the liberation of Hong Kong, 1945 Right: Des Voeux Road Central, 1946

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Seamstresses at work in the Mandarin Textiles factory, Hong Kong, 1955

On his arrival in Hong Kong, Lawrence was shocked to find a ruined city – one that was said to be the most looted in the world. He later commented: ‘there wasn’t a piece of wood anywhere because all had been used for fuel. You saw grand pianos in all their nakedness, all the cases gone, burnt up just the metal parts on the inside. You saw buildings with no window frames, no flooring, anything that could be burnt had been burnt’.

The mammoth task of rehabilitation had just begun. From his base in The Peninsula Hotel, Lawrence worked with the Royal Air Force to supply Hong Kong with electricity through his company, CLP. He served as a government agent under the eight-month Military Administration, and helped procure surplus supplies, improve housing conditions and review wage scales for semi-skilled labourers. Hong Kong had emerged from the ruins of war as a profoundly different city. Its population, which had shrunk to 600,000 during the occupation, was now rising at astonishing speed. Despite rampant inflation, unemployment, looting, poor sanitary conditions and currency shortages, Hong Kong got back on its feet in record time, a recovery due in large part to the colony’s resourceful and enterprising population. In

1949, the People’s Republic of China was founded, and in 1950 the Korean War broke out. Both would have a profound effect on Hong Kong’s future.

The Communist revolution in China gave Hong Kong new prominence globally. It also brought labour, energy and capital to the colony while exacerbating Hong Kong’s ‘Problem of People’, as defined by the colonial government. Within a few years of the end of World War Two, Hong Kong’s population had tripled to its pre-war figure of 1,600,000. By 1950, that number had risen to 2,360,000, and by 1956, it was an estimated 2.5 million, approximately a third of whom were refugees. The mounting refugee crisis gave Hong Kong complex problems of governance and housing, but it also presented an opportunity. With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Hong Kong became known as the ‘Berlin of the East’ and a reluctant Cold War warrior, assuming strategic importance along the Cold War fault line. As one historian has written, Hong Kong was ‘both a window through which the West could monitor what was happening and a conduit that China could use to reach out and keep in

touch with the outside world’. The colony’s economy also suffered from two trade embargoes imposed on China – one from the United Nations (UN) on strategic goods and a second from the Americans on any trade with that country. Ironically, although the embargoes were detrimental to Hong Kong in the short-term, they also helped reposition Hong Kong’s economy away from trade and towards light industry, which became the bedrock of its post-war success.

Long-term Chinese residents and newly arrived Shanghainese entrepreneurs and refugees drove this transformation as both producers and consumers. Dick Wilson, the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, considered that ‘the economic impact of the Shanghai industrialists was decisive’.

The colonial government estimated that the Shanghainese entrepreneurs gave the colony a 10 to 15 years’ head start over the rest of East Asia due to the ‘injection of Shanghai experience and capital’. The entrepreneurs turned to filmmaking, shipping and textiles, and Hong Kong’s post-war light industries were founded on labour-intensive and export-orientated products such as textiles, garments, wigs and plastics, later diversifying into basic electronics.

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In the last decade the pattern of Hong Kong’s economy has Hong Kong radically altered, and industry, Annual Report which, prior to the Second World 1956 War, was of minor importance, has now assumed a major role.’

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Factory workers go home after a day’s work, 1950s

The neon signs of Kowloon’s Granville Road, 1960s Young women craft plastic flowers which are sold locally and internationally, 1950s

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East meets West Fashion From the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the textile industry rapidly became Hong Kong’s major industry. Preferential trade tariffs and the influx of Shanghainese tailors and entrepreneurs who brought capital, textile expertise and extraordinary tailoring skills combined to make Hong Kong an important garment manufacturing hub. In the 1950s women still had most of their clothes made-to-order.

Tailors from Shanghai made use of their traditional craftsmanship to create intricate designs on cheongsams but were also influenced by Western styles imported from Hollywood films such as the 1953 classic ‘Roman Holiday’. Others would shop at the department stores in Hong Kong, such as Wing On, Sincere and Lane Crawford, and many more clothes were made for the overseas market. The spinning of cotton, silk and wool, and the weaving, knitting and dyeing procedures of the time created all types of garments. Shirts were the most important type of clothing to be produced for export, but Hong Kong also made silk and brocade house coats, tea gowns and embroidered blouses.

From left to right: a Hong Kong girl goes shopping Modelling the latest fashions, 1950s

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As a manufacturer and exporter, a window to China and hub of the Chinese diaspora, Hong Kong remained resolutely global in the early Cold War period. While Hong Kong’s global setting in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was the British imperium, in the 1950s the setting became American as U.S. capital flowed to Hong Kong from across the Pacific Ocean. Hong Kong also became a base of international humanitarianism as NGOs opened offices in the colony to help assuage the refugee crisis. The newly formed United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) dispatched a mission to Hong Kong in 1954.

Other organisations were founded to help Chinese refugees, who were, according to the UNHCR deputy commissioner James Read, ‘living in the most primitive circumstances .... their houses are shacks and lean-tos, put together from a few pieces of wood and corrugated iron … sanitary arrangements are non-existent’.

These included voluntary associations rooted in Hong Kong’s Chinese communities, Kaifong Associations, global Christian missions and politically influenced, secular NGOs, which dispensed housing, food and sanitation for Hong Kong’s growing refugee population.

Refugees are served soup on the streets of Hong Kong, 1955

homes for refugees As thousands poured across the border into Hong Kong to escape the civil war raging in China, accommodation became increasingly scarce and Hong Kong’s hillsides were awash with make-shift homes. The so-called ‘squatter huts’ that multiplied on the hillsides were flimsy constructions of metal and wood. After a terrible fire in the squatters’ camp of Shek Kip Mei on Christmas Day 1953, the government built the first of many seven-storey ‘H’ blocks in Kowloon to house refugees and protect against fires and the spread of contagious disease.

A woman carries water to the Shek Kip Mei Estate, circa 1960

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The Kadoories were no strangers to the refugee plight. They became soughtafter experts on displacement, forced migration and refugee needs after helping the European Jewish refugee community of Shanghai. After the war, the brothers increasingly turned their attention towards the plight of Chinese refugees in the colony. It was a cause close to their heart, a humanitarianism shaped by adversities faced during World War Two and the recognition that Hong Kong and its people had played a crucial role in rebuilding the Family fortune.

In 1951 the Kadoorie brothers founded 34

the Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association (KAAA) in partnership with the Hong Kong government that helped thousands of refugee farmers living in the New Territories.

The Kadoorie Family’s extensive post-war philanthropy was made possible thanks to their shrewd business strategy which banked on Hong Kong’s recovery. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Family’s assets in the Mainland became state properties, and the Kadoories moved their headquarters from Shanghai to Hong Kong. New ventures were launched in the publishing industry

with the highly-regarded Far Eastern Economic Review, in construction with Major Contractors, and in the textile industry with Nanyang Cotton Mill, a cotton spinning mill established in partnership with two Shanghainese entrepreneurs, Y.C. Wang and H.S. Yung. The Kadoories’ friendship with these entrepreneurs and other Shanghainese and American businessmen led to another new venture, one that was completely new to Hong Kong and which would have longlasting implications for the colony’s refugees.

Colourful signage advertises Hong Kong’s 1957 Agricultural Show

Horace Kadoorie with a refugee family, 1950s A Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association worker in discussion with a refugee family, 1950s

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the birth of a brand Tai Ping promotional leaflet

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So it is now, for the first time in British Hong Kong, the ancient rug weavers’ handicraft is being practiced with old techniques but in new surroundings.’

Left: Lawrence Kadoorie (centre) leads a visit to the Tai Ping tent in Castle Peak, circa 1957. He is joined

by Y.C. Wang (far left), Anthony Yeh (fourth left) and Horace Kadoorie (second right) Right: map showing Hong Kong’s global trade links, 1957 Previous page (overleaf): Governor’s tour of the Cheung Yuen villa, 1957

With little natural resources, no local sources of power and a shortage of land, Hong Kong’s post-1949 boom, powered by light industry, seemed near miraculous.

As explored in the previous chapter, Hong Kong’s industrialisation was not a government strategy but was rather pushed along by the initiative of local and immigrant Chinese entrepreneurs. The colony’s economic and political stability, its banks, trading networks, deep harbour, system of Commonwealth preference and

refugee labour from China also played a vital supporting role in transforming Hong Kong’s fate following the near-disastrous U.S. and UN trade embargoes. Lawrence Kadoorie believed the mainspring of this miracle lay in: ‘freedom! Freedom to work, freedom from bureaucracy, freedom to live a normal life without interference, freedom to think, and tolerance which permits initiative to reap its own rewards.’ Among the newfangled products made in Hong Kong and exported to markets in Asia, Europe and the U.S. were

brightly-coloured plastic toys and flowers, flashlights, aluminium ware, batteries and bulbs. But it was the textile industry, chiefly cotton, woollen knitted goods and garments that dominated, employing 30% of Hong Kong’s total workforce in 1954. In the late 1950s, the city was one of Asia’s biggest textile exporters, and by the 1970s most of the working population was employed in the garment industry.

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While a small textile industry had emerged before World War Two, mainly consisting of knitting and weaving factories and cottage industries equipped with hand operated machinery, it was the Shanghainese entrepreneurs who came to Hong Kong to escape political turmoil in China that modernised the industry with the latest equipment and expertise. The first of Hong Kong’s spinning mills was the South China Textile Limited, founded by Shanghai capitalist C. C. Lee. The mill produced its first spools of cotton yarn in early 1948.

A few months later, Nanyang Cotton Mill, founded by H.C. Yung and his brother-in-law Y.C. Wang, went into operation. H.C. Yung was the youngest son of T.K. Yung, one of China’s most eminent textile magnates and, along with his younger brother, owner of the Shen Xin textile empire. When hostilities broke out with the Japanese invasion, he moved to Hong Kong where he died in 1938.

After T.K. Yung’s death, rival factions vied for control of his legacy, and his sons and business associates opened competing mills in Hong Kong. H.C. Yung’s business partner, Y.C. Wang, was married to his third sister. Wang was a textile specialist trained at the Lowell Institute in the U.S. and proved to be an important figure in the history of Nanyang and, later, Tai Ping.

Although the industrialists brought with them equipment and capital from Shanghai, it was not enough to truly succeed in the colony. They needed credit loans for the general operating and maintenance costs of the mills, which were highly capital intensive. British middlemen became important partners for the Shanghainese as they granted access and introductions to Hong Kong’s banking system, dominated

by British businessmen, and offered insider knowledge of the colony’s business landscape.

The end of a working day at Lai Chi Kok factories, 1959 A woman crochets designs on woollen knitted gloves, 1954

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The Governor of Hong Kong, Alexander Grantham (fourth right), with Horace Kadoorie (third left) and other CLP and Nanyang executives outside the Nanyang Cotton Mill, Hong Kong, 1950s

Clockwise from left: Nanyang Cotton Mill worker, 1950 Interior of Nanyang Cotton Mill, 1948 Y.C. Wang, Director of Tai Ping and co-founder of the Nanyang Cotton Mill, 1950s

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Such was the role of Lawrence Kadoorie, who was offered the Chairmanship of Nanyang by Y.C. Wang in January 1948.

As with all business decisions, Lawrence discussed the company’s prospects with his brother Horace, concluding with not a little foresight: ‘I feel the connection with these people is a good one and that the mill is likely to be very profitable’. He was keen not to miss an exciting new business opportunity, even declining Horace’s holiday invitation with the explanation that: ‘though I would like to oblige you, I would be extremely unhappy were I to feel that I had thrown away the unique opportunities which are presenting themselves at the present time. I refer to the encouragement

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of a new cotton mill industry for Hong Kong’. Lawrence’s interest in this new industry was also fuelled by his position as Director and later Chairman of CLP, the electricity provider for Kowloon and the New Territories, where most of Hong Kong’s new industrial concerns were located. The challenge to produce enough power for them fell squarely on CLP’s shoulders. Few power companies in the world can have experienced a rise in the sale of electricity of the order such as experienced by CLP, where output grew five times between 1948 and 1951.

Lawrence proved to be a powerful ally. Not only did he ensure a stable supply of power

for the mills, he was also instrumental in securing a prime site for Nanyang, situated on the Ma Tau Kok waterfront, serviced by a deep water pier and close to the docks of Hung Hom. In April 1948 the mill was officially opened, and in 1954 Nanyang was visited by the former British Prime Minister Clement Attlee as part of his tour of Kowloon’s industries. The following year Lawrence accompanied Alan Lennox-Boyd, Secretary of State to the Colonies, around the Nanyang mill and impressed upon him the challenges faced by Hong Kong’s industries in the hope of garnering more political support from Britain.

The Nanyang Cotton Mill was once situated on the Hung Hom waterfront, next to CLP’s Hok Un power station, pictured 1955

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Lawrence Kadoorie: Titan of Industry When Lawrence Kadoorie returned to Hong Kong in 1945, he vowed to help rebuild the war-ravaged colony. This he did and more, when, from the late 1940s onwards, he played a pivotal role in developing Hong Kong’s infrastructure and boosting its manufacturing output. Under Lawrence’s leadership, CLP, the local power supplier, kept pace with the rising tide of factories and cottage industries in Kowloon and the New Territories. In 1957 Lawrence was involved in the consortium that built the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir to address Hong Kong’s pressing water needs. Around the same time, he lobbied the government for a Cross Harbour Tunnel to link Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, a scheme which was finally realised in 1972. Aside from his role as Chairman of major industrial concerns including Nanyang Cotton Mill, Hongkong Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd and CLP, he served as a member of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, and on the government’s Public Transport Advisory Committee and Labour Advisory Board, amongst others. In the mid-1980s he negotiated a joint venture to build a nuclear power plant in Daya Bay, China.

Lawrence Kadoorie (second right) visits the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir under construction, 1950s

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The Shanghainese were crucial drivers of Hong Kong’s post-war miracle. Spinning mills, such as the Nanyang Cotton Mill, laid the groundwork for the subsequent growth and diversification of Hong Kong’s textile industry, which, by the 1950s, had started to cause considerable concern to Britain’s Lancashire-based textile barons.

The Americans, too, were becoming increasingly important in Hong Kong and the wider region. The U.S. government shaped Cold War geopolitics in the East, directly impacting the colony and its relationship with China. Economically, Americans were also a major force. Corporations such as American Express and Kodak moved to Hong Kong and American soldiers posted to Korea offered a huge boost to the local economy as they freely spent their dollars during wild R&R weekends in the colony.

As with many American businessmen who found their way to Hong Kong after the war, Al Rabin had a keen sense of adventure and a love of travel, so much so that he was a member of the elite Traveler’s Century Club, a distinction he shared with his friend Lawrence Kadoorie. Founded in 1954, the club granted membership to those who had visited 100 countries or more (only 43 were accepted as members in 1960).

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A Hong Kong tourism pamphlet appeals to the American market, 1950s

Born in Kansas City, Al moved to California and went into business with his brother, working as a travel agent, entrepreneur and travelling salesman. It was clear from an early age that Al had a flair for business. His grandson Johnny Winters takes up the story: ‘this was a guy who was kicked out of middle school because he was selling the school’s paper, making a profit on it. And he was also working at a store in town as a book keeper. So, the principal called him in and said, you can’t be selling your school’s paper.

Either be a student, or go into business.

So he left. And went on this quest to touch every state in the United States.’ During World War Two Al helped Jews escape Nazi occupied territories in Eastern Europe.

At the cessation of hostilities, he resumed his travels as an international ‘Peddler in Paradise’ (to borrow the title of his autobiography) and one of his first ports of call was Hong Kong, where he stayed at The Peninsula Hotel. It was here that Al first met the Kadoorie brothers, and Lawrence later invited him for Passover dinner at his country home in Castle Peak. Al returned the favour when he welcomed Lawrence Kadoorie, his wife Muriel, and their two children Michael and Rita to Los Angeles a few years later. It was the start of an enduring friendship.

‘Peddler in Paradise’; Al Rabin’s memoirs of an international salesman, is first published in 1956

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Al Rabin pictured with his famous suitcase disembarking from a Pan Am flight, Hong Kong, 1950s

Tai Ping’s first brochure, 1957

Over the course of their lives, Al and Lawrence would exchange letters, sharing family updates and recommendations for new and unusual travel destinations.

Al would regale Lawrence with his latest adventures, perhaps an expedition to the Congo or a commercial opportunity in Cyprus, while Lawrence described his new and ongoing business ventures: the opening of the Nanyang mill, the latest news from the hotel company and the attempts to cultivate a pearl industry in Tolo Harbour (see page 53). Lawrence also described the work of his brother Horace and his beloved KAAA, for which he earned the accolade ‘Mr. New Territories’. Although they

Al Rabin

principally communicated by post, Al also regularly travelled to Hong Kong. It was during one of these visits, in the winter of 1955, that the idea for a carpet company was first discussed. Lawrence fondly remembers the story:

‘One day we had a visitor to our office. His name was Mr. Lin and he had a good friend with him – a man from North China ... we soon learned what they were after. They were keen for us to set up a carpet factory in the New Territories. Mr. Lin’s friend claimed to be an expert in the making of Tianjin carpets. I must confess I was not interested.

I was very busy with other projects and not

at all inclined to put money into a carpet factory … So, Mr. Lin and his friend left my office very disappointed. However on their way out they passed the room of my brother, Horace, who had with him a friend from the United States … He was a big quick-talking man, a super-salesman, the kind of character that can spend an afternoon in the Sahara and sell them shipments of sand. His name was Al Rabin. Rabin wanted to hear about this carpet making plan of Lin’s and the more he listened the more enthusiastic he grew. He said the opportunities for selling in the States were enormous, and in the end he talked my brother and me into starting a carpetmaking project.’

It is a grand opportunity to regain for Hong Kong something that has been highly received in the U.S. from North China. The trade here are ready and anxious for it and we should move just as fast as we possibly can.’

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Hong Kong’s nascent pearl industry is featured in the China Mail, 1959

Pearls: Made in Hong Kong

A few weeks after this initial meeting, Al travelled to Manila in the Philippines, where he came across more of Mr. Lin’s carpets. He excitedly wrote to Lawrence that ‘in two new homes they had carpets which they had bought in Hong Kong. They were made in Tianjin and were beautiful … it was a ‘cut’ carpet, that is – the carpet was so woven as to make it appear the design was embossed or cut into the pile – the pile was very heavy’. Al quickly recognised that the Kadoorie brothers had been presented with a unique business opportunity. If Tianjinstyle carpets could be manufactured locally

by Chinese artisans in ‘British’ Hong Kong, the products could evade the U.S. embargo and once more reach the American public

Tolo Harbour, in Tai Po, was once famous for producing oysters and pearls, but from the Qing dynasty onwards, the industry suffered a sharp decline. It was revived in the post-war years thanks in part to the efforts of Horace Kadoorie, who introduced pearl oysters from Japan and cultivated them on the southern shores of Tolo Harbour. Although ultimately the scheme was unsuccessful, the innovative idea revived an ancient tradition and received widespread coverage in the local press.

by dint of their ‘Made in Hong Kong’ label.

In tandem, the company could provide much needed jobs for Hong Kong’s burgeoning Chinese refugee population, especially those ill-suited to life as a KAAA farmer. A carpet company would also reflect the interests and personalities of both brothers: it spoke to Horace as a philanthropic enterprise designed to help the people of the New Territories, and it gave Lawrence a new commercial challenge, one that engaged his deep interest in manufacturing and all things technical. The timing was also fortuitous. The people of Hong Kong were finally ready to introduce carpets into their homes and businesses. Prior to the 1950s, carpets were rarely seen in tropical, humid

places such as Hong Kong. Luxury hotels such as the Repulse Bay Hotel and The Peninsula Hotel had no use for wall-to-wall carpeting. The floors of their guestrooms were of polished wood, with small rugs at the sides of the bed. Gradually the scene changed, thanks in part to the introduction of air conditioning. CLP’s 1954 Annual Report touched on the growing presence of air conditioning in Hong Kong’s homes: ‘an interesting development has been the considerable expansion of air-conditioning not only by centralised systems in large modern buildings but also by individual units in private houses and flats. This form of cooling will replace fans as surely as the latter replaced punkas of old.’

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Above, from left to right: Linden E. Johnson, Horace Kadoorie, James (Jimmy) Grant, and Anthony Yeh at a Tai Ping display booth, Hong Kong, 1950s Far right: company Directors in 1978: they include (from left to right), Y.C. Wang*, Horace Kadoorie*, David Marchington (company secretary), K.K. Tse*, W.T. Grimsdale, David Loo, Lawrence Kadoorie*, Anthony Yeh, H.C. Yung* and Linden E. Johnson* * - founders

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In early 1956, six friends, including George Lin as Managing Director, came together to join the newly incorporated ‘Hong Kong Carpet Manufacturing Ltd’ (the holding company of the ‘Tai Ping’ brand). The Board reflected Hong Kong’s most prominent immigrant communities of the time: the Shanghainese and the Americans, with the Kadoorie brothers acting as a bridge between the two. Lawrence, who was appointed company Chairman, wisely invited his Nanyang friends and textile experts Y.C. Wang and H.C. Yung to join the Board.

They were joined by Koong-kai Tse (known as K.K. Tse), the Shanghainese Chairman of American International Underwriters Ltd and Linden E. Johnson, who, like Al Rabin, was American (see page 56). His high-end ‘Dynasty’ womenswear brand was sold in a boutique in The Peninsula Hotel, where he was well known to the Kadoories. Linden was an expert in textile manufacturing and was praised for the fair and equitable treatment of his workers. They were formally appointed as Directors on 10 February 1956 and each contributed HK$10,000 in seed money.

Lawrence Kadoorie 1957

Make ‘Made in Hong Kong’ synonymous with quality.’

Founding Father: Koong-kai Tse

Founding Father: linden edward johnson

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Koong-kai Tse, affectionately known as ‘K.K.’ to his friends, was born and educated in Shanghai. He was an original partner of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), founded in Shanghai in 1919 and the first foreign firm to market life insurance products to the Chinese. K.K. joined the company in 1927 as a junior accountant and became lifelong friends with its founder Cornelius Vander Starr, an American entrepreneur. K.K. not once but twice saved the company’s fortunes: first, when

the Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1941 he persuaded Japanese soldiers to let him put the company’s records in storage; and after the war, in 1949, he directed the airlift of employees and records to Hong Kong, where the company moved its headquarters. During his lengthy career with AIG, K.K. held a number of senior positions in the company. He was part of the ‘Shanghai group’ of friends who founded Tai Ping in 1956, and he remained intimately involved with the company until his death in 1998, aged 91.

Linden E. Johnson put Hong Kong’s garment industry firmly on the global map with his Mandarin Textiles company and its highly successful Dynasty label, Hong Kong’s first international womenswear brand. Johnson also improved labour conditions in the colony and was a founder-Director of Tai Ping. Born in Kansas, America in 1914, Johnson lived a colourful and exciting life. During World War Two he joined the Flying Tigers as a pilot in the China-BurmaIndia theatre. After the war he decided to stay in China, where he partnered with Jimmy Ling and sold goods to the U.S. military using contacts made during the war. The pair moved to Hong Kong in 1950 where they founded Mandarin Textiles. The first factory was located on the Castle Peak Road (near Tai Ping’s first workshop) and made garments for U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan. Later, Johnson and Ling developed the Dynasty womenswear brand, opening its flagship store in The Peninsula Hotel in 1952.

The brand was designed and marketed for American tastes and became an international sensation when it was picked

up by John D. Rockefeller’s ‘Products of Asia’ (see page 70) and sold in U.S. department stores and American military bases around Asia. Linden’s Hong Kong boutique, in The Peninsula Hotel, was once visited by then American Vice President (later President) Lyndon B. Johnson. He was fascinated by the similarities of their names and bought 82 silk shirts at the store. His daughter later wore a Dynasty dress at a White House gala in the 1960s. Johnson and his partner Ling stood out for their fair treatment of workers at a time when sweatshop conditions were all too prevalent in Hong Kong, and helped make American business synonymous with ‘fair, honest, and just’. In 1972, Mandarin Textiles was acquired by a U.S. investment firm. After his retirement, Lindy, as he was known, remained on the Board of Tai Ping until the 1980s. He lived on Kadoorie Avenue, in Kowloon, and served on the Board of AIG affiliate American International Assurance, whose executive K.K. Tse was a friend and fellow founder-Director of Tai Ping.

Linden E. Johnson outside Mandarin Textiles with co-founder Jimmy Ling

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The company inched ever closer towards its goal of selling Hong Kong’s first locallymanufactured carpets under the ‘Tai Ping’ brand – meaning ‘Peace’ – to appeal to overseas admirers of Oriental artistry.

In January 1956 a Volkswagen bus was purchased to transport goods, along with seasoned timber to construct looms. By the end of the month, Horace was proud to report to Al Rabin that: ‘H.E. the Governor (Alexander Grantham) is visiting the carpet factory on the 21st instant. We went there yesterday and found them busy making looms. We hope to be able to at least show H.E. something by Friday’. A large twostorey villa called Cheung Yuen and known as ‘22 Mile’ because it was 22 miles up the Castle Peak Road, had been secured on lease from George Lin’s uncle. The hunt for a site on which to build a more permanent, purpose-built factory began in earnest. As a residential property the villa was not suitable for large-scale commercial activities, and, more importantly (at least for its employees), the villa was said to be haunted. Meanwhile, advertisements were placed in local newspapers appealing for experienced carpet weavers. After several weeks, and

much to everyone’s disappointment, only one application was received. Carpet weaving, it seemed, was not a skill that was readily available in Hong Kong. A novel approach was needed, one in which potential employees could be reached more directly and shown the techniques that had long been mastered in North China. Lawrence Kadoorie suggested a training scheme to help plug the gap.

During the 1950s, Lawrence had played a vital role in the development of technical education in Hong Kong. He sat on the government’s Board of Education and suggested that corporations and private individuals directly sponsor staff training at public schools, a recommendation adopted by government. His power company, CLP, also donated funds for the expansion of the Technical College which was opened in 1957 (today’s Polytechnic University) in part to help train the next generation of electrical engineers. The Tai Ping training scheme, launched in April 1956, was therefore part of a wider push for technical education in the colony that went hand in hand with the development of its manufacturing sector.

One of Tai Ping’s earliest adverts: the company is featured in the Hong Kong Government Annual Report, 1957

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The main building of the Cheung Yuen villa, where the original knotting looms were installed when Tai Ping first started business in 1956

Advertisements for the Tai Ping scheme were placed in and around New Territories villages, and soon enough 32 young men were enrolled on the programme, each learning the intricate process of knotted carpet production in the Tianjin style, while more than 50 women applied to work on hooked rugs. It signalled the start of Tai Ping’s long and fruitful partnership with New Territories women, one that would challenge gender dynamics in Hong Kong’s traditional rural communities. In time, Tai Ping’s workforce would be predominantly female. From its earliest years, the company was known for its fair treatment of staff and wide-ranging employee benefits. In an era when worker exploitation was common, Tai Ping offered a different kind of environment as described in one of its early promotional leaflets:

‘The weavers worked an eight-hour day.

Coffee breaks? No. But there are two tea breaks, mornings and afternoons and the workers are served tea and donuts at company expense. Western musical recordings are played during working hours and weavers work under the most modern fluorescent lighting especially designed to protect them from eye strain. Playgrounds are provided for their children and there is always the helping hand of management to assist them with their personal problems’.

The original Tai Ping workforce in 1956 Yarn is transported to the Cheung Yuen villa. Tai Ping’s new Volkswagen can be seen behind, circa 1956

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Changes were also under way at the management level.

George Lin resigned as a Director in August 1956 and was replaced by Horace Kadoorie. Y.C. Wang seconded Anthony Yeh, then a young engineer in charge of the weaving department at Nanyang, to work towards manufacturing carpets in quantity. Yeh was also related to the Yungs, and, like many of the Shanghainese spinners, had been educated in the U.S. Yeh would be involved in Tai Ping for some 60 years. He played an integral part in the early success of the company and was later appointed Managing Director (1971 – 1990) and Chairman (1987 – 1996). However, challenges continued to impede what little progress had been made. A totally new industry for Hong Kong, the Directors were confronted with a series of obstacles that tested the profitability of the new business and the wider feasibility of carpetmaking in the colony. The Directors had planned to use the finest Chinese wool for their carpets, but, as Linden pointed out, the trade embargo would block attempts to ‘obtain certificates for rugs manufactured from Chinese wool for importation into the U.S.’. From his own experience exporting brocade dresses to the U.S. for his Dynasty line, he knew that ‘articles made from (Chinese) silk were not approved both by Washington and the U.S. Treasury officials in Hong Kong’. Ironically, it was a frustration born from the same geopolitical context that had made the Tai Ping business feasible in the first place.

American embargo inspectors often took to extremes their orders that no Chinese goods found their way through Hong Kong to the U.S. Were carpets made with Chinese wool but produced in Hong Kong truly ‘Hong Kong’ carpets? Shrimps faced a similar predicament. Frank Welsh writes that they ‘might be caught in the admissible waters of Hong Kong, but had the crustaceans begun their lives there, or were they Communist infiltrators? In the absence of unequivocal evidence all shrimps, therefore, were banned’.

Instead, new wool suppliers were found in England, but delays in the shipments caused by the Suez Crisis (October 1956) taught the Board the importance of diversification, and wool was later also imported from New Zealand and Pakistan, among other countries.

Victoria Harbour, 1950s

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Lift off!

Carpets for Kai Tak One of Tai Ping’s first commissions was for the Hong Kong Airport.

When Governor Alexander Grantham met Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia at Kai Tak’s new VIP lounge in late 1956, a carpet had to be borrowed from Government House for the occasion.

The Kadoorie brothers, sensing an opportunity, decided to gift a Tai Ping carpet to the airport as a gesture of goodwill and as a ‘splendid advertisement for the company’s products’. No doubt it was – the carpet, adorned with the Hong Kong crest, greeted passengers as they disembarked from their flights and was a much remarked-upon sight.

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Above: a Tai Ping carpet was gifted to Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport in the 1950s depicting the Hong Kong crest and scenes from the harbour Right: rare colour photographs show carpetmaking in the Cheung Yuen villa

The hunt for a new factory acquired a new sense of urgency after the local District Officer decreed that all carpetmaking activities at the villa – an unlicensed residential site – should cease forthwith. Tai Ping teetered on the edge of oblivion. Thankfully, the Governor, who had earlier visited the makeshift factory, granted the company a reprieve, allowing them to continue work at the site until other premises were found. The Directors breathed a sigh of relief. As a temporary measure, the workshop’s operations were expanded thanks to a large tent fitted over the concrete surface of a tennis court situated next to the villa. The tent was bought from a visiting circus which had gone bankrupt while in Hong Kong. Lawrence impressed upon the Governor the importance of finding a suitable home for Tai Ping:

‘It looks as if we are assisting at the birth of an industry which is destined to become an important employer of labour in Hong Kong.’

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Above: Governor Alexander Grantham, with his wife Maureen Grantham and government officials, are given a guided tour of the Cheung Yuen villa and the adjacent tent by Horace Kadoorie, Lawrence Kadoorie and Anthony Yeh, 1957 Left: carpetmaking in the Tai Ping tent

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As the search for a site continued, a more pressing problem emerged. Although the Tai Ping training scheme had attracted an abundance of workers, staff turnover was high. It would take several weeks to train a new hire for the job and once trained many would stay for a fortnight and then walk out, leaving work unfinished. New workers would have to be found to complete commissions – causing a headache for management as their styles would likely be slightly different – and the cycle would continue. Anthony Yeh found it all very puzzling until he spent some time at the Cheung Yuen villa and saw how the employees kept walking out while the then manager, unwilling to admit defeat, kept hiring replacements. He soon realised that the problem lay in the intensity of the Tianjin carpetmaking process, which was very slow and called for great patience. Workers would knot the yarn by hand, row by row and, when a row of knots was completed, insert a weft yarn through it – all in accordance with a pattern and colour guide. While workers from North China were used to this style of work, those from the New Territories were not. They were worldly, better educated, and had bigger and brighter opportunities.

Lawrence Kadoorie 1957

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Anthony Yeh submitted a report to the Board saying that knotted carpets simply could not be manufactured in Hong Kong because the population was too sophisticated.

Downcast, Lawrence offered to reimburse the Directors their seed money. None would hear of it. He then took a different approach.

What if there was a more modern way to produce carpets?

Anthony Yeh was again called upon to find a solution. Before long, he found that a new way of producing carpets had been developed in Georgia in the U.S., where a woman had started making ‘tufted’ carpets using a single-needle sewing machine. By modifying this technique and applying a backing with rubberised glue, Yeh was able to produce a small sample using his wife’s embroidery frame. This process worked well for small samples, but full-scale production was another matter altogether. Once again, Yeh went back to the drawing board.

Inspiration was unexpectedly found one evening at a cocktail party for CLP staff, where Anthony met the wife of Eugene Joffe, CLP’s chief electrical engineer, to whom he explained his predicament. Mrs. Joffe had

been working on a homemade carpet using a simple apparatus. ‘She just gave me a kit, which was very, very simple. It’s still hand tuft, but better than hand knot’, explained Yeh. Through a timely mix of serendipity and engineering innovation, Yeh used the kit as a springboard to develop the cut-pile needle, a predecessor to the hand-tufting tools used today. The hand-held, manuallyoperated needle was the basic production tool used during the first few years of the company’s activities. Later, an electric motor was attached to make the process quicker and more efficient. The rubber backing became more sophisticated too. Just one factory in Hong Kong was using rubber latex – for making surgeons’ operation gloves. Inferior quality rubber was being used for making shoes, but that was no help for high-class latex backing. Fortuitously, Lawrence and Horace had interests in rubber companies in Malaysia and Java, and the staff there gave useful advice. Once armed with the hand-tufting needle, Tai Ping’s young workers quickly adapted to creating hand-tufted carpets, and the most talented became amazingly adept at interpreting complex designs.

Industry in Hong Kong, of minor import until a few years ago, is now responsible for the livelihood of two million people. How has it become possible for a tiny colony, with an area of less than 400 square miles, to have achieved this result? How has Hong Kong become the world’s most unusual city?’

The handheld, manually operated needle was the first production tool used at Tai Ping

Al Rabin was enthralled with Tai Ping’s product. As the company’s sole American distributor, he had already contacted the head buyer at W.J. Sloane, the leading furniture store in the U.S., who sent a provisional order for 10,000 square feet of carpet. The following summer, in June 1957, Rabin sold his U.S. distribution rights to the oil scion John D. Rockefeller III. Rockefeller, a friend of the Kadoories, had been touring Hong Kong looking for products for his new company, ‘Products of Asia’ (POA), a U.S. distributor of Asian goods. He discovered the Dynasty and Tai Ping labels, and the brands were among the first of POA’s partnerships. An important early feature of POA was the synergy between economic aid and international trade, particularly with regards to Japan.

‘Mr. Rockefeller and other members of the Board recognise that if Japan is to achieve economic progress, she must find foreign markets’, POA’s first press release began.

‘We believe that there is a wealth of design ideas in Japan that have never been explored for purposes of foreign trade and it is our hope that these may be used to help her get the foreign exchange that is so vital

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to her welfare’. POA was born in the McCarthy era, and its mission mirrored U.S. Cold War policy: to integrate Japan in the free trade market and contain the spread of communism in Asia.

At first Tai Ping prospered with POA as its sole U.S. distributor, so much so that one of its competitors accused Rockefeller of using his name to influence client purchases. But problems soon emerged. Rockefeller disliked the wide geographic influence of Tai Ping’s designs, which interpreted European, Moroccan, Middle Eastern and Chinese motifs, and wanted the company to focus on a more ‘Far Eastern flavour’. Conversely, the Tai Ping brand started to suffer – as did the Dynasty label – when POA introduced competitor lines from Japan and India, and the businesses eventually went their separate ways in 1966. Still, it was in the early years of this partnership that Tai Ping’s products became more widely known to an elite American clientele. It was through POA that an order was placed for a giant carpet for the world’s most famous cinema: Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Famous for immortalising movie stars in cement handprints in the nearby sidewalk, the iconic theatre’s carpet order was the company’s most notable to date. With limited space to make their largest order ever, workers created a temporary workshop in an adjacent lot under a tent that had been acquired from a bankrupt circus. When the carpet was almost finished, a designer visiting from the U.S. inspected and approved it before rushing off to the airport to catch the last plane before the almighty Typhoon Ida struck Hong Kong and all flights were suspended. As the intensity of the storm increased, wind strength doubled and the tent collapsed. The entire carpet was almost ruined, but the workers were able to support it on trestles above the soaked ground and work on the last finishing touches from underneath. Workers braved the typhoon to secure the tent until the storm passed. The carpet was saved and delivered on schedule with much acclaim. A wealth of prestigious orders soon followed and the legend of the Tai Ping tent was born. In 2004, some 46 years later, the Tai Ping logo was redesigned to incorporate the tent as a symbol of the company’s resilience and its commitment to customer service.

Above right: ‘finishing’ artisans shear and sculpt the carpet commissioned for the famous Hollywood cinema, ‘Grauman’s Chinese Theatre’, in the Tai Ping tent Below: the carpet in situ

chapter

3

making strides

at home and abroad Lawrence Kadoorie

Artisans put the finishing touches on Princess Alexandra’s wedding present from the Hong Kong Government, 1963 Previous page (overleaf): a beautiful Tai Ping carpet furnishes the ‘Thai Suite’ in Mandarin Hotel, 1968

We have been particularly busy recently with Hongkong Carpets. The company is no longer a small concern and we have grown to a point where important decisions must be made.’

The 1960s were a golden decade for Hong Kong – one that heralded uninterrupted economic growth and the development of upscale shopping malls and hotels as the colony started to look to a future as Asia’s economic and financial capital. It was a decade of expansion for Tai Ping too. With larger manufacturing capabilities in place, Tai Ping became the ‘go to’ company that supplied wall-to-wall carpets for Hong Kong’s new towering skyscrapers and handmade rugs and carpets for the business travellers who routinely passed through the

city. But, although standards of living had increased for ordinary people, riots broke out as labour unrest mounted and China’s Cultural Revolution spilled out into Hong Kong. With trade embargoes and restrictions against certain imports still in place in China, many Hong Kong companies explored the opportunities offered by the growing economies of Southeast Asia. Tai Ping was no exception, opening sister factories in the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. Tai Ping also explored new markets in the West outside of America.

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It found early success in Britain, where it created a carpet for Buckingham Palace: more royal orders were soon to follow. A strong reputation was forged in Europe when Tai Ping joined the international trade fair circuit and its ‘girl ambassadors’ wowed local audiences with their artisanal skills and graceful Chinese dress. While Tai Ping flirted with diversification in the early part of the decade, developing joint ventures in the textile and non-textile sector, the company steadily built its reputation as a premier manufacturer of luxury carpets for royalty and prestige clients around the world.

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‘Even the Magic Carpet could not beautify the many places that Tai Ping has’: early Tai Ping advert, 1960s

A Tai Ping carpet in the Los Angeles Music Centre’s Main Lobby. It was then one of the world’s biggest areas of carpet from wall to wall, covering 12,500 square feet, 1960s

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Tai Ping was fast outgrowing its ‘haunted’ workshop at Castle Peak and, perhaps more pressingly, had been asked to vacate the property by the local District Officer. With a more sophisticated manufacturing process in place and a motivated young workforce on hand, a new factory would propel the company’s expansion forward. At around the time that Anthony Yeh was perfecting the cut-pile needle, a site for a new factory was identified in Tai Po, a town with a long and distinguished history dating back to the Tang dynasty. Tai Po’s Tolo Harbour was once protected by a garrison of soldiers who monitored the cultivation and collection

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of pearl oysters used to adorn China’s imperial palaces. The name Tai Po means ‘big strides’ in Cantonese: the town is said to have come by its name because the forest on the outskirts of the town was inhabited by large tigers, and villagers who entered the forest were urged to take big strides to avoid danger! When opened in 1958 Tai Ping’s factory was the first to be established in the market town and it was the tallest building in the area too. The New Town developments of the 1970s would herald momentous changes for Tai Po and the wider New Territories, but these would not be seen for several years yet.

I went to Tai Po when I was a child, you’d go out for a picnic out there and there was one building in Tai Po and that was Tai Ping. And it was a six-storey building, I mean it was the biggest building by far in the whole district round there.

There were no high-rise blocks, it was all low-rise housing.’

J.S. (‘Dinty’) Dickson Leach, former Chairman of Tai Ping

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Above: the new Tai Ping factory, 1958 Right: the morning rush - artisans pose outside the Tai Ping factory entrance, circa 1960

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Above: Tai Ping staff at work Below: Y.C. Wang in his office The entrance to the Marco Polo restaurant, situated in Peninsula Court and opposite The Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong, 1950s

A one acre site was purchased in May 1957 and in the following year Tai Ping erected a prefabricated steel factory bought from Nanyang Cotton Mill on the edge of Plover Cove, in Tolo Harbour, where it overlooked sampans, junks and sleepy villages dotted along the shore. The total cost of the land and the building was about HK$528,000. Tai Ping’s new factory was opened in October 1958 in a rather elaborate fashion by Mrs. Clarke, wife of the Financial Secretary Arthur Grenfell Clarke. According to company minutes, Mrs. Clarke wove the ‘first stitch’ of a carpet then ‘pressed a switch which rang a bell starting the following sequence of events: lighting a string of fire crackers 30 feet long at the entrance to the factory and commencing operations by assembled workers in all various sections of the factory (dyeing, weaving, applying latex to backing, shearing, carving, vacuum cleaning, and packing).’

The factory was officially operational and the Tai Ping Board, along with the Clarkes, went to the newly opened Marco Polo restaurant situated in Peninsula Court to celebrate. It was familiar territory as Tai Ping had opened its first showroom in the building, located behind The Peninsula Hotel, the previous year (see page 86). Tai Ping also relocated its head office to St George’s Building in Central, where it took its place alongside other Kadoorie businesses until 1975 when it moved to the Tai Po factory. With a new factory, showroom and headquarters opened in quick succession, Tai Ping was now ready to make and sell carpets on a much larger scale.

Peninsula Court, The Peninsula Hotel’s luxury annexe was home to Tai Ping’s first showroom, circa 1957

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Photographs taken by Lawrence Kadoorie show Tai Ping artisans in the new factory, circa 1959

THE FIRST SHOWROOM

Tai Ping’s first showroom was opened in 1957 in Peninsula Court, a luxury 12-storey annex to The Peninsula Hotel. The building was home to the lavish Marco Polo restaurant (fitted – of course – with Tai Ping carpets), the noted antiques dealer Charlotte Horstmann, and HSBC’s Kowloon branch, which had been located at the hotel since 1929. The showroom’s first manageress was Miss Gwendoline Gock, who hired Joan Davis as her

assistant. Joan recalls the boutique’s challenging first year of operation and the orders that soon followed: ‘customers realised that what we were offering was hand-made work, produced by Chinese people in Hong Kong from highest quality materials’. In 1978, the showroom was moved to Hutchison House, and a showroom was later opened in Prince’s Building in Central District. Today, Tai Ping has a showroom presence in ten countries throughout Asia, North America and Europe.

The new factory gave Tai Ping the space, capacity and technological nous to immediately tackle bigger and more complex orders. In 1960 Lawrence Kadoorie reported to Al Rabin that: ‘we have received some interesting enquiries – about 20,000 square feet of red carpet for Korea, possibly to be sent by air (we think this may be for Eisenhower’s visit).’ One of the major challenges of the year was the territory-wide water shortage that struck in April, caused by population growth which outstripped the colony’s water resources. Lawrence wrote at the time: ‘another shortage, which is far more

serious, is that of water. The colony is now down to three hours a day and unless we get rain, there will be further cuts, possibly two hours every two days! A partial result of this drought has been that water piped to our factory at Tai Po has become dirty and requires careful filtration before we use it for dyeing’. Water shortages were a recurring theme of the 1960s and would later compel the government to buy water from the Mainland from 1964 onwards, this ‘friendly diplomacy’ supported Hong Kong’s economic development. As sales began to move in Hong Kong, a factory

extension was announced to keep up with demand. The additional space had been difficult to secure – Horace explained to Al that: ‘Tai Po will become a large town and it is only now that Government are laying out plans for its future development’. Opened in May 1962, the extension added a five-storey building to the Nanyang shed, bringing the manufacturing space to 120,000 square feet and capacity for 900 employees. It was described in London’s Carpet Annual as ‘the finest factory for handmade carpets in the world’.

Left: the Tai Ping showroom in Peninsula Court, where the early sales campaigns were launched Above, left to right: artists’ impression of the new factory extension A panoramic view of Tolo Harbour and Tai Ping’s factory building, 1962

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WORK FOR WOMEN Women formed the core of the Tai Ping labour force and many came from nearby boat or farming families. A canteen and other facilities were made available to the workers, and the stable work environment offered women an alternative source of income and a new way of life, distinct from traditional agriculture and fishing. Many Tai Ping workers still fondly remember cycling to and from work, the excitement during Elizabeth Taylor’s visit, lunchhour games on the basketball court and best of all, the lasting friendships.

Rosa Law, who worked in the drawing department, remembers her colleagues as an extended family: ‘we saw each other on holidays too. We went for picnics and hung out together. Some colleagues came from coastal villages situated next to the factory. We would go swimming and go to parties together at their homes.’

Niven Ho, a former General Manager and Director, recalls the opportunities provided for women at Tai Ping:

‘Our workforce primarily came from the nearby fishing villages and farming communities. Quite a lot of them worked here to supplement their family income. We adopted a flexible management approach – we permitted flexi-hours and leave during the busy fishing season so that they could help their families. The development of Tai Po also brought about changes to the workforce. The construction of Plover Cove Reservoir in the 1960s made fishing more difficult for the boat people. Some of them turned to Tai Ping for full time employment and a stable income.’

Inevitably, as with all social shifts, some problems arose, as when a father complained to management that his daughter earned more than he did and that she refused to come home. In fact, many of the ‘Tai Ping girls’ as they came to be known, preferred to live in the staff dorms than on crowded family sampans. New jobs in the burgeoning manufacturing sector allowed women to gradually push against long-accepted gender norms.

Tai Ping’s female workforce pictured in the 1950s and 1960s

Tai Ping’s sales were steadily growing as the company’s branding and marketing became more sophisticated. A relatively new industry in Hong Kong, by the early 1960s there were five major advertising houses in the city, their copy orientated towards the unique local market through newspapers, cinema houses, Commercial Radio and Rediffusion Television. As Tai Ping started to explore new markets outside of the States, its publicity gradually fell away from the Cold War rhetoric – common at the time – that had been so pronounced in early material written by Al Rabin. The company

began to embrace a more glamorous ideal, incorporating a ‘lifestyle’ aesthetic that remained tightly wedded to Hong Kong’s culture and history. One early advert depicted a graceful woman in Western dress, wearing fashionable jeans with her hair styled in a Sixties bob, leafing through a glossy magazine while lounging on a Tai Ping carpet ordained with Chinese decorative motifs. This playful mix of East and West and a very 1960s take on Chinoiserie became a common advertising theme. With its bold red and black logo incorporating Chinese calligraphy, ‘Tai Ping’ was one of the

Tai Ping’s early adverts from the 1960s mixed both old and new, East and West

earliest brand names associated with Hong Kong (after years of trying, the Tai Ping trademark was finally registered in 1969).

Other early advertising focused on the new Tai Po factory and the intricate, personalised manufacturing process which promised: ‘the world’s most luxurious carpets customtailored by any shape, any design, any size’. One tongue-in-cheek advert read simply: ‘these will floor you!’ while another featured a woman commanding a Tai Ping carpet across Hong Kong’s skies, with Central District’s new post-war skyscrapers seemingly grazing her feet below.

Hong Kong’s rapidly-changing urban topography certainly played an important role in Tai Ping’s early success. Hong Kong was wracked with an acute accommodation shortage in the post-war years, when the colony lacked enough private residences, offices and hotel rooms. The government’s Central District reclamation scheme and the redevelopment of Hongkong Land buildings (located mainly along the Central waterfront) in the early 1960s saw the metamorphosis of Hong Kong’s skyline and the first of the colony’s truly ‘high-rise’ buildings. In tandem, the opening of the Mandarin Hotel and the Hilton Hotel in 1963 formed the tentative beginnings of a modern tourist cluster on Hong Kong Island. These changes

Left: a woman commands a Tai Ping ‘Magic Carpet’ across Hong Kong’s skies, 1969 Right: created in the 1960s and named ‘Hong Kong by Night’, this carpet showcases Tai Ping’s early and innovative approach to craftsmanship and design

brought opportunities for a company whose products were needed in both private and public spaces – opportunities that were grasped with both hands. In the 1960s Tai Ping carpets could be found in the lobbies and suites of the Mandarin Hotel and the Hilton, the Hong Kong Hotel, and throughout many of Central’s modern office blocks.

In 1964 Tai Ping also supplied the carpets for The Peninsula Hotel’s major renovation.

While Hong Kong’s new skyscrapers helped advertise Tai Ping’s products as ‘prestige installations’, the company’s reputation also spread through word of mouth thanks to a novel idea proposed by Major Stanley of the newly formed Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA).

A colourful postcard reveals the changing and frenetic Kowloon skyline that appealed to international travellers of the day

Hong Kong had long been a tourist destination for European and American travellers: the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 provided a speedier passage between Europe and Asia. Over time, Hong Kong became a centre for Asian travel and a connecting port for several important European-Asia sea routes. By the 1930s, the colony was promoted as ‘the Riviera of the Orient’ where visitors could enjoy a relaxing round of golf at Fanling and an afternoon at the Happy Valley races. After the war, as far-flung destinations became more accessible with the rise of air travel and higher disposable incomes, Hong Kong attracted a new breed of traveller as a ‘window to China’. The age of mass tourism had arrived. The government attempted to capitalise on Hong Kong’s ‘East meets West’ identity and its steady stream of business travellers with the HKTA, established in 1957 in The Peninsula Hotel. One of its most successful initiatives at the time was to launch official tours of the New Territories. Visits to markets and factories were always a hit with tourists as it was from here that they could buy antiques, silks and jades – items that could no longer be bought directly from China. These proved even more popular when the Tai Ping factory was included as part of the itinerary. At first, Tai Ping’s Board was reluctant to take part. Linden Johnson worried that tourists would serve only to distract workers and that Tai Ping’s new tufting gun might be stolen by a corporate spy.

But these reservations were quickly set aside and the Tai Po factory became a key attraction on the New Territories’ tourist scene from 1960 onwards.

Hong Kong was promoted as the ‘Riviera of the Orient’ in the 1930s

Tai Ping Promotional Pamphlet 1975

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The Tai Po factory, besides producing carpets and rugs for the great buildings of the world, has become itself a ‘must’ for every very important person in Hong Kong. Over the past 15 years, the number of visitors has run into thousands, and almost every nationality on earth has been represented at one time or another.

The Tai Po factory is, in fact, one of Hong Kong’s outstanding tourist attractions, and one which fits in well with the British crown colony’s image overseas for its almost incredible industrial growth since 1950.’

Above right: Lawrence Kadoorie and guest at the Tai Ping factory, 1970s Below right: Anthony Yeh explains Tai Ping’s methods of manufacture to King Baudouin of Belgium. Behind him are Lawrence Kadoorie and the Belgian Consul-General, Baron d’Hestroy

The tours proved immensely popular and helped raise Tai Ping’s profile both locally and overseas. Soon after the new factory extension was opened in 1962, the Board set aside money to build an in-house showroom to cater to tourists, who tended to buy more ‘Oriental’ style carpets in contrast to the modern designs favoured by Tai Ping’s export market. One astute move was to equip the factory with the most attractive ladies restroom in the whole of the New Territories. Shirley Hung, the receptionist at the Tai Po factory showroom, remembered it well:

‘The loo was quite splendid. I should know because I stocked it. The soap dish was a really beautiful large shell which I brought back from a New Zealand promotion trip – I’m afraid it disappeared quite soon afterwards. So did the bottles of lotion and nail varnish. But we certainly attracted many visitors.’

By the late 1960s royalty and VIPs including the Queen of Thailand, the King of Belgium, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and British royals became well acquainted with Tai Ping’s factory and its luxury products. For many, Lawrence Kadoorie served as their guide, and for the next 15 years he would regularly chaperone VIPs around the factory. A Tai Ping promotional pamphlet invited others to join, too: ‘if you should come to Hong Kong, do not miss the chance to see with your own eyes how Tai Ping carpets are tailor-made. We will roll out the red carpet for you.’

In 1966 POA and Tai Ping decided to go their separate ways, and the company’s U.S. distribution rights were transferred to a new wholly-owned entity called ‘World Wide Looms’ (WWL). POA was dissolved in 1967 and its distribution of Japanese, Indian and Hong Kong-sourced merchandise to American consumers came to an end. The creation of WWL coincided with Tai Ping’s tenth anniversary. At a Board meeting in August, Lawrence Kadoorie reflected on the company’s achievements to date:

‘The manufacture of Tai Ping carpets started as a small undertaking in the hope that it would provide further opportunities for employment for workers from amongst the rapidly increasing population of Hong Kong. In the ten years which have elapsed

Tai Ping’s ‘Antique Chinese’ and contemporary designs, 1960s

since the foundation of the company, a fine factory has been built, a happy labour force employed, and a product has been made, the quality of which has received a world-wide reputation. Today the company is international in character, carpets having been sold in no less than 40 countries.’

It was an impressive feat considering the rise in global competition and diminishing opportunities in foreign markets as countries, like Australia, developed their own carpetmaking industries. Tai Ping had reached a global audience thanks, in part, to its chequered progress across the Pacific. Although Tai Ping carpets had been placed in such prestigious buildings as the Time and Life buildings (New York and Chicago) and in the United Nations

building in New York, sales in America were flatlining. U.S. military sales, brokered through Linden Johnson, had dropped due to the ‘Buy American’ campaign, and POA’s distribution had always been uneven at best.

One consequence of falling U.S. sales was that the Board started to cultivate markets elsewhere. One obvious market was Europe, whose own carpetmaking industry had been influenced by the sumptuous carpets brought back from the Near East at the time of the Crusades. Tai Ping had already built a successful partnership in Britain with prominent market trader R.J. Lafontaine, the owner of Eastern Carpets Ltd. As the editor of ‘How to know Oriental Carpets and Rugs’ and a regular contributor to ‘Carpets Annual’, Lafontaine was a much sought-after expert on ‘Oriental’ carpets on the London scene.

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It was also in Britain that Tai Ping secured its most prestigious order to date – one that would help bolster the company’s international reputation. In 1961 Lafontaine proudly reported that the Tai Ping carpet supplied for the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle was such a success that Queen Elizabeth II would not permit any furniture to be put in the room, as she wished to show it to her friends. The carpet, a copy of a 120-year-old Beauvais carpet from France, beautifully captured Tai Ping’s expertise in hand-tufted techniques (see page 102). More orders poured in from prestigious clients. Chairman Lawrence Kadoorie recommended that ‘any Directors visiting London to call at the Ritz Hotel and inspect the large Tai Ping carpet. The manager was so pleased with it that he hoped to place another order.’ Horace Kadoorie added that ‘Directors should go to The Peninsula Hotel and see the Tai Ping carpets recently installed there. They were really beautiful.’ However, Director Y.C. Wang ‘regretted that the carpets supplied to him by the company recently were not of such good quality as those the Board had just heard of.’

Left: Tai Ping’s prestige installations, from New York, Thailand and Bermuda, circa 1966 Right: the Tai Ping ‘Master Colour Blanket’, 1960s

royal orders for britain

Tai Ping received an unusual and complicated order for Windsor Castle in 1960, when the carpet in the White Drawing Room, over 120 years old, was deemed to be beyond repair. ‘We put a camera in facing downwards,’ explained Anthony Yeh, ‘and we photographed the whole of the carpet in sections, square by square, so that we could copy it exactly to the last detail. Then we reproduced the whole carpet in one seamless piece.’

Three years later, three carpets with a

Persian design were delivered from Tai Po to Princess Alexandra. Princess Anne received a set of nine carpets for her wedding to Captain Mark Phillips – the centrepiece was created by Tai Ping’s subsidiary in Singapore. As a sequel to these prestigious commissions, in January 1972 the Managing Director ‘was happy to report that the company had received another order from her Majesty the Queen to carpet the throne room in Buckingham Palace.’

While the Kadoories were able to tap into their British network to secure Lafontaine’s Eastern Carpet Ltd. agency in London, buyers in Europe proved more elusive, especially in the years before the Hong Kong Trade Development Council was founded.

A year after the European Economic Community (EEC) was created in 1957, Lawrence Kadoorie embarked on the first of Tai Ping’s European trips in an attempt to foster contacts abroad. Early target markets included France, Italy, Holland and Belgium, with West Germany a top priority because of its importance as a centre for European

trade and the most prosperous economy in Europe. Anthony Yeh recalls the long days spent carrying heavy samples and carpets to West Germany’s big furniture stores: ‘it was tough work. I used the city of Duesseldorf as my centre. Big store buyers would only see salesmen in the mornings, so I would leave the hotel at five in order to call on a big store in a neighbouring city by the time they opened the store at nine. Big stores were always in the city centre where parking was impossible; this meant carrying rugs and samples for many blocks’. Yeh was often met with resistance because buyers expected to

The Tai Ping carpet installed in the White Drawing Room in Windsor Castle

see knotted yarn at the back of the carpet but would find rubber backing instead.

Things changed for the better after the Windsor Castle commission. ‘I would just say that this carpet was the kind used by the Queen of England and they would at once want to have a look’, recalled Yeh. ‘Even if some of them were still worried by the rubber backing they felt that if it was good enough for the Queen of England then their customers were going to like it’.

Business trips abroad became easier still when Tai Ping joined Europe’s trade fair circuit.

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Germany had long been the centre of European trade shows and a focal point for many of these shows was the city of Frankfurt, located in West Germany, where an ‘economic miracle’ had stunned the world in the 1950s. Anthony Yeh, accompanied by Tai Ping’s artisans, designer Joan Davis and Shirley Hung, the showroom manageress, would come to know the city well. For

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many Tai Ping workers these trips would be their first experience abroad – and some would never return to Hong Kong (see opposite page). Trade shows became an effective way to reach a wider audience.

Live demonstrations, an integral part of all Tai Ping stands, conveyed the skills of its expert artisans. After his first trade show in 1963, Yeh reported that the Tai Ping stall at

Frankfurt ‘seemed to be the busiest in the whole exhibition’, while at the Ideal Homes Exhibition in London the Hong Kong stand was the most popular feature, so much so that he struggled to reach the stand due to the crush of people. Over the years, Tai Ping became a regular fixture at the world’s biggest trade shows which took place as far afield as Europe, Japan and New Zealand.

Tai Ping was a regular on the global trade fair circuit in the 1960s, exhibiting in Frankfurt, Paris and San Francisco, among many other places around the world

tai ping ambassadors

In the 1960s and 1970s, Tai Po women kitted out in traditional Chinese dress represented Tai Ping at international tradeshows across Europe. They demonstrated their adept carpetmaking skills and always drew a large crowd. When they were off duty, the girls proved as big a lure as the carpets themselves. Tai Ping girls would dine in Chinese restaurants served by waiters from the New Territories. Following these encounters, many quickly got engaged and told the company they would not be returning to Hong Kong. A company Director recalled the embarrassing moment when he was called in by a Consulate-General who asked: ‘what are you supposed to be exporting – carpets or girls?’

As Tai Ping started to gain a foothold in Europe it also explored new opportunities in Southeast Asia, where former colonies were gaining independence and public consumption and expenditure was on the rise. Many newly independent Southeast Asia countries, such as Singapore, restructured their post-war economies by expanding industry and developing an export-orientated model – and rapid growth ensued. With China still isolated from world trade, it was not unusual for Hong Kong businesses to explore the Southeast Asian market, though Tai Ping was certainly one of the first to do so. Tai Ping’s makeand-sell partnerships helped increase its manufacturing output by building ‘sister’ factories with local businessmen. They also broadened the company’s regional reach by selling carpets under the Tai Ping brand to local markets. The first factory built outside of Hong Kong was in the Philippines with the ‘Philippine Carpet Manufacturing Corporation’ (PCMC). Much of its success was tied to prominent Filipino businessman Ping Lam Lim, known as ‘P.L.’ to his friends. Born in China in 1905, P.L.’s mother brought him from Amoy to Masbate in the Philippines, where the family had a small cattle rearing business. Growing up, P.L. showed a natural flair for business. He left school during sixth grade to focus on work and soon persuaded the Ang Beng Uh family to set up Universal Textile Mills – the first textile mill in the Philippines. He went on to become a successful industrialist, creating a group of manufacturing-based companies (Utex, Capital Garments, Peggy Mills, Filsyn) and jobs for thousands of Filipinos. P.L. first

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met the Kadoories thanks to Anthony Yeh, who knew of the Lims through his wife, Sylvia (née Kwok of the Wing On family).

After meeting the Board in Manila and Hong Kong, P.L. was invited to join the Tai Ping family in 1964, and a factory was built on a large tract of land acquired on the outskirts of Manila which opened in 1966 (with its first order being for President Marcos). At first, dyed wool was imported from Hong Kong and Filipino girls were trained to use the tufting gun by Anthony Yeh and other Tai Ping executives during their frequent visits to Manila. Later, PCMC workers would travel to Hong Kong to learn from Tai Ping’s experienced artisans. Evelyn Lim-Forbes, P.L.’s daughter, remembers that: ‘the Sucat factory was built to serve the needs of the manufacturing requirements. They spun the raw wool from Australia and then New Zealand and made it into the threads needed to make the carpets. Everything was done in-house to ensure the quality. The standards of Hong Kong were followed and there was a great deal of technology transfer at that time. They dyed the wool to the specs of the client, spun it into cones and readied it for production.’ By the early 1970s PCMC was employing 300 workers and producing 50,000 square feet of carpet a month. Its carpets could be seen in the Malacanang Palace and the Philippine Cultural Centre and across Manila’s top hotels. Some years later, the Lims and the Kadoories would collaborate again with the opening of The Peninsula Manila in 1976, the first in the Peninsula group to be established outside of Hong Kong.

From left to right: Ping Lam Lim, Luis Yulo, Lawrence Kadoorie, Muriel Kadoorie, unknown gentleman and Anthony Yeh meet to discuss the new Philippine Carpet Manufacturing Corporation, 1960s

Soon, more factories were launched in Southeast Asia. In April 1967 the Thailand Carpet Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TCMC) was established and was operational from 1968 in Bangkok, where a Tai Ping carpet had already been commissioned for the Thai Royal Court by King Bhumibol of Thailand.

A British royal connection was forged when Queen Elizabeth II went to Thailand on a six-day tour as part of a wider Southeast Asia voyage in 1972 and TCMC was chosen to re-carpet the entire Royal Palace for the occasion. As well as serving Thai and British royalty, TCMC supplied carpets to luxury hotels thanks to the management of the Srivikorn family, a respected and well-known name in the hotel sector. Another factory was opened in Singapore’s Jurong Estate in 1968 – one of the largest industrial estates in the region. A showroom and marketing presence had previously been established in Singapore and Malaysia in 1964 under the guidance of General Manager Helena

Chen. Singapore became independent from Malaysia in 1965 and the new government, led by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, was keen to encourage the development of new industries by overseas interests through its Economic Development Board. As the first ever carpetmaker in Singapore, Tai Ping’s joint venture, the Singapore Carpet Manufacturers Pte Ltd. (SCM), was granted ‘pioneer’ status by the government. Its new factory, described as ‘the best building by far of Tai Ping’s factories’, was opened

by Edmund Barker, the Minister for Law and National Development, in a ceremony attended by other senior government officials (indeed its first order was for the Prime Minister’s residence). The company encountered almost immediate success: in May it was noted that SCM had secured ‘practically all tenders which have been awarded’ in the booming hotel sector and plans were made to build a stage two of the factory immediately.

Clockwise from top left: Philippine Carpet’s Sucat factory on the outskirts of Manila, in the Philippines The Tai Ping carpet for the Manila Hotel, 1968 A beautiful Tai Ping carpet adorns the San Miguel Corporation office building in Rizal, the Philippines, 1969. All carpets were made by Philippine Carpet Manufacturing Corporation.

In 1969 Tai Ping took a 19% crossshareholding in Felt & Textile Industry Ltd.’s Malaysia factory, and they in Tai Ping’s Singapore factory. Felt & Textile Industry later sold their shareholding to Carpets International Ltd. of England, and the company found themselves associated with this company in Malaysia and Singapore.

Tai Ping also established a presence in Indonesia in 1971 in partnership with the Hadiutomo family, where President Suharto had implemented a ‘New Order’. At first, Tai Ping’s Southeast

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The Singapore Carpet Manufacturers factory at the Surong Industrial Estate, 1969

Asian joint ventures served only their own internal markets, where these sister factories were permitted to use the Tai Ping name. Later, as they looked for new markets overseas, problems arose as factories exported under different brand names and competed among themselves. In 1971 Tai Ping International Development Co. Ltd. was created to supervise the distribution of carpets under the Tai Ping brand by the different factories in various markets.

The Thailand Carpet Manufacturing factory in Bangkok, 1968

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Back in Hong Kong, Lawrence Kadoorie, ever the innovator, sensed new opportunities in the colony’s textile and non-textile sectors. By the late 1960s Tai Ping started to encounter local competition. According to figures collected by the Hong Kong Productivity Council, there were six carpetmakers in operation in Hong Kong including The Hong Kong Oriental Rug Co. operated by Gilmans. Although Tai Ping remained the largest of these concerns (representing 76% of all manufactured carpets and around 50% of local sales) and the company was able to maintain its status as Hong Kong’s preeminent carpet brand, Lawrence was keen to diversify and take advantage of the colony’s remarkable industrial output. For Hong Kong industry as a whole, there were 1,050 industrial undertakings employing 64,000 men and women in 1947, the figures rose to 17,239 factories and 589,505 employees in 1970. Many of these operations were small factories dealing in textiles, plastics and electronics.

In 1964, when a record number of new businesses were registered in Hong Kong, Tai Ping started to diversify into sectors including polythene packing materials (Unipak (HK) Ltd). Because Hong Kong was primarily concerned with the export business, the Board felt that a packing service and supply company specialising in carton boxes, polythene bags and soft foam would prosper. Unipak eventually focused on ‘Bubblepak’ products but met with limited success: poor sales and ‘a bubble unsuitable for most of local industry’ meant that the company was sold in 1972, after just three years of operation (to quote one apparently qualified observer: ‘bigger bubble needed … there must be a bigger bubble’). Dolomiti Ltd., a knitted garment company established in 1969 in partnership with customer Messrs. Toby Berman of New York, fared little better.

Minako Pleitgen was hired by Anthony Yeh as the company’s General Manager. She remembers frequent visits by Lawrence and his wife Muriel (who wore Dolomiti clothes) to its Tai Po factory, as well as the

A contemporary Tai Ping design in white and blue, full cut pile and carved, 1970

garments it produced. ‘It was a double knit, a very thick knitted material, and it was fully fashioned which means that every garment was knitted in a shape and then knitted together and made into jackets, skirts and trousers. Very old fashioned, which was why it didn’t last very long, and we had to change completely to become a normal fashion manufacturing company using cut and sew.’

Despite changes to the business model, the company was sold in 1972.

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Treasure Looms Ltd., established in 1964, was more tightly wedded to the carpetmaking trade. It made braided and loomed rugs out of wool waste based on an adaptation of hand-braided rugs first made by seventeenth century Pilgrim settlers to America. The China Mail reported that: ‘antique rugs among the early American originals have been copied and brought up to date to complement colonial style and other period trends in present day furnishings.’ By 1966 the company employed 80 workers who were housed on the top floor of the Tai Ping factory. Its products were showcased in Hong Kong’s new City Hall alongside furnishings from Lane Crawford. Although Treasure Looms’ line of braided rugs were eventually discontinued, the company continued to operate as Tai Ping’s Hong Kong retail arm – it leased a showroom in St George’s Building for its new ‘Indoor-Outdoor Carpet Centre’. Although Tai Ping’s first foray into non-carpet products had been unsuccessful, demand for its handmade carpets was on the up, and a new factory facility would need to be built to keep up with demand. Huge changes were on their way in the New Territories under Governor Murray MacLehose’s social reforms, heralding a new beginning for Tai Po and its Tai Ping factory. Further expansion was on the horizon for Tai Ping’s global operations, too.

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Tai Ping’s new venture, Treasure Looms, is featured in the China Mail newspaper, 1966

IndoorOutdoor Carpets Named ‘outdoor’ because its carpets were so durable they could be washed with a hose, Tai Ping’s ‘Indoor-Outdoor Carpet Centre’ introduced lines intended for use on the cricket pitch, tennis court or athletic track. The showroom was opened in St George’s Building in 1970 by Muriel Kadoorie and displayed carpeting from America, Britain and Japan under the guidance of its British manageress, Lyn Miller.

Tai Ping’s was the first salon to offer a complete range of foreign carpeting in Hong Kong. Its bright orange, black and off-white décor caught the attention of passers-by, as did the generous use of carpet on walls, seats and cushions. ‘No, the potted plants aren’t made up of carpet’ reported Tai Ping’s News Digest. ‘But the curtains are made of carpet: little orange saucers hanging on orange threads ... You’ll get the message all right. Carpet looks good everywhere, except in the fish pond.

Who knows…?’

The orange themed showroom of the Indoor-Outdoor Carpet Centre, opened in 1970 in St George’s Building, Hong Kong

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chapter

4

growth and diversification Lawrence Kadoorie

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The company is one of the world’s leading carpet manufacturers and it serves clients in more than 50 countries. No order is too big for Tai Ping to tackle provided a plane or ship can carry it.’

In the 1970s considerable changes were afoot in Hong Kong: the city’s fast-growing economy coupled with government reforms improved public services, protected the environment and transformed the rural way of life for thousands of New Territories villagers.

With more leisure time and higher incomes at their disposal, Hong Kongers enjoyed a city that was replete with culture as the government promoted the arts and opened several new museums. Hong Kong’s vibrant popular culture was also exported worldwide. Its successful film industry, pioneered by Shaw Studios and Golden Harvest Studios, made stars of

Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. The city’s urban landscape also became more integrated as Kowloon and Hong Kong Island were linked by road and rail for the first time. The Cross-Harbour Tunnel connected Causeway Bay with Hung Hom in 1972, and by the end of the decade the city’s first Mass Transit Railway began transporting commuters across the island.

The government’s ‘new town’ scheme created modern satellite towns in Hong Kong’s traditionally rural New Territories, further bridging the gap between rural and urban, while the Country Parks Ordinance protected Hong Kong’s woodlands, beaches and mountain

The factory floor, 1970s Previous page (overleaf): ‘Tai Ping Carpets Cover the World’, 1970

ranges. Hong Kong also became increasingly integrated with China as that country opened up to the outside world. The 1970s and 1980s were a time of growth, investment and opportunity, but also difficulties as the company grappled with global recession and increased competition. As always, Tai Ping met these challenges with innovative thinking. It consolidated its position as a world leader of handmade carpets and showcased bold designs in its new American and European showrooms. By the start of the 1990s, Tai Ping looked towards a new chapter in its history – a chapter that would be written in China.

Until the 1950s, Hong Kong’s New Territories were remote and other-worldly: village life carried on in the way it had done for generations. Few villages had access to roads, none had electricity, running water, sewage or refuse collection services. Denis Bray, the District Commissioner of Tai Po in the 1950s, wrote that the New Territories were ‘terra incognita for urban dwellers’. All this changed when the government instituted a new town development programme that aimed to disperse urban centres and decentralise populations away from Hong Kong Island and Kowloon and into the New Territories. These new towns were designed to ease congestion in urban areas – where population density was among the highest in the world – and provide land for Hong Kong’s fast-growing industries.

Urban planners were influenced by Britain’s post-war approach. ‘The new towns will be fully self-contained’ declared a Hong Kong government pamphlet, ‘simultaneously providing their residents with employment and meeting their basic needs’. The new town programme was launched in 1960 with the designation of Tsuen Wan. In 1972, Governor Murray MacLehose announced a ten-year housing programme for 1.8 million people (almost 45% of Hong Kong’s total 4.5 million population at that time), which included the expansion of market towns, including Tai Po, into new towns. The Kadoorie brothers witnessed these changes at first hand through their regular visits to Castle Peak, their country home, later to become Tuen Mun. Clockwise from above left: Hong Kong’s Cross-Harbour Tunnel, the first underwater link connecting Hong Kong and Kowloon and championed by Lawrence Kadoorie, opened in 1972 Sha Tin, one of Hong Kong’s earliest new town developments Tuen Mun, 1970s

The Tai Ping Board also took heed of these developments. The Board had fortuitously purchased agricultural land adjacent to the Tai Po factory to take care of future growth. Now, they bargained on Hong Kong’s metamorphosis with an ambitious Tai Ping Industrial Park scheme: a complex of industrial buildings that could help transform Tai Po into a major industrial satellite town. It was hoped that the development of government-funded, lowcost housing estates in the surrounding area could help plug labour shortages in local industry – shortages wrought from an exodus of New Territories villagers now working in Chinese restaurants in London, Liverpool and elsewhere in Britain. One newspaper reported that the ‘jobs created

by the factories should be a boon to the predominantly young Tai Po population’.

The first building to be developed as part of the Tai Ping Industrial Park scheme was a modern, 12-storey column-free construction of pre-cast beams designed by the firm Peter YS Pun & Associates.

Completed in 1977, a second block followed two years later: the lower six floors of these buildings were used for carpet manufacture and storage and the upper floors were sold. The Industrial Park represented a major milestone in Tai Ping’s history, but it also reflected the dramatic changes taking place in the New Territories as the district pivoted from rural to urban, low-rise to high-rise and agriculture to industry.

Tai Ping staff enjoy a day out at Tai Po Park, Hong Kong, 1979

From top to bottom: a series of photographs capture the dramatic changes to the Tai Ping industrial park, pictured in 1977, 1979 and 1987

A Tai Ping wage card, 1979

Like other Hong Kong businesses of the time, Tai Ping actively pursued property development and investment as land, in short supply, increased in value. The South China Morning Post reported in 1976 that the company’s property plans ‘could eventually see real estate overtake carpets as the group’s most important division’, though this didn’t come to pass. Following the success of the Tai Ping Industrial Park, Tai Ping announced a new joint venture with the Cheung Kong Ltd. property group to

develop more tracts of land in Tai Po, and the Tai Ping Industrial Centre was completed in 1982. As the 1980s progressed, Tai Ping also purchased several floors in the Bank of America Tower, a 38-floor skyscraper built in 1975. They were later sold between the years 1996 and 1998 at considerable profit.

In 1993 the company acquired a 5% stake in a Winsor Group project to redevelop 63 – 73 Wo Yi Hop Road in Kwai Chung, which later became Tai Ping’s Head Office from 1997 until 2012.

Above left: an artisan stands beside a vast and intricate carpet design showing a nomadic desert scene, 1970s Above right: a designer works on preliminary sketches, 1970s Right: the David tapestry in the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

circular solutions After dining with the Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and his wife, Lawrence Kadoorie accepted a particularly complex commission: to make a carpet for a circular staircase, all in one piece.

Never one to say no to a challenge, Lawrence passed the commission to Anthony Yeh at Tai Ping. As the carpet progressed, a worrying problem was identified. ‘I checked on the sample we had prepared back at the factory. Where the dark-blue carpeting was stretched over a step it showed a series of white lines,’ recalled Lawrence. What could be done? ‘Suddenly I asked Anthony if he wore socks. He assured me he did. Then why did his heel not break through the sock? Because the heel of the sock had been reinforced!

So now we reinforced the carpet to varying degrees to meet the stresses as it wound round the staircase.’

Lawrence had found an everyday solution to a complex manufacturing problem. Tai Ping became one of the only carpet companies in the world to make a satisfactory circular staircase carpet in one piece.

Lawrence Kadoorie inspects carpet samples, 1970s

In the early 1970s Tai Ping went public to raise capital and achieve faster growth.

It had been a source of boardroom discussion since the early 1960s, and in 1973 a decision was finally made to list the company to ‘diversify and develop on a worldwide scale’. In November, 25% of the company was offered to the public at HK$2.50 a share, raising HK$50 million, and the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as ‘Hong Kong Carpet Manufacturers Ltd.’, which changed to ‘Hong Kong Carpet (Holdings) Ltd.’ in 1986. Later, in February 1990, the company’s Hong Kong listing was changed to a new entity, ‘Tai Ping Carpets International Ltd.’, with a Bermuda holding company. In line with its public offering, diversification remained on the cards in the 1970s and 1980s. Anthony Yeh remained ever vigilant for new opportunities as the company sought to take advantage of Hong Kong’s rapid industrialisation, though many of these ventures ultimately failed as Hong Kong’s industries started to migrate towards China. In 1970 a new joint venture was launched with Nanyang Cotton Mill and two Japanese firms to manufacture synthetic yarns and knitted fabrics in the Tai Po knitting department.

Named Texnit Ltd., the company was liquidated in 1976 after losses were incurred. In 1977 Tai Ping invested in the leather luggage manufacturer ‘Antler International’, later sold in 1986 and a stake in Everfit Textiles Ltd., Tai Ping’s major supplier of canvas backing for carpets, was acquired in 1988.

Clockwise from top: Tai Ping artisans work on suspended platforms, carving and tufting, 1970s

A selection of Tai Ping’s Chinese and period designs, 1970s

In tandem with its foray into industry, Tai Ping focused on the growth of its primary product around the globe: carpets. Its efforts were frustrated by a tough economic climate and a contracting market. With China’s opening up to the world in the 1970s, Tai Ping was met with fierce competition from low-price Chinese carpets, especially in Europe. Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 also signalled the end of Commonwealth Preference for Hong Kong, and in the same year the oil crisis contributed to a recession in the U.S.

Li Siu-kuen, a Tai Ping artisan, remembers the struggles of that time: ‘it was really tough during the oil crisis. We worked only three to four days a week, mostly on standby, we barely had any orders to work on. At one time the only order we received in a whole month was a three by five square foot rug.’

Tai Ping faced problems with its Southeast Asian subsidiaries too, namely in Singapore, where management issues and cashflow problems forced the Board to seriously consider closing the operation. Tai Ping responded to these economic pressures by

pushing sales of custom-made carpets, a luxury product which far outstripped stock rugs – now cheaply available from China and Eastern Europe – in quality, design and craftsmanship. The company cleverly sold these pieces through renowned and haute gamme decorators in Europe and America – the experts who planned and carried out the interior design of hotels, boutiques, homes and commercial centres. At the same time, Tai Ping kept one step ahead of the carpetmaking competition through constant innovation.

Tai Ping staff proudly showcase the company’s ‘Pride of Tourism’ award, 1973

the tai ping mega sale

‘It has become an annual ritual, a mustgo event on the bargain hunter’s calendar.

It’s Tai Ping’s yearly 50 per cent-off sale’.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Tai Ping hosted a mega sale to clear stock and entice new customers to buy its quality rugs and carpets. The sale became so popular that Tai Ping devotees living in Europe and the U.S. would often arrange trips to Hong Kong to coincide with the event.

In 1970 the mega sale was hosted in the ballroom of The Peninsula Hotel, where it attracted a queue of 200

In 1973 Tai Ping developed a lightweight motorised hand-tufting gun capable of handling the most intricate of designs. Wong Yip-cheung, who worked in the machinery department at the Tai Po factory, played a central part in the development of the new gun:

‘The first tufting gun I can remember weighed 12lb – it was so heavy that it could only be operated by male workers and couldn’t be used to tuft a delicate pattern.

The female artisans had to hand-tuft the intricate patterns while simple blocks of colour would be filled by the gun … Mr. Yeh got hold of a few smaller guns and asked us to look into ways to improve ours. He gave us a free hand. The machinery guys took heed of the workers’ needs and worked out a new version that went way beyond what we had been given as a reference. We were awarded 800 Hong Kong dollars. It wasn’t about the money. It was a proud moment to have our collective effort recognised.’

A Tai Ping bulletin describes the latest ‘Mega Sale’ held in The Peninsula Hotel’s ballroom, 1970

people impatient for their chance to grab a bargain. Wong Yip-cheung was responsible for the design of carpets and rugs for the sale and would spend time observing the preferences of customers, whether Chinese or European. ‘It became very big over the years, with television commercials and long queues of cars and customers on the sale days. (During the oil crisis) it was a clever way to recoup costs on dyeing and helped alleviate pressure on the stock department.’

The new gun helped increase production of hand-tufted carpets and reduce the training time required for new hires at the Tai Po factory. The Board considered patenting the gun to prevent it being copied by competitors, but a more practical way to protect the design was found by ordering the parts from different suppliers so that no one person had access to all the components. With the new lightweight gun on hand, a series of innovative concepts were launched which repositioned the traditional functionality of carpets as pieces of art. A wall mural division was established to promote carpeted wall murals on a worldwide basis through artist Sara Larkin and the Art Circle (Larkin would later achieve international prominence with a series of paintings known as ‘Spacescapes’).

In 1975 Lawrence Kadoorie pioneered a limited edition label of one-off carpets to be sold as part of a ‘Tai Ping Design Collection’ – heralding the start of Tai Ping’s limited edition collections. The company also embraced new breakthroughs in science and technology and perfected its colour palette (which ran into the thousands) with the latest dyes. But, as with all new ideas, some innovations fell flat.

In the 1980s the Board was convinced that fibre optics heralded a bright new future for household carpets but alas illuminated carpets proved a little too wild for the average consumer!

Tai Ping staff party, 1970s

Ng Yin-ping, former master artisan

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A basic work unit included a master, a senior apprentice, and junior apprentice. I had to spend at least a couple of years as junior apprentice to master the basic skills and different patterns before moving up to senior apprentice. It took me ten years to reach the rank of master. Before arriving at the knitting department, the drawing department would prepare a real size outline tracing from a sketch design with a projection for carpet stencil and perforation. After the stencil was perforated ready for tufting, the master would normally frame the pattern, the senior apprentice would outline the different shadings for the junior apprentice to fill in the colours.’

Artistic partnerships were nothing new for Tai Ping - wall murals and tapestries were long part of its repertoire (see page 138), and the company counted museums among its first partners. Early Tai Ping projects were recognised for their striking creativity at World Exhibitions and the American Institute for Interior Design as early as the 1960s. But it was in the 1970s that Tai Ping really started to gain a foothold in the world of art and design through collaborations with household names. The company also kept pace with the latest developments in publicity and branding as marketing became more sophisticated after the ‘image / impression’ era of the 1960s.

When television viewing emerged as a core experience of popular culture in the 1970s, a short film recounting the Tai Ping story was shown on Hong Kong television. By the end of the decade, a discreet Tai Ping logo was incorporated into the design of its carpets, taking advantage of the trend which saw designers exploit their trademarks on their projects. The company also started

to capitalise on the ‘Tai Ping’ brand in the U.S., where World Wide Looms had sold Tai Ping products under customers’ own labels.

Existing showrooms in the U.S., including in Dallas and New York, were converted into Tai Ping showrooms, and the name ‘Tai Ping Rugs and Carpets’ was registered. In 1978 Tai Ping enjoyed record carpet sales. ‘The quality standard of our carpets is manifest in the fact that they are seen in distinguished places like the United Nations Headquarters, the Royal Thailand Government Palace and Windsor Castle,’ stated Lawrence Kadoorie at the opening of the Hong Kong Hutchison House showroom. By 1982, the company had six U.S. showrooms (Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Chicago, New York, San Francisco), which promoted the Tai Ping name across America. The company underscored its commitment to hand-made carpets in the U.S. with the acquisition of Diamond Carpets Inc., a manufacturer based in Cartersville, Georgia in 1980, where a boutique dye house was added a few years later.

A few steps in the carpetmaking process, above, from left to right: designing, dyeing, stencilling, below, from left to right: weaving, preliminary inspection and size fixing, 1970

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tapestry: a FIne art From the Middle Ages to the Baroque period, tapestry enjoyed a prestige far beyond that of painting. In its early years, Tai Ping demonstrated its artistic range through the reproduction of designs for tapestries, which call for imaginative understanding as well as the highest degree of accuracy. The skilled workers who made up the small team of Tai Ping’s tapestry makers had at least 15 years’ experience and were nearly all women.

‘They are more than artisans’ explained one Tai Ping executive.

‘They show the sensitivity of artists’. One of Tai Ping’s earliest tapestries was commissioned

by Sir Isaac Wolfson for the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. The design of Adam and Eve was first painted by famous artist Jean David, and the incredible tapestry, known as the ‘David’ tapestry, was finished within four months in the Tai Po factory (see page 127).

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Tai Ping ‘scrolls’: murals and wall hangings that are works of art, 1960s

In Europe too, Tai Ping opened impressive showrooms staffed with well-trained local people. They were spearheaded by Finn Magnusson, head of Tai Ping’s new Paris based ‘European Marketing Organisation’.

In 1979 Magnusson opened Tai Ping’s first European showroom at rue Maitre Albert in Paris, a stone’s throw from La Seine. Among the early orders received were for the Ritz Hotels in London and Paris, and they later secured commissions from the Middle East.

In 1982 the showroom was moved to owned premises in the decorators’ area of Paris, in St. Germain-des-Prés on the Left Bank, closer to the offices of France’s leading design houses. Magnusson hired a small team to forge long term relationships with French designers and architects. Together, they furnished luxury hotels, offices and homes, and Tai Ping’s custom-made rugs often stood at the heart of these interiors.

Christiane Adam, a French textile designer, joined the company in 1986. One of her very

A rug from Tai Ping’s contemporary design collection, 1973

first assignments was a collaboration with Sir Terence Conran and Hilton McConnico on a new Lanvin boutique in Paris. She later worked with French artist Maxime Defert on the ‘Memoire des Sols’ collection. Christiane’s designs were conceptualised by hand using gouache paint and were carefully stored in the studio archive. Soon, more showrooms were opened in London, at 17 Savile Row, and in the German city of Dusseldorf. Although Tai Ping’s luxurious European showrooms secured prestigious orders, they also found themselves in competition with the company’s Southeast Asian subsidiary firms and the Savile Row showroom was closed in 1988. The ‘Tai Ping International Development Co. Ltd.’, created in 1971 to manage international distribution in a coordinated way struggled to supervise the dynamic and ever-changing export market.

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Above and below: the exterior and interior of the London showroom at Savile Row

pencil, ink and paint A Tai Ping carpet always begins in the company’s art department. In the 1980s, long drafting tables were spread around a brightly lit room in the Tai Po factory, where designers sat drawing animals, calligraphy, and other patterns. Once the designers had drawn and coloured their designs, the patterns were photographed and transparencies made. The designs were then transferred, by hand and ink, to a canvas that became the backing for the carpet. The colours were applied on the pattern, line by line, and the carpet was finally ready to be tufted.

‘Carpet design has been made easier and faster with the introduction of computers’ recalls Ricky Fung, who joined Tai Ping as a sales manager in the 1970s. ‘In the early days, designs were first sketched by hand for the client’s approval and were then coloured with paint. The design, on paper, was literally a work of art.’

A designer in the art department, 1979

In tandem with a renewed focus on the custom-order business, Tai Ping also sought to incorporate Axminster looms as part of its repertoire. By the early 1970s Anthony Yeh pursued joint venture opportunities to produce Axminster and Wilton design carpets in Britain, where ‘Axminster’ was originally developed in the town of the same name. Yeh explained to the Board that there existed ample demand ‘for Axminster which represented a high quality, expensive grade of carpet like those grades already produced by the Hong Kong company.’

In 1977 World Wide Looms started to distribute Axminster carpets in the U.S. in a bid to establish a market for Axminster quality carpets to be made in Hong Kong. By the beginning of the new decade, Tai Ping also looked for new investment opportunities to utilise the funds raised by the successful completion of the Tai Ping Industrial Park.

They found such an opportunity with Carpets International Limited (CIL), in Kidderminster, England, a company with whom Tai Ping had an existing partnership through its Southeast Asian subsidiaries.

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With Tai Ping operating at the top end of the handmade market via its Tai Po factory, CIL was deemed the perfect vehicle to cater to the mid-range machine-made market. A 29% stake was acquired in 1980, but the strength of sterling combined with high interest rates and a surge of imports created a situation described as the ‘worst in living memory’ in the British carpet industry, and the shares were sold in 1983.

CIL’s Asia holdings held more promise. Tai Ping acquired a 40% stake in CIL’s Asia operations in 1981 and gradually increased its shareholding in Carpets Inter Thailand (CIT) over the course of the next two decades. By 1990 Anthony Yeh’s vision was realised: CIT built a new factory with 25 Axminster looms and a new joint venture was established to sell Axminster carpets in the U.S. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, mounting political uncertainty unsettled the local economy. In

1979 Sir Murray MacLehose was the first sitting governor to visit the PRC. His visit to Beijing, coupled with China’s opening up and its economic modernisation, created a sense of relief in Hong Kong as the 1997 watershed approached. Hong Kong’s stock market and property markets rose and land became the most expensive in the world. This optimism began to wane by 1982, especially after British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s visit to China and the start of the SinoBritish Joint Negotiations. As public confidence dropped, panic took hold of financial markets and the property market collapsed. Although the real estate slump affected carpet sales in Hong Kong (for much of 1983 the Tai Po factory operated on a four-day week), Tai Ping remained optimistic. It entrenched its position as the colony’s premier carpet-manufacturer and its Chairman, Lawrence Kadoorie, was the first Hong Kong-born individual to receive a peerage in 1981 (see page 144). In the 1970s

and 1980s, new Tai Ping showrooms were opened in Macau and on both sides of Victoria Harbour: in Hutchison House, located on Hong Kong Island, and Wing On Plaza in Kowloon, which replaced the original Peninsula Court showroom. Tai Ping’s line of imported carpets, sold through Treasure Looms Ltd., also expanded, opening new ‘IndoorOutdoor Carpet Centres’ in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. In 1986 the company celebrated its 30th anniversary and released a book written by renowned journalist Anthony Lawrence, the former Chief Far Eastern correspondent for BBC radio during the Vietnam War. The book was named ‘Magic Carpets’ and a colourful Tai Ping tapestry - showcasing a graceful Phoenix - adorned its cover.

‘It’s been interesting from the start’ wrote Lawrence Kadoorie in the book’s preface.

‘I’ve had more fun with Tai Ping than with many other companies.’

Above: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher inaugurates CLP’s Castle Peak power station Unit A, Hong Kong, 1982. Lawrence Kadoorie is seated, middle Left: the front cover design for Tai Ping’s 30th anniversary commemorative book, written by Anthony Lawrence

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lawrence kadoorie made peer Lawrence Kadoorie was the first Hong Kong-born individual to be made a peer in the 1981 Queen’s Birthday Honours List on the recommendation of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Known as the Baron of Kowloon in Hong Kong and the City of Westminster (or Lord Kadoorie for short), he was elevated to the peerage thanks to his unstinting support for Hong Kong and his attempts to foster links between Britain, China and Hong Kong, which he referred to as the ‘three-legged stool’. His inaugural speech at the House of Lords was delivered at the third reading of the British Nationality Bill in 1981, in which he said: ‘Hong Kong … is a neutral point of contact between East and West … from a devastated colony, said to be the most looted city in the world, Hong Kong has risen like a Phoenix from the ashes.’

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Lawrence Kadoorie at the House of Lords, London, 1982

Tai Ping continued to tackle orders both large and small: it remained the ‘go-to’ company for Hong Kong’s luxury hotels, carpeting the rooms of the Excelsior Hotel and the Shangri-la Hotel. In 1986 a major milestone was achieved when the company received the largest single order in its history for the Kuwait Islamic Conference Centre valued at over HK$10 million: a total of 18 containers of carpets were shipped to Kuwait by the time the job was finished.

The 1980s also heralded significant changes in the Tai Ping boardroom.

Fresh faces were introduced as Lincoln Yung, son of H.C. Yung, and Kent Yeh, son of Anthony Yeh, were appointed Directors. In 1987, Lawrence Kadoorie, now well into his eighties, stepped down as company Chairman to be replaced

by Anthony Yeh. Linden Johnson, one of the founding fathers of Tai Ping, died in 1987, and William Grimsdale, who served as alternate Chairman for Lawrence Kadoorie, passed away a few years later. He was replaced by William Mocatta who became a Director in 1990. In the same year Kent Yeh – who had joined the Company in 1981 – was appointed Managing Director, a position he held until 2003.

Lawrence Kadoorie, Muriel Kadoorie and William Mocatta at Tai Ping’s Hutchison House showroom

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a gift for royal feet

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The wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 was arguably the most talked about wedding of the decade. Staying true to its royal connections, Tai Ping wove the carpet that was given to the couple as Hong Kong’s wedding gift. Measuring an impressive 6.3 metres by 7.5 metres, the carpet was designed by Dudley Poplak,

the man responsible for decorating the couple’s home. A staggering 114 kilograms of pure virgin wool was imported from New Zealand to make the carpet, which was woven by a team of specially selected artisans in the Tai Po factory. The carpet was shipped to Britain in time for the completion of the decoration of Kensington Palace, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ new home.

Left: work in progress and the finished carpet presented by the people of Hong Kong to the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana on the occasion of their wedding Right: the story is covered in the local press in July 1981

The negotiations between China and Britain regarding Hong Kong’s future were pivotal in shaping the colony’s business landscape, but just as important as the impending handover was the slow re-integration of China and Hong Kong’s economies. In the late 1970s Hong Kong and Guangdong became increasingly integrated in a symbiotic relationship shaped by Guangdong’s labour and land and Hong Kong’s capital and international connections. Tai Ping was one of the first Hong Kong companies to turn towards the China market, launching a new China Trade Division (CTD) in the early 1980s. By 1984, the department consisted of five staff, two in Guangdong, one in Shanghai and two in Hong Kong, who made frequent sales trips to China. Hopes ran high for CTD, and soon the division diversified into the non-textile sector. In March 1985, it was noted that ‘so far we have signed a contract

to supply American Standard sanitaryware for a hotel in Shanghai, plus five tennis courts in Peking and Canton. Other products will include furniture, wallpaper, upholstery and interior design service.’ By the late 1970s, Hong Kong’s labour-intensive manufacturing industries were faced with soaring land prices, a shortage of labour and fierce competition. With China’s open door policy and economic modernisation, these industries began to move north and relocate their production base primarily to the Pearl River Delta, which shared a close linguistic and cultural affinity with Hong Kong. As overheads increased, Tai Ping was faced with a stark choice. It finally relocated its production lines from Tai Po to Nanhai, in southern China, in 1992. By the beginning of the new decade, the company looked towards a new future in Deng Xiao Ping’s reforming China.

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from hong kong to china Anthony Yeh

The biggest achievement of 1991 was the setting up of two factories in China. In view of the above progress, we expect to close down the Tai Po operation by the end of June 1992.’

The 1990s were the most challenging years in Tai Ping’s history. Global trade was slow, a situation exacerbated by the Gulf War in 1991 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and competition in the carpet sector remained intense throughout the decade.

Production costs had risen significantly in Hong Kong, further affecting the company’s competitiveness internationally, which prompted a search for a new lower-cost manufacturing base in China. By the mid-1990s almost 90% of Hong Kong factories had moved to China. With rising

operational costs and a dearth of new workers, Tai Ping moved its production lines from Hong Kong to Chaozhou, then Nanhai, in southern China, and production finally ceased at the Tai Po factory in 1992.

It was a strategic move that ensured a stable and long-term supply of Tai Ping’s artisan workforce as Hong Kong’s economy pivoted from a manufacturing to a servicebased economy. Many of Hong Kong’s blue collar workers had already retired or migrated to southern China to work in the new factories there.

Tai Ping artisans hand tuft the Han Feng collection at the Nanhai factory, China, 2014 Previous page (overleaf): the Tai Ping ‘Red Carpet’ installed in the Bendlerblock, Berlin, Germany, 2002

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The 1990s were also a time of rapid diversification and financial turmoil for Tai Ping. Concerned that the carpet industry was becoming too competitive and encouraged by the opportunities offered as China opened up as an industrial base, the company looked to new opportunities outside of the carpetmaking business.

Diversification was not a new strategy for Tai Ping – indeed the Board had taken an interest in new commercial ventures since the early 1960s – but the expansion of the 1990s was more extensive than ever before.

Ultimately, these investments proved unsuccessful and by the end of the decade this radical strategy was set aside. At the Board level the company bid farewell to many of its stalwarts.

Lawrence Kadoorie passed away in 1993 followed by his brother Horace Kadoorie in 1995. In 1996 Anthony Yeh retired as company Chairman and a year later both Y.C. Wang and H.C. Yung retired. In 1998, K.K. Tse died, the last of the six founding Directors to sit on the Tai Ping Board.

Above: the Hong Kong skyline, 1982 Right: artisans surrounded by spools of wool, 1980s

tai ping on tv

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The Tai Ping commercials broadcast on Hong Kong television in the 1980s and 1990s are still fondly remembered by the generation that grew up watching them. While some commercials were designed to advertise a specific event such as the Tai Ping mega sale, others were more whimsical. One advertisement from 1986 took the unusual step of describing the Tai Ping craft through poetry:

In my mind I have a vision So unique in shape and form Yet who could craft with just precision?

As if to men are born Such pains they take to finish surely Skilled fingers craft the threads below And sculpt within the lines so purely As if to a Michelangelo Until at last my soul set free To feel beneath my hands a craft That only they could bring to be This tapestry This work of art.

Left: Tai Ping’s dragon boat team pictured outside the Tai Ping factory, 1970s Above: Tai Ping’s artisans proudly showcase their work, 1980s

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In 1988 Tai Ping started to look for a new manufacturing base in China, part of the wider trend of Hong Kong-based manufacturers migrating north. In these early months Tai Ping also sought ways to maintain manufacturing capability in Hong Kong, and an investment was made in a small Hong Kong-based carpet producer operated by a former employee in 1989.

Unfortunately, the business was found to be unprofitable and was soon sold. Tai Ping executives travelled across China in their search for a new home. These investigations, which took managers from Changzhou to Swatow, soon bore fruit and in April 1991 a factory was identified in Chaozhou (located between Hong Kong and Xiamen).

Operations started in June 1991 with 50 workers and a target production capacity of 15,000 square feet per month. In November an agreement was reached to lease and build new carpetmaking facilities in Shatou (near Nanhai) with large-scale custom order capacity. By July 1992 all carpet production was transferred from Tai Po to Nanhai, and the Tai Po factory premises were sold in September. The Tai Po chapter, which had started in 1958, had come to an end.

From left to right: weaving, colour matching and tufting at the Nanhai factory

Tai Ping’s move to Nanhai marked the end of an era for Tai Ping staff, many of whom had honed their skills and developed a sense of community at the Tai Po factory. Pinky Ng, who worked at Tai Ping in the 1980s, looks back at that time with bittersweet memories. ‘I was the last batch to leave. I cried at almost every farewell because it was just so hard to part with people that you saw as family’. Tai Ping reunions, with former colleagues from every part of the business, continue to this day. Often hosted in dim

The yarn warehouse at the Nanhai factory

sum restaurants, reunions provide spaces where old friends and former colleagues can meet, reminisce and share memories of the old Tai Po days. After its move to Nanhai, Tai Ping cultivated a new workforce in China. Although training and the transfer of skills took time, the commitment to employee wellbeing continued. The company also invested in new machinery.

In 1995 Axminster looms were installed, complementing the CIT facility in Bangkok.

In the same year the Chaozhou factory

was closed, having been superseded by the Nanhai factory. Tai Ping had earlier consolidated its Axminster and Wilton production capacity with an investment in a broadloom carpet manufacturer in Weihai in 1992, a city in eastern Shandong province, China. The company became the leading machine carpet manufacturer in China with its ‘Shan Hua’ brand but as it was not directly managed

by Tai Ping its 49% stake was sold to the local partner in 2012.

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THE RESTORATION OF GOVERNMENT HOUSE Government House, home to colonial governors and the Chief Executive of the HKSAR, was first built in the 1850s and is one of the few grand buildings from the nineteenth century to have survived in modern Hong Kong. Under the governorship of Christopher Patten, known as ‘the last governor of Hong Kong’, Government House underwent an extensive restoration in the 1990s.

The theme of the renovation was ‘East meets West’ and it was carried out by Hong Kong’s own architects, designers, manufacturers and artisans. One of the most stunning visual features of the renovation was the collection of four richly textured rugs handcrafted by Tai Ping.

Its designers chose Hong Kong’s official flower – the Bauhinia – as a decorative motif for the carpets.

After months of design development, computers were used to calculate the design and intricate triple-hoop green and beige background for the craftsmen. A team of workers spent three months producing the carpets on a series of platforms which were then proudly showcased in the ballroom and entrance lobby of Government House.

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Left: scenes from the restoration of Government House, including the new Tai Ping carpet installed in the ballroom and entrance lobby, Hong Kong, 1993 Above, pictured from left to right: U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and President Bill Clinton, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa and Chief Secretary Anson Chan in Government House. A Tai Ping carpet adorns the floor, 1998.

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At the beginning of the 1990s, Tai Ping also increasingly looked to China for new business opportunities. Although investments continued in Hong Kong with the acquisition of luxury furniture retailer Banyan Tree Group (acquired in 1990 and sold in 2006, it still operates in Hong Kong today as ‘Indigo’), and with further real estate developments in partnership with Cheung Kong in 1991, the company now set its sights north of Hong Kong. The move coincided with a period of financial stress.

Since its 1973 listing Tai Ping’s turnover and net profit had grown steadily from HK$31 million and HK$6 million, respectively, to HK$280 million and HK$90 million in 1990, with shareholders enjoying steadily increasing dividends. However, from 1990 the underlying profit of the core Tai Ping carpet operation started to decline. With cut-throat competition, global recession,

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the Gulf War and U.S. quota restrictions on carpet imports from China hurting the company’s sales, diversification, especially in the China market, was viewed as key to Tai Ping’s survival. The company had picked up on a global trend: in 1993 China was the site of more foreign direct investment than any other country thanks to the explosive growth of its domestic economy and liberalisation of its foreign investment regime. As noted by economist Nicholas R. Lardy, ‘many multinationals decided that they could not afford not to invest in the world’s fastest growing emerging market’.

In 1993 Tai Ping founded the ‘China Industrial Investments Ltd.’ (CIIL), a new venture capital vehicle which aimed to invest up to HK$100 million in small industrial projects and which built on the work of Tai Ping’s China Trade Division team created in the

early 1980s. Soon, joint ventures were launched in Changzhou with a cement manufacturing plant, in Suzhou with a mattress factory and in the cosmetics industry with products including Pearl Silk Cream, Summer Ointment and mosquito repellent. In 1994 a major investment was made in the furniture manufacturing sector with a joint venture to produce and sell BIF branded furniture in China with plants in Shenzhen and Jilin.

It was a highly capital-intensive business that struggled with management and product design issues: the company was loss-making and had to be liquidated in 1999. Other additions to the CIIL portfolio included a stake in a Shanghai-based water bottling company, Changzhou ventures in garments and electrical components and a China marketing agency.

Staff karaoke night, 1980s

MAKING HISTORY: THE HANDOVER OF HONG KONG The year 1997 marked an important turning point in Hong Kong’s history: the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to China. Tai Ping was chosen to craft the vibrant red carpet that was used to cover the stage during the Handover ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, an event attended by officials including Chinese Premier Li Peng, Christopher Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, and Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive. A piece of this historic carpet is kept for posterity in the Hong Kong Heritage Project, the archive of the Kadoorie Family.

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General view of the Handover of Hong Kong ceremony. Tai Ping’s bold red carpet forms a spectacular and eye-catching backdrop, 1997

Regrettably, diversification was too rapid and too extensive. With no personnel on the ground it became difficult to oversee these myriad operations and CIIL made persistent losses. As a consequence Tai Ping recorded its first ever loss in 1996. Debt – which had been negligible up to 1990 – rapidly increased and the shareholder dividend was stopped in 1996 and was only resumed four years later in 1999. When Anthony Yeh retired as Chairman in 1996 (becoming Honorary Life President), to be replaced

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re-examined its strategy. At his first Board meeting in July 1996 he observed: ‘almost all the companies were running at a loss, and overheads would need to be reduced. The company will need to concentrate on its core carpet business and withdraw from noncore businesses. It had been borrowing a lot of money and investing it in unprofitable businesses’. The U.S. quota restrictions on carpets were no longer problematic and diversification, formerly seen as a panacea, was scrutinised with a critical lens. The Kadoorie Family, now under the guidance of

From left to right, some of Tai Ping’s prestigious projects from the 1990s: the Dutch House of Lords (De Ridderzaal), Holland, 1992 Kocache Enterprises Guest Palace, Manama, Bahrain, 1990. The Humanities Quad, Harvard University, United States, 1998

The Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie, Lawrence Kadoorie’s son, were adamant that Tai Ping must be saved. As borrowing increased and the industrial ventures were written off, the company turned to its shareholders to raise funds. Two rights issues were made in 1997 and 2001, raising HK$97 million and HK$98 million respectively. Slowly, the company withdrew from its small, non-core investments. It was agreed that property holding should no longer be an integral part of the business model. Tai Ping set out on

a new path to consolidate its raison d’être.

In the 1998 Annual Report Dickson Leach advised that ‘all non-carpet businesses have been closed, disposed of or fully provided for.’ The last CIIL investment, the Suzhou mattress factory, was sold in 2009.

Amidst all the turmoil, important gains were made during this period which laid the path for Tai Ping’s recovery. The move to Nanhai provided Tai Ping with an important manufacturing base that served the company

well for 25 years. In addition, the Board increased its stake in the Bangkok-based CIT throughout the 1990s. It was de-listed from the Thailand Stock Exchange in 2000, by which time CIT was firmly established as Thailand’s leading carpet manufacturer, a position replicated in China with the Weihai joint venture. As the new century approached, the Board set its sights on taking Tai Ping truly ‘global’ with a new brand identity, a more focused business model and a higher profile internationally.

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handmade luxury for all 2017 was one of the most significant years Nicholas Colfer, in the company’s history, as its commercial Tai Ping machine-made carpet operations were Chairman sold, marking Tai Ping’s return to its roots as a premier artisan carpetmaker.’

Tai Ping entered the twenty-first century with its position once again secure, stable and profitable. The years 2003 to 2017 were a time of dramatic strategic transformation. One of Dickson Leach’s final acts as Chairman was to undertake a detailed review of the business. His report recommended international expansion and a New York-based CEO was chosen to drive this initiative. As part of this new strategy, a recognisable brand identity was

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developed, new showrooms were opened across the globe and design studios were launched which reinvigorated the Tai Ping design ethos while also staying true to regional trends. By the end of this period Tai Ping focused on what had long been its core competency – artisanal carpets – now made in the company’s new state-of-the-art Xiamen Artisan Workshop which replaced its Nanhai base. However, these years were also tempered by tragedy as the 2001 9/11

attacks on the U.S. shocked the world and an outbreak of SARS swept through Hong Kong in 2003. Tai Ping grappled with its own crisis when the devastating Thai floods of 2011 completely submerged its Bangkok based CIT factory and displaced Tai Ping staff and their families. Politically, Hong Kong entered a new post-Handover (1997) era as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) under its new Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa.

A spectacular Tai Ping rug adorns The Peninsula Shanghai Previous page (overleaf): Swell I, a rug from the Reverence Edition by Fernando Mastrangelo for Edward Fields

In 2003, James (‘Jim’) Kaplan, an American senior executive at Knoll, was chosen as Tai Ping’s New York-based CEO (the company’s headquarters remained in Hong Kong) replacing Kent Yeh, who retired as Managing Director but remained as Director until 2005. In that same year Nicholas Colfer, who had been appointed Director in 2003, replaced Dickson Leach as Chairman.

It was the start of a new phase in Tai Ping’s history. Kaplan’s brief was to take Tai Ping global with a focus on the U.S. – Tai Ping’s first and original target market – which it was realised had untapped potential. This he did and more as he presided over a period of strategic transformation at Tai Ping. After his retirement at the end of 2017 Kaplan reflected on his first visit to the Nanhai factory, an encounter that would shape his approach to the Tai Ping brand for years to come:

‘My first impression of Tai Ping was when we went to see our factory in Nanhai. I walked through the factory and saw the beautiful work that the artists and workers had completed. And I said this is something that can't be replicated, just the quality and

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the pride that everybody took. And the decision to come to Tai Ping was based on the fact that it made beautiful products. And the challenge was to bring it out as a luxury product and a luxury brand and to establish an infrastructure around the world to support that and to make people understand that this was a very special product made by special people.’

One of Kaplan’s first initiatives as CEO was to launch a rebranding exercise to make the ‘Tai Ping’ name globally recognisable. He commissioned the iconic tent logo, unveiling a new identity that reflected Tai Ping’s status as a company at the forefront of the design world but with a long-held tradition of savoir faire and artisanal expertise.

Kaplan approached Tyler Brûlé, founder of Monocle and Wallpaper* magazines, to help.

Upon hearing how Tai Ping completed the commission for Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in a tent under extreme weather conditions, Brûlé, in Kaplan’s words, ‘immediately decided that our new logo would feature the tent to establish our brand values representing perseverance, passion and dedication’ (see opposite page). During this

time, Tai Ping started to work directly with renowned artists and designers, thereby widening its reach beyond decorators who up until then had been Tai Ping’s main contacts in the design world. In the early 2000s design collaborations were launched with Kenzo Takada, Christian Lacroix, Miguel Chevalier and Arik Levy.

Tai Ping’s name also became better known in design circles through its participation in European design events, including Salone del Mobile in Milan in 2003, the largest trade fair of its kind in the world, and in Paris with the highly regarded ‘Designer’s Days’ festival. In 2005 Tai Ping worked with design duo Gilles & Boissier to interpret the theme ‘Contes et Légendes’ (Stories and Legends), transforming the Paris showroom, then located on rue des Saints-Pères, into the legend of the ‘King and the Mockingbird’. Many more exotic and imaginative events would follow, and with them, the temporary transformation of Tai Ping’s European headquarters.

More recently, Tai Ping’s participation in the annual Designer’s Days festival has spearheaded new collaborations with artists, fashion designers and architects.

The Tai Ping logo, designed by Tyler Brûlé

Another dimension of the global strategy was the launch of in-house design studios.

Their purpose was to consolidate creative links with designers and to firmly establish Tai Ping as a leader in the custom design field. Today, the studios are situated in the creative hubs of the world: Paris, New York and Hong Kong. The three studios work closely together to ensure continuity across global collections, but they also encourage individuality so that each edition reflects the latest regional design trends. Tai Ping’s design studios and their personnel play an important part in interpreting these trends and act as ambassadors in their field. The Tai Ping brand also became better known to consumers across the globe through an expanding network of showrooms. New showrooms were opened around the world and existing properties were renovated. A flagship New York showroom was unveiled in 2005 and a London showroom opened in the same year. In 2006 a Hong Kong boutique was opened in Prince’s Building, while in 2007 a showroom was added in Hamburg. By 2008 Tai Ping products could be found in 23 locations worldwide.

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Clockwise, from left to right, a few of Tai Ping’s showrooms: Hotel de Livry, Paris (exterior and interior, pictured in 2018) Hamburg London Hong Kong

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Above, left to right: Nexus I from Jeff Leatham’s ‘Bloom’ collection and Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance’s ‘Raw’ collection, showcased at Salone de Mobile, Milan, 2019 Below: Chen Chen and Kai Williams’ Cutlass Credo Cost & Cactus Less Doctor from the ‘Cold Cut Coasters’ collection

design partnerships and collaborations In 2011 Tai Ping launched a luxury collection designed in collaboration with Hong Kong’s André Fu (see page 179).The Hong Kong studio has also collaborated with a wide range of young, local talent including Joyce Wang, a rising star of interior design known for her work creating custom Tai Ping rugs for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, among other prestigious projects. She has her own answer to the secret of the city’s design success: ‘Hong Kong designers, I find, are least precious with design. Because we have the benefit of producing prototypes and hand trials in factories close by, we are less stuck on one idea.’ In 2016 floral artist Jeff Leatham joined Tai Ping’s growing list of guest designers, launching

the ‘Bloom’ collection in Tai Ping’s Paris flagship, then located in the eighteenth century Hôtel de Livry in Saint Germain.

The collection, inspired by Monet’s gardens at Giverny in northern France, is modern and bold with a romantic, floral motif. In New York, a city renowned for its cutting edge and modernist design scene, the Tai Ping studio has also collaborated with New York based designers such as Han Feng as well as Chen Chen and Kai Williams on their pioneering RipRap design for Edition One and their limited edition Cold Cut Coasters. More recently, in 2019, Edward Fields has worked with talented Manhattan-based lighting designer Bec Brittain, whose ‘Taxonomy Edition’ takes

inspiration from insect wings and uses organic patterns to playfully interpret these structures. In Europe, Tai Ping has recently partnered with French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance on the ‘Raw’ collection, which explores the origins of our planet. Raw transposes the minerals found in the earth into something soft, thanks to Tai Ping’s unparalleled skills in hand-tufting. ‘Tai Ping found the right balance to keep the drawings’ spirit’, reflects Duchaufour-Lawrance. ‘Each design was enhanced in a way I could not have anticipated.’ For a full list of Tai Ping’s most recent design collaborators, see the Appendix on page 226.

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Han Feng, Designer

What I find inspiring is the immense range of colours that Tai Ping manages to put into carpets, the infinite ways that Tai Ping carpets are made – all the different techniques, all the different ways of shaping and tufting. I feel like somehow I'd be able to put the colours that I have always worked with, the textures and techniques I have used in my clothing and accessories designs, such as pleating, into Tai Ping's medium.’

Ran II from Tai Ping’s Han Feng collection

andre fu André Fu was born in Hong Kong and educated in Britain. In 2011, Fu collaborated with Tai Ping on the ‘André Fu Collection’, an intricate collection of carpets designed in honour of Tai Ping’s heritage.

Juxtaposing premium fibres such as wool, silk, cashmere and accent threads including cotton, Fu’s collection plays with pile height and yarn thickness to weave gridlike patterns in soft hues. For Fu, the collaboration with Tai Ping has been artistically enriching. He describes the company as one of Hong Kong’s first luxury brands, and one whose ‘profound dedication to craftsmanship’ matches his own.

At the turn of the new millennium, Tai Ping started to look beyond its core residential market and target specific niche sectors in the custom-made industry, such as private aviation (see page 183) and superyachts.

In 2001 the Yacht Division was launched to cater to this rapidly-growing sector. What was once dominated by small family-owned firms soon became highly competitive as interior design studios and shipbuilding companies scrambled to launch their own in-house yacht divisions. The sector also became more complex as clients moved Aerial III by André Fu, at Hong Kong’s Upper House

away from a traditional and homely aesthetic to one dominated by new technologies.

Although Tai Ping had already created rugs for one of the largest motor yachts in the world – the 90-meter-long Al Mirqab – it, too, needed to adapt and evolve to keep pace with changing market conditions.

Tai Ping’s early commissions were secured thanks to its Norwegian agent Yvonne Rijnbergen. Later, she was helped by Xavier Bonnamy, an experienced yachtsman who helped launch the Yacht Division. One component of Tai Ping’s yacht strategy

was to showcase its artisanal skills at the Monaco Yacht Show (MYS), established in 1991 as a gathering place for the world’s superyacht community.

These early years were a challenge.

With little or no marketing budget, the first Tai Ping booth was small and basic.

However, Tai Ping’s core competencies aligned perfectly with the aesthetic and production needs of the superyacht sector, so orders soon followed and the company began to develop loyal partnerships that still continue today.

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Above: Tai Ping carpets perfectly complement the interior of MY Tis (photos: Lürssen, Winch Media and Klaus Jordan) Left: some of Tai Ping’s early yacht projects, 1990s

Catherine Vergez, who was an early pioneer of Tai Ping’s Yacht Division, reflects that ‘the unwavering product quality, the design inspiration and limitless customisation possibilities made Tai Ping a perfect fit for this very demanding market with exacting standards.’ In 2006 Tai Ping moved its German showroom from Dusseldorf to Hamburg, the second largest port in Europe. Tai Ping now had access to some of the world’s most influential shipbuilders.

Tai Ping’s concierge service, which encompasses design consultation and development, installation and upkeep, was a boon for interior designers, shipyards and crews, who flocked to Tai Ping’s all-in-one package offering. With encouragement and support from the Board, today Tai Ping is the number one supplier of custom-made

carpets for the world’s superyachts, and the yacht industry remains a crucial sector. Not that Tai Ping hasn’t been tested along the way. Bonnamy recalls how in 2017:

‘We designed and produced some 2,000 square meters of intricate hand-tufted carpet for one of the largest and most expensive private sailing yachts in the world. This project was so challenging that it took us three months just to set up the production order. After sending our product to a shipyard in Germany, the yard had to stop all other activities to mount what was probably the largest scaffolding in the country at that time, just so we could access all areas of the yacht. The project was certainly a major milestone for Tai Ping’s Yacht Division!’

Above right: glamour in the sky thanks to Edward Fields from the early 1970s Below right: ‘Images of Class, Details of Comfort’: the Edward Fields carpet was a central design feature of America West Airlines, 1984

private aviation Today, Tai Ping is a leading supplier of rugs and carpets for private aircraft, especially in the U.S. Much of this early business was developed thanks to Edward Fields, a Tai Ping brand. Its first foray into the world of private aviation took place in Houston, Texas, when a salesman named Michael Williams – a cousin of Jack Fields, Edward Fields’ son – helped design and manufacture a major custom project for the Saudi Royal family. Other aviation projects soon followed in Dallas and San Francisco. Some of these early projects included the first custom designed rugs for the American Airlines passenger fleet as well as rugs for Air Force One. Work was also carried out for numerous small aviation centres, many of which were later acquired by major aviation players such as Bombardier, Gulfstream and Dassault Falcon. Such early projects laid the groundwork for Tai Ping’s current leadership position in the private aviation sector.

Above: Airbus Corporate Jets (ACJ319) Below: Bombadier Global Express (photo: Tim Callies) Right page: Gulfstream GI (photo: Duncan Aviation)

During this period Tai Ping’s leading position in luxury retail and luxury hospitality was also enhanced. As seen in Chapter Four, Tai Ping first supplied rugs to renowned Parisian boutiques in the 1980s, one of its first commissions being for the new Lanvin boutique. In the early 2000s, Tai Ping realised that its commercial reach in the world of luxury retail could be further developed. With the centralisation of France’s luxury brands and their expansion into the emerging markets of the Middle East and Asia, Tai Ping seized its opportunity.

These new trends meant that brands sought a consistent identity across different geographic markets and Tai Ping was perfectly positioned to help. It had the teams, offices and networks necessary to handle any project across the globe, from creation

to installation, both quickly and consistently.

This led to fruitful partnerships with luxury names including: Balenciaga, Brioni, Bulgari, Burberry, Cartier, Chanel, Chloé, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Givenchy, Graff Diamonds, Gucci, Harrods, Hermès, Hublot, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Moncler, Montblanc, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Prada, Tiffany & Co., Valentino and Van Cleef & Arpels, to name only a few! Meanwhile, Tai Ping also sought new clients in the luxury hospitality sector. Since its earliest days the company had been an important contender in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, and in the 1980s Tai Ping started to gain a foothold in Europe with commissions for the Ritz Hotels in London and Paris. Within two decades Tai Ping’s carpets were to be seen in many of Europe’s great hotels.

Lanvin boutique, Paris, 1992

Tentative first steps were taken when Tai Ping hired European sales reps to target luxury hotel groups. This strategy soon bore fruit as the company secured commissions in Germany and France, including for InterContinental Hotels and as a main supplier for the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer. In parallel, Tai Ping also continued to work together with family-owned luxury hotel groups such as the Savoy Hotel Baur en Ville in Switzerland, an early loyal customer. Once a rather conservative industry, as the 2000s progressed a new trend saw design superstars such as French designer Philippe Starck hired by hotels and restaurants to conceptualise new and exciting projects. Tai Ping’s earlier design-led strategy paid off as it quickly formed partnerships with these

Van Cleef & Arpels boutique, Paris, 2009

top designers to execute often complex production processes and designs. Such collaborations included Gilles & Boissier for the conception and production of rugs for the Baccarat Hotel in New York and a partnership with Aline Asmar d’Amman for Hôtel de Crillon, Paris. Tai Ping’s earlier acquisition of Axminster looms also helped cement the company’s reputation as a premier supplier. While hand-tufted area rugs were utilised in premium spaces such as lobbies, restaurants or suites, more functional spaces such as corridors were laid with Axminister carpets. Tai Ping’s ability to expertly handle both techniques, as well as its ability to dye both hand-crafted rugs and Axminster carpets in the exact same colours, saw Tai Ping become a highly sought-after supplier.

A Tai Ping carpet in The Ritz London

Tai Ping’s early hotel projects include, from top to bottom: Hotel Metropole, Geneva, Loew’s Monte Carlo, Monaco and the Royal Monceau Hotel, Paris

An ethereal Tai Ping carpet complements the décor of Mandarin Oriental, Barcelona Blue hues in The Peninsula Paris

Of course, it was a fruitful partnership for Tai Ping, too. As Catherine Vergez states, ‘great hotels have always been Tai Ping’s most beautiful showrooms.’

Such showrooms were put to good use by Tai Ping’s sales teams, who would invite leading interior designers to breakfast in hotels festooned with Tai Ping rugs to help them understand the infinite production possibilities available and the intricate beauty of the Tai Ping product. In 2008 Tai Ping’s position as an industry leader was further enhanced by Marina Bay Sands in Singapore – the largest hospitality project in Southeast Asia (and at about 2.5 million square feet and US$9 million in value the largest hospitality project ever awarded to one carpet manufacturer) – and most of the new casinos that sprung up in Macau including Wynn and MGM. The seeds of the strategy conceived in 2003 bore fruit, as sales increased dramatically from about HK$480 million in 2002 to over HK$1,500 million in 2012. And this was despite the effects of SARS and the Gulf War in 2003 and the worldwide economic slowdown following the 2008 global financial crisis.

The Edward Fields design archive was once housed in College Point, New York Ricochet I from Edward Fields’ ‘Beacon Edition’

A key part of this success was the Board’s expansion strategy, which involved select acquisitions of long respected brand names to enrich the Tai Ping portfolio. The iconic American carpetmaker Edward Fields and the French artisanal brand La Manufacture Cogolin were acquired in 2005 and 2010, respectively, creating a unique, artisanfocused carpetmaking portfolio (White Oak Carpet Mills Inc. and JSL Carpet Corp. were also acquired during this period but both were later sold). Edward Fields, established in 1935, was seen as key to the U.S. market, a strategy driven by CEO Jim Kaplan and backed by the Board. Tai Ping and Edward Fields had an existing relationship as the latter had been using Tai Ping’s sister company – PCMC in the Philippines – to supplement supply from their own factory in College Point, New York. The material would come in unfinished and the carpets would be finished and backed in-house.

From the start, Tai Ping saw Edward Fields as a trailblazer and a classic American design brand from which Tai Ping could grow and expand into the U.S. market (see page 194).

As a heritage brand itself, Tai Ping also understood the importance of preserving the valuable Edward Fields legacy, as well as its unique archive. Following the acquisition in 2005, Tai Ping inherited six showrooms in the major American cities – Dania Beach (Florida), Dallas, Houston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco – which were soon renovated and refreshed. George Titterton, a longstanding Edward Fields employee, described the first few months under Tai Ping’s ownership as ‘a massive tidal wave of positive change where clients responded immediately to the refreshed showrooms, new products and upgraded marketing materials.’

The transition brought further change for the Edward Fields art and design team.

Amy Marx, also an Edward Fields veteran, reflects that:

‘At the time of the acquisition we were still hand painting every design. Tai Ping supplied us with computers and provided excellent one-on-one training in computer-aided design. We were given email and started sharing design files with our colleagues allowing us to see for the first time what was happening in other showrooms. Tai Ping also provided training about new manufacturing and design techniques that really enhanced our work. It was all very exciting. Our world was transformed, and we started to feel much more part of a team. It was like coming out of the dark and starting to work with the lights on for the first time.’

Two years after the acquisition, Edward Fields launched its first collection made entirely by Tai Ping artisans. Named ‘Archive’, the edition was a fresh and new interpretation of some of Edward Fields’ best designs, and one that was greeted with unanimous approval in the design world.

Still today, brand loyalty runs deep. Yvonne Kurziow and Ira Paperman, both 50-year employees who started their careers with Edward Fields back in 1969, reminisce about the early days working alongside Edward Fields and how today - five decades later the company demonstrates the same level of pride in its products and services. To Yvonne, Ira and many others, the team still feels like family.

Edward Fields: Art for the Fifth Wall Founded by Edward Fields in 1935 and acquired by Tai Ping in 2005, Edward Fields revolutionised the carpet business by elevating carpetmaking to an art form. It was an achievement made possible through collaborations with cutting edge designers and through innovative approaches to the carpetmaking process, echoing the history of Tai Ping on the other side of the world.

Fields established his company ‘Edward Fields Carpet Makers’ at the tender age of 23, in partnership with his wife, Eleanor.

The day after they were married, the couple opened their first showroom using money they had saved for a honeymoon. Following World War Two they changed their business from ordinary carpeting to high‐fashioned rugs after stumbling across a rug made by the late Joseph Blumfield, an Austrian craftsman and inventor of the ‘Magic Needle’. Fields knew that he had found a way to weave rugs quickly while still retaining a hand‐loomed look. Along with his younger brother Elliot, Fields further developed the Magic Needle, a tool that would define the company’s hand-tufting texture. Together they set up a factory in Flushing, Queens, New York.

Above: Edward Fields’ son, Jack, explores the factory floor Below: Edward Fields with the revolutionary ‘Magic Needle’

The next step was to distinguish the brand’s design aesthetic through collaborations with America’s finest artistic talent. A native New Yorker, Fields’ motto was that ‘there is no limit to carpet design.’ The 1950s were a golden age for American design, and the company’s early partnerships with design giants such as Raymond Loewy, known as the ‘Father of Industrial Design’ for his iconic designs such as the curvy Coca-Cola bottle, helped shape Fields’ contemporary yet timeless style, today known as the Edward Fields aesthetic. At the same time, innovations in the home changed consumer and design approaches to carpets. Gone were the wall-to-wall carpets of old, as the prefinished hardwood floors introduced in New York freed designers from constraints of shape and size. Carpet-as-art became an accepted concept in the design community and Fields ran with this trend by formulating distinct thematic rug collections, which he called ‘editions’. The company’s first edition, designed by Loewy, was introduced in 1952 to great acclaim. It was in the wake of this collection that Fields coined the term ‘area rug’, which was immediately absorbed into the vernacular. Another of his innovations was to reproduce Savonnerie carpets in his Flushing factory, after which a rash of French period designs appeared on the market.

Encouraged by its success in New York, the company began to expand nationally. In 1955 an Edward Fields showroom opened in Chicago; in 1962 another launched in Beverly Hills, California. Outposts in Miami, Dallas, Houston, and San Francisco followed over the next two decades.

Above: an early showroom Centre: it took 16 men to transport this rug Below: an Edward Fields rug in the White House, Washington, D.C.

Above left: an early Edward Fields motto: ‘No Limit to Carpet Design’ Above centre: the 1956 issue of Pictorial Living showcases Edward Fields rugs as ‘Walking on Luxury’ Other images: the company’s early carpet designs show surrealist sensibilities

Fields’ rugs soon appeared in the homes of Hollywood icons and were especially beloved by U.S. Presidents. In 1960, working with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's interior designer, Fields began a relationship with the White House that continues to this day. He donated the first custom carpet made in modern times for the White House which was gifted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fields was also commissioned to carpet the Executive Mansion during the John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon administrations. His resplendent oval blue and gold rug incorporated the symbols of all the states in the Union and was accepted in a White House ceremony by the then First Lady, Mrs. Nixon.

In 1979, at age 66, Fields died from a heart attack. Under the stewardship of his son, Jack, who became president in 1980, the company continued to flourish. That same year a new, larger factory opened at College Point, New York, allowing the company to make its move into the commercial market.

Over 80 years have passed since Edward Fields launched his company in New York.

Since 2005 the company continues the vision of its founder under the auspices of Tai Ping: to make bespoke carpets to the highest standards, at the forefront of contemporary design.

In 2010 Tai Ping acquired La Manufacture Cogolin, a French artisanal rug maker established in 1924 in the south of France (see page 202). Even before its acquisition, Cogolin was a respected brand name that was well-known in design and architecture circles in France and in Europe, but in recent years seen as rather old fashioned.

Jean-Pierre Tortil, Tai Ping’s former Creative Director, helped breathe new life into the brand. The workshop was renovated, its looms restored, and the atelier has since created several new collections utilising a more contemporary style while still offering historic designs from its archive. Today, all hand-woven rugs are produced in Cogolin’s workshop, on nineteenth century looms with Jacquard mechanisms. The individual panels are sewn together by hand, and each rug is custom produced to the client’s required pattern, colour and size. Handknotted designs for Cogolin – as well as for Tai Ping generally – are now produced in partnership with several family-owned mills in Kathmandu in Nepal. They are created using the ‘Tibetan knot’ technique, which maintains the highest levels of workmanship and material quality, such as hand-spun wool from the Tibetan highlands. While the rugs made in Nepal continue to be crafted using traditional, centuries old techniques, production has been reorganised to meet the demands of Tai Ping’s clients to emphasise production speed, colour matching and quality control.

Left: the interior and exterior of La Manufacture Cogolin workshop Above right: Jardin Intérieur by India Mahdavi, 2018 Below right: a loom in the Cogolin workshop

Tai Ping’s upward trajectory – the success of its acquisitions and the gains made in the luxury sector – was also tempered by challenge and loss, especially in Asia. After the company weathered the 1997 Asian financial crisis, SARS hit Hong Kong in 2003.

Thankfully no employees were affected but the city was shaken to its core. More tragedy would follow when in October 2011 CIT’s Bangkok factory was completely submerged as Thailand experienced its worst flooding in half a century, with a devastating loss of life and property. Up to 13.6 million people were affected by the floods and 65 of Thailand’s 76 provinces were declared flood disaster zones. Tai Ping suffered very significant asset losses (including buildings, machinery and equipment) and the subsequent clean-up and repair costs were also substantial. Huge quantities of Tai Ping’s inventory – its carpets, floor tiles and soft furnishings – lay in ruins. Some 80% of its 1,650 staff were affected by the floods. Despite the chaos and turmoil,

Tai Ping reacted swiftly and proactively. All employees were contacted and accounted for through the company’s managerial network. Care packages were distributed, salaries paid early, and temporary homes provided. The company set up a flood relief fund that quickly attracted over 1,000 donations from around the world. Mark Worgan, who joined Tai Ping as Director of Operations in 2008, was integral to the rescue and clean-up operation. He describes how the ‘Tai Ping army’ were mobilised: ‘members of management flew all over Asia sourcing third party product to fulfil orders; technical staff relocated to ensure Tai Ping quality standards were maintained; the human resources team worked tirelessly to ensure employees were safe and secure, while engineering staff and factory workers launched a flotilla of small boats to assess damage, salvaging and repairing whatever they could.’ However, the flood certainly took its toll. Jim Kaplan remembers the hardships of those early months:

‘We were fortunate that none of our workers were injured but we suffered huge losses in our equipment and inventories. We made the commitment that not one of our factory employees was to be laid off, and we continued to pay every worker their full wage even though there was no work. Words cannot express how proud I was of these efforts and the leadership our management team and factory workers showed. A story of perseverance that is reminiscent of the Tai Ping tent story.’

As a result of the herculean endeavours of the 1,300 staff on site, the factory was fully operational by March 2012.

The floods would have bankrupted other companies, but, with its usual resilience and determination, Tai Ping emerged stronger and more united than ever.

Clockwise, from left to right: staff fill sandbags The clean-up operation begins CIT’s flooded factory, Bangkok, 2011

la manufacture cogolin: preserving french craftsmanship Long recognised for the unmatched elegance of its floral motifs and bold geometric designs, La Manufacture Cogolin’s reputation rests on the expertise of its artisans and its rich history. The company was acquired by Tai Ping in 2010 and today plays an important role in preserving the cultural heritage of French craftsmanship while continuing to delight clients both old and new.

La Manufacture Cogolin was established after World War One when Armenian men and women started to migrate to the south of France to work as seasonal silkworm breeders. In 1924 Monsieur Ferran, a local sericulture expert, hired a number of these skilled workers and opened an Oriental rug shop in Cogolin, located in the south east of France near Saint-Tropez. The business initially faltered due to competition from imported rugs but was soon reborn under the guidance of visionary textile engineer Jean Lauer, who stumbled across the business by chance when on holiday in the area.

Above: artisan weaving on a Jacquard hand-loom, 1980s Centre: preparing yarn skeins in front of a hand-knotting loom, 1980s Below: the kreel of 216 bobbins behind a Jacquard hand-loom, 1980s

In 1928 Lauer purchased the business, brought in his nineteenth century Jacquard looms (still in use today) and repositioned production to focus on a French decorative style. Each Cogolin rug was knotted or hand woven by local craftswomen whose skill, combined with Lauer’s groundbreaking innovations, helped propel the brand to international renown in the 1930s.

Before long, Lauer’s expertise made him a widely sought-after collaborator for many of Europe’s finest designers such as Christian ‘Bébé’ Bérard, who designed textiles for Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, and Surrealist poet and artist Jean Cocteau.

Bérard’s magical designs featuring abstract florals are still part of Cogolin’s collections today. Under Lauer’s guidance, Cogolin carpets were made for the most beautiful residences, cruise ships and palaces of Europe, and even for the White House.

Following Lauer’s death, his wife, Mme. Irma Lauer, a Cogolin local, took the reins of the family business. After Cogolin was awarded the contract to create four Savonnerie carpets for Les musées de Versailles, which took 12 women two years to complete, she was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, the highest French order of merit. In the 1960s Mme. Lauer modified the nineteenth century fabric looms to weave repeat patterns more quickly than the existing hand-knotted technique, thereby securing the company’s future. These repeat patterns, which are executed in a three dimensional texture, are what the workshop is best known for today.

Above: finishing and assembly of handwoven carpets, 1980s Centre: wool dyeing, 1980s Below: Irma Lauer at work in the design studio. On the wall behind her is the design of the Savonnerie carpet made in 1966 for the Grand Trianon of Versailles.

The hand-knotted and woven techniques that lie at the heart of each Cogolin rug are skills that are still practised by its artisans today. Claudine Malaval has been working at Cogolin as a weaver (known as a ‘tisseuseourdisseuse’ in French) for the past 30 years. She particularly enjoys seeing rugs take shape before her eyes: ‘from nothing, we arrive at something … we can see the work progress and take shape, and that is something beautiful.’ Each Cogolin rug is completely unique and handmade from start to finish, from weaving procedures on wooden looms to finishing surfaces with scissors to ensure absolute perfection. It is a skill that requires patience, precision and creativity – and one that forms part of a French identity strongly allied to traditional craftsmanship. La Manufacture Cogolin has long contributed to French heritage through the creation of rugs for the Palace of Versailles and the Élysée Palace. Sonia Fernandes, a ‘licière’ at Cogolin, agrees that these ancient skills constitute an important part of the region’s local culture: ‘it’s our ancestry and something very important that we mustn’t lose.’

Above left: Trémourier rug, shot in the workshop Below left: a 1980’s photo of a finished Cogolin rug for use in promotional materials Right: the Xiamen Artisan Workshop opening ceremony, 2018

Thanks to steady growth throughout this period, discussion turned to the need for larger production facilities to keep pace with demand. The Nanhai site had served Tai Ping well since 1992, but since then the local area had changed significantly, becoming more residential and tourism-oriented, and many local factories had moved inland. A search for a new factory site to replace Nanhai was launched under the guidance of Mark Worgan. The historic city of Xiamen was chosen as the company’s new manufacturing base and construction began on the facility

in 2014, with the first phase completed in 2016 in time for Tai Ping’s 60th anniversary celebrations. In May 2018 the Xiamen Artisan Workshop was officially opened.

Chairman Nicholas Colfer stated at the opening ceremony:

‘This new facility is certainly the best and most advanced in its industry, and it will showcase our unique skills and talented workforce to visitors from all over the world, reflecting Tai Ping’s position as a brand globally recognised as the leader in its field.’

It was an important milestone for Tai Ping and, as in the old Tai Po days, the new workshop focused solely on hand-tufted activities (see page 210). The Nanhai factory, which developed both hand-tufted and Axminster carpets, was gradually closed in phases and workers were transferred to the new factory ensuring a smooth transition. By late 2017 the facility had ceased production, marking the end of a 25-year era. All Axminster production was now based solely at the CIT facility in Bangkok.

Left: exterior of the Xiamen Artisan Workshop Above: green spaces form an integral part of the workshop’s landscaping and architecture

With the new Xiamen Artisan Workshop in place, the Board sought to streamline the Tai Ping business. Since 2006 it had nurtured twin ‘artisan’ and ‘commercial’ business streams with distinct product lines, customer bases, markets and distribution channels. This approach was cemented in 2011 when the hospitality label ‘1956

by Tai Ping’ was established as a distinct brand for commercial hospitality clients.

Over time it became clear that a choice would need to be made between the two very different business operations. The question loomed large: should Tai Ping develop its commercial, machine-made (Axminster) business, largely catering to the hospitality industry, or focus on artisan, hand-tufted products which sold to premium residential and other niche sectors, such as luxury boutique stores, private aviation and superyachts? Much of Tai Ping’s value lay with its craftsmanship; its skills and technology had been honed for over 60 years. The company had always excelled in handmade, custom design creations which represented Tai Ping’s original and best product. With the commoditisation of Axminster and fierce competition in Asia, the die was cast. And so, in 2017, the company sold its entire commercial business to TCMC in Bangkok, the company formed with the Srivikorn family in 1967. In August 2017

an agreement was signed for TCMC to acquire Tai Ping’s commercial business, including the CIT factory in Bangkok, for HK$728 million. As Nicholas Colfer noted in his 2017 Chairman’s Statement:

‘The company is well positioned for the future. It is financially stable, less diverse and focused solely on the high-margin artisan sector, in which Tai Ping is the leading brand globally, respected for its unrivalled design and manufacturing competence, and underpinned by the new state-of-the-art Xiamen facility.’

Today, Tai Ping focuses on its three artisanal brands: Tai Ping, Edward Fields and La Manufacture Cogolin, each with its own distinct style and legacy. At the end of 2017 Mark Worgan took over as the new Hong Kong-based CEO following Kaplan’s retirement, who during his 14-year tenure cemented Tai Ping’s position as a global leader. Worgan is a seasoned carpet veteran who has overseen operations across Asia, Australasia, Europe and the U.S. ‘The heart and soul of Tai Ping sits in the handmade end’ said Worgan when visiting the Xiamen Artisan Workshop in 2018. ‘As long as there are people who don’t want to settle for second-best, there is a home for Tai Ping.’

Above: the Xiamen Artisan Workshop’s gardens pictured at night Below: Xiamen’s artisans at work

xiamen: artisan workshop of the future Tai Ping has come a long way since the days of its first artisanal workshop – a two-storey villa opened in Hong Kong in 1956. In more recent years, Tai Ping’s expansion into new sectors, such as superyacht interiors, has driven a huge increase in demand – and a corresponding need to enlarge its production facilities and cultivate a growing workforce of artisans with exacting skills that take years to master.

To meet this challenge, an ambitious plan was set in motion to fully integrate the company’s production and provide a superior working and training environment for its community of skilled artisans.

The historic city of Xiamen was chosen as the optimal location for an ecofriendly workshop that could provide both quality of life for Tai Ping’s artisans and appeal to visiting clientele and designers. Xiamen, situated on the south eastern coast in Fujian province, is one of China’s ancient seaports, once known as ‘Amoy’ during its treaty port days. In the nineteenth century most of the tea exported from China was shipped from its port, and in the twentieth century Xiamen became one of the forerunners Tufting and shearing on the factory floor

of China’s special economic zones.

Today, with its attractive seascapes and historic European architecture, Xiamen is emerging as one of south China’s most sophisticated destinations and recently won acclaim as China’s premier romantic leisure city, as well as one of its most liveable.

To realise its vision, Tai Ping turned to the acclaimed French architect Jean-Marc Sandrolini, whose previous work includes the celebrated Louis Vuitton shoe factory in Venice. One of Sandrolini’s primary considerations was to understand the needs of the artisans who would be using the facility day to day, and to appreciate the methods behind the Tai Ping craft. ‘In a carpet facility there are many different crafts at work, each with its own needs’ Sandrolini states. ‘For example, creating rugs with this level of precision and attention to detail is demanding work … so I felt it was important to create a central garden area that felt tranquil, like a sanctuary, where the craftsmen and women could feel at ease and be inspired. On the other hand, the administrative building allowed us to express something more spectacular – to present the strength, grandeur and luxury of Tai Ping in a way that would have been unsuitable for the workshop area.’ It is this sensitivity to creativity, craftsmanship and the environment that makes the Xiamen Artisan Workshop a truly modern facility, one that looks ahead to the company’s future whilst staying true to Tai Ping’s legacy and values over the past six decades.

A tufting stool and spools of wool

The ethos of corporate social responsibility is at the core of Tai Ping. The Xiamen Artisan Workshop provides a superior working and training environment for Tai Ping’s flourishing community of skilled artisans. The complexity of Tai Ping’s creations calls for artisans of exceptional skill, and retaining these experts is of paramount importance.

The new facility provides a range of housing for both individuals and families, along with transportation assistance, English language coaching and a generous benefits package, including paid paternity and maternity leave.

Environmental protection and sustainability are also integral to Tai Ping’s carpetmaking operations. Supplying luxury brands means ethical sourcing is imperative, with inspections and audits regularly carried out by Tai Ping’s major customers.

The workshop is a zero pollutant discharge facility, both for air and water. Internal plumbing and gardening needs are served by harvested rain water, while all on-premises water is solar heated.

State-of-the-art dyeing systems use methods that prioritise environmental safety, and screen filters limit the need for air conditioning to just a few select areas. Phase one was completed in 2016 and the workshop was officially opened in May 2018.

Above: package dyeing Below: artisans at work on a custom rug for Wynn Macau

the artistry of custom rugs

Since its foundation in 1956, Tai Ping has specialised in custom-made, hand-tufted carpets. The company is global leader in this field, and it has played a significant role in the pioneering of innovative design, manufacturing technology and techniques in the industry.

A hand-tufted carpet is individually handmade, which means that any design pattern, textural mixture, size or complexity can be created. The process depends wholly on highly skilled and experienced artisans at all stages of the design and production process.

Naturally, this individual and complex handmade process takes more time than required for a simpler machine-made carpet, but the result is a unique piece that serves as an heirloom that can be enjoyed for generations.

Every Tai Ping product is bespoke. The term `bespoke' came into regular usage in the shops of England's finest tailors, perhaps even as far back as the seventeenth century. A bespoke suit is completely custom, made to the highest couture standards to one's specific measurements.

Today, bespoke is synonymous with luxury.

In the design market, the term implies art and craft, an expression of personal style that ranges from the idiosyncratic to the sublime.

Like the English tailor's workshop, Tai Ping has a reverence for the handmade, the integrity of a craft passed from master to apprentice, and the conviction that even the most beautiful item becomes more special when it fits like a glove. Any Tai Ping carpet design, whether based on a collection or simply imagined by the client, is custom — custom in a way that few manufactured products are now.

A Tai Ping custom project typically starts with design development. The client may propose their own ideas, or may use a Tai Ping collection, or they may simply have a colour palette and genre in mind and leave the rest to the Tai Ping design team.

design

Tai Ping offers 80+ different material choices, including wool, silk, cashmere, flax and cotton. The standard pom box contains 560 colour choices, although each year over 2,000 unique colours are produced.

In a typical month, Tai Ping custom dyes approximately 4,000 colour batches for sample and production carpets.

The client is always at the centre of the rug-making process: Every decision from design concept through to installation is made based upon individual specifications.

Each design begins with a consultation between the client and an artist at the studio.

Some clients come with visual cues – a

sketch, a photo, a fabric swatch – and let the design develop from there. Inspiration is also in bountiful supply at the Tai Ping design studio, an inviting workshop full of books and objects in addition to, of course, a breathtaking array of samples and full-scale rugs which often provide the springboard to a personalised colour scheme, size, pattern, or fibre choices.

Once the design of the rug or carpet emerges, colour combinations are assigned.

Clients find hundreds of poms – monochromatic bundles of yarn in a range of hues – at the design studio, and thousands more colours are possible through the custom dye process. Working with the artist, a client considers dozens of shades within each colour family, observing how a colour’s quality shifts depending on fibre type; for example, the same colour may appear rich and saturated in delicate silk and understated in dull silk.

sampling

During the design development process, custom handmade samples are generally prepared for the client’s review and approval, based on which, the order is placed. Tai Ping typically produces 3,000-4,000 samples per month.

Samples offer clients the opportunity to see and feel the precise aesthetic of the custom product they are creating. Texture, density, softness and colours are among the many traits that can be experienced through the sampling process.

Sampling follows the same comprehensive process described in this section as is required for creating full-size rugs, just on a smaller scale. For every sample created for a client, the Tai Ping artisan workshop also creates and retains an exact replica that can be referenced when the production order is placed. Tai Ping has a separate department specifically dedicated to making samples.

template production

The first step in the production of a Tai Ping carpet is to enlarge the design to actual size and create a full-size template.

The design is mapped onto large acetate sheets by laser plotting, with the design outline traced as a line of tiny perforations.

Prior to the development of this technology

by Tai Ping, designs were hand-drawn onto paper, with perforations created with a needle. Some of the more intricate designs are still done this way.

Once the template is prepared, it is attached to a large vertically stretched canvas, and the pattern outline is transferred to the canvas by brushing ink onto the acetate, which seeps through the holes. Then an artist finishes the pattern on the canvas by hand.

The canvas forms the backing of the carpet.

Before tufting can begin, the pattern must be mapped out – quite literally. Craftspeople meticulously transfer a life-size sketch of the design to a rug or carpet's underlying canvas. This sketch becomes the trail that guides the tufters to the completion of the project, a process that often takes weeks.

yarn preparation

In parallel to the preparation and inking of the template and canvas, preparation of the requisite yarn is initiated. Frequently this involves blending different materials, such as wool and silk, with the batch of yarn produced individually for each individual order.

From here, the baton is passed to the craftspeople. A stroll through the factory reveals carpets at every phase of production, starting with the raw material: 100% New Zealand wool and pure silk are among the 80+ yarn systems available.

Through the carding, spinning and twisting processes, snowy masses of raw wool are teased into yarns that are ready to be dyed.

Dyeing is a critical process and among the most demanding challenges faced by Tai Ping: discerning design-oriented clients require precision colour-matching … not made easier by the fact that people see colour differently!

dyeing

Before dyeing, each batch of yarn is colourmeasured using a spectrophotometer to establish which parts of the colour spectrum are absorbed and which are reflected. The resulting measurement will determine the dye recipe used to create the desired colour.

After dyeing, yarn samples are colourmeasured by the spectrophotometer and compared to the original standard. If the match does not meet the standard, the dyeing process is repeated until the required colour matching standard is achieved.

All completed yarn batches are also visually assessed by skilled colourists, using four different types of light – daylight, fluorescent, UV and infrared.

The recipe for any new colour is developed using a computer-controlled recipe formulations machine. This calculates the types, quantities and combination of dyestuffs to deliver the required colour.

Then it prepares the recipe, which is scaled up to produce the production batch in the dye house.

Tai Ping’s dye house at its Xiamen facility has environmentally-friendly dyeing equipment that uses only 20-25% of the water used traditionally, thereby reducing significantly the volume of effluent and waste water. After in-house treatment in a state-of-the-art waste water processing plant, discharges are recycled into factory bathrooms or used to irrigate the landscaped areas.

Pigments in colours more numerous than any rainbow are blended to attain the precise shade specified by the client and the Tai Ping artist.

Once the inked canvas and dyed yarn preparation stages are complete, the carpet is created by skilled artisans with many years of training in the hand-tufting process.

hand-tufting

The canvas is stretched vertically, and the artisans use special hand-tufting guns designed by Tai Ping to apply the yarns to the canvas, with each colour applied individually in turn.

While the design outlines on the canvas provide an overall guide, the artisan relies on experience and carefully-structured training to ensure the correct pile height, direction, cut or loop. In addition, many fine details depend on the artisan’s hand-to-eye coordination and artistic interpretation. The

more complex designs require immense skill, with only a small proportion of the tufters qualified to perform this work.

As the two-dimensional vision becomes a three-dimensional work of art, the commission starts to come to life. Handtufting goes on today much as it did when Tai Ping opened its first factory decades ago. Tufting is a craft in which workers must be thoroughly trained, with senior artisans spending many years honing their skills. Much care is taken to ensure that the quality of hand-tufting is always signature Tai Ping: impeccably executed with the obvious touch of the hand that makes each creation distinctly one-of-a-kind.

FINISHing

After tufting, the carpet is quality inspected and any small discrepancies are corrected by hand before a latex is applied to the reverse side to ensure dimensional stability and to reinforce the anchoring of the yarn into the canvas. The completed carpet is then moved to the finishing floor where each one is transformed from a work-in-progress canvas to an exceptional, one-of-a-kind work of art.

Artisans on the finishing floor start by finely hand-shearing the carpet’s surface to give it smooth, consistent finish. Many orders feature a complex texture with varying pile heights along with special carving, sculpting or embossing effects. The most skilled finishing artisans, with years of experience, perform these intricate operations with hand

shears and scissors. Many of these textural effects are done only by Tai Ping, and remarkable coordination along with a patient, unflinching hand are required to ensure perfection.

A final inspection takes place to verify the dimensions, design execution, aesthetic and all technical parameters such as weight and pile height. When the carpet is complete, it is packaged, labelled and shipped to its final location be it a luxury hotel, a boutique store, a corporate office or a private residence, jet or yacht - and carefully installed.

Wherever art, luxury, and contemporary style are understood and valued, Tai Ping products are likely to be found.

a commitment to artisanship

The complexity of Tai Ping creations calls for exceptional artisanal skills. The standard of excellence that has defined the Tai Ping brand since 1956 is evidenced not only in the company’s exquisitely handcrafted products but also in the spirit and commitment of its workers at all levels of design and execution.

On a daily basis, Tai Ping artisans transform the most complicated custom designs into works of art that exceed the expectations of discerning customers worldwide. Tai Ping’s ethos of community, longevity and employee care began in the company’s first workshop in 1956 and it proudly continues today.

a celebrated archive One of the earliest aims of Tai Ping was to preserve the artisanal craftsmanship of ancient China, so noted for its porcelain, lacquer, jade, silk and rug-weaving. It is thought that tufted rugs were first produced in China 25 centuries ago, when techniques of rug-making spread along the Silk Road.

Chinese knotted carpets were traditionally made from wool, goat and camel hair. These designs were literal rather than decorative, drawing on symbolic meanings inspired

by Buddhist and Taoist influences. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tianjin in North China was an important hub of rug and carpetmaking until its midcentury decline, but from 1956 Tai Ping helped preserve and take forward these ancient Chinese techniques in Hong Kong.

Some of the more popular items sold during this period were Tai Ping’s ‘Chinese Design’ collections, which married royal green, blue and red hues with the use of Chinese characters as well as floral and animal motifs on circular or rectangular shaped rugs.

Since its inception Tai Ping has been at the forefront of design, whether through its in-house talent or collaborations with an eclectic mix of creatives. Close working relationships are nothing new for Tai Ping 222

– the company counted museums among its first partners and early Tai Ping projects were recognised for their bold creativity at World Exhibitions and the American Institute for Interior Design as early as the 1960s. Today Tai Ping is distinguished by its cutting-edge collaborations with artists and architects, industrial designers and fashion leaders who create a bridge between Tai Ping and the larger global creative community (for a full list of our most recent design partnerships see page 226).

company’s vast archives, and their many decades of compelling narratives, textures and colour combinations. Although the process of design may have changed with the onset of technology – with early carpets conceptualised using watercolours, stencils and tracing paper – the innovation and creativity at the heart every Tai Ping project remains very much the same. For Tai Ping’s dedicated designers, the area rug has always been an empty canvas with the potential for endless expression.

In 1956 a single American carpet designer was hired as a consultant by Tai Ping. Today the company reflects on a proud history of truly global artistic influences, with designers employed across the world in the United States, Asia and Europe, each bringing their own vision to the Tai Ping product. It is with great pride that Tai Ping’s design studios enjoy complete creative freedom, pushing the limits of design and craftsmanship to continuously offer new stylistic and technical ideas for each new collection. Tai Ping’s creative design teams take their inspiration from the world around us, from the tangible elements of natural and urban landscapes to the emotional and sensorial experiences of everyday life. They also draw upon the

The three brands – Tai Ping, Edward Fields and La Manufacture Cogolin – are fully integrated companies where in-house designers work hand-in-hand with master artisans, a close collaboration which allows them to continuously challenge the fibre medium and textile techniques used. All Tai Ping brands also specialise in natural materials, sourcing the highest quality refined wools and exquisite silks which can be paired with plant fibres such as linen, jute, sisal, cactus and cotton. These fibres inform and shape the carpet structure, creating a truly original work of art for each and every one of Tai Ping’s clients.

Left above and below: colour separation graphs Above right: a design takes shape Below right: concept sketch by André Fu

afterword from the ceo The Tai Ping story is a great source of inspiration to all of our employees and as we face a rapidly changing world, we do so with confidence.

Originally established by a truly international mix of immigrant pioneers, our company’s story chronicles the perseverance, creativity and renewal that we plan to uphold by continuing to embrace our internationalism and by celebrating our wide cultural and geographical diversity.

Mark Worgan

This has helped us fend off economic slowdowns, natural disasters and competitive pressures in all corners of the globe.

We have grown from humble beginnings – selling craft products to tourists – to establish a truly global presence, creating intricate luxury for some of the finest homes, palaces, jets, yachts, hotels, boutique stores and corporate offices in the world.

As the Tai Ping journey continues, we will stay true to the principles and values of our founders. The unwavering commitment to excellence so evident at the beginning will be maintained in our design, in our craftsmanship, in our commitment to employees, society and the environment, and in our service. We will continue to seek new markets and customers, making our products and our inspiring story more accessible to this and future generations. Ultimately, we move forward with confidence knowing that so long as there are customers who are not prepared to accept second-best, there will always be opportunity for Tai Ping.

I hope you have enjoyed this book that celebrates Tai Ping’s journey, and I invite you all to play a part in the many successes and new stories yet to be told.

We recognise that the resilience, creativity and reinvention so evident in our past will remain just as important to our future.

We have never stood still and in a time of unprecedented global acceleration, we must continue to evolve and embrace change.

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appendix Tai Ping, Edward Fields and La Manufacture Cogolin collections have been designed in collaboration with some of the world’s most respected design talent, including but not limited to the artists listed below: Agnès Comar Alpha Workshops André Arbus (designs inspired by the Arbus archive) André Fu Arik Levy Bec Brittain Burt Groedel Charles Zana Chen Chen & Kai Williams Christian Bérard (designs inspired by the Bérard archive) Christian Ghion david/nicolas – David Raffoul & Nicolas Moussallem Dominique Picquier Ed Ng & Terence Ngan Elias Crespin Elliott Barnes Fang Yang Fernando Mastrangelo George Nakashima Gilles & Boissier – Patrick Gilles & Dorothée Boissier Glithero – Tim Simpson & Sarah van Gameren Han Feng Helle Damkjær Henri Gonse (designs inspired by the Gonse archive) India Mahdavi Interware

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Jason Miller Jean-Baptiste Fastrez Jean-Pierre Tortil Jean-Vincent Sénac Jeff Leatham Julie Richoz Kenzo Takada Laurent Buttazzoni Lim + Lu – Vincent Lim & Elaine Lu Marie Bastide Marion Dorn Miguel Chevalier Natalie Lété Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance Ora ïto Patrick Norguet Pierre-Yves Rochon Ramy Fischler Raymond Loewy Rita Motta-Perez Rodolfo Agrella Rowland Ricketts Stéphane Parmentier Stéphanie Coutas Tal Lancman & Maurizio Galante Van Day Truex Winch Designs – Andrew Winch Wrapped Studios – Sam Seidman & Ryland Arnoldi Yabu Pushelberg – George Yabu & Glenn Pushelberg Yasmina Benazzou

acknowledgements Oral history interviewees

Photograph and image credits

1. Anthony Yeh 2. Catherine Vergez 3. Christiane Adam 4. Evelyn Lim-Forbes 5. Hui Chau-por 6. J.S. (‘Dinty’) Dickson Leach 7. James (‘Jim’) Kaplan 8. Jean-Pierre Tortil 9. Johnny Winters 10. Kwok Ping-chuen 11. Lincoln Yung 12. Li Lan-hau 13. Lee Siu-kuen 14. Minako Pleitgen 15. Niven Ho 16. Ng Yin-ping 17. Pinky Ng 18. Rosa Law 19. Simone Rothman 20. The Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie 21. Wong Yip-cheung

1. Cheng Po-hung 2. Duncan Aviaton 3. Evelyn Lim-Forbes 4. Edward Fields Carpet Makers 5. Hedda Morrison Photographs of China at Harvard Library 6. Hong Kong Government Annual Reports 7. Ian Grindley 8. Imperial War Museum 9. John Thomson photographs at the Wellcome Library 10. Johnny Winters 11. Klaud Jordan 12. Leah Garrick 13. Lee Siu-kuen 14. La Manufacture Cogolin 15. Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot 16. Pinky Ng 17. The Alliance Israélite Universelle Archive 18. The China Mail 19. Ng Yin-ping 20. Tang Kam-ngo 21. The Hong Kong Heritage Project Archive 22. The Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels, Ltd. 23. The Hong Kong Sunday Herald 24. The Hon. Sir Michael Kadoorie 25. The Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong 26. The Public Records Office, Hong Kong 27. Tim Callies 28. Vincent Yeung 29. Winch Media 30. Wong Yip-cheung

With special thanks to York Lo (for detailed research and writing on Linden E. Johnson), Shawn Hiltz, Enoch To, Vinchi Wong, Catherine Vergez, Juliana Polastri, Michael Reagan, Xavier Bonnamy, Michelle Chu, Sarah Henry, AnneLaure Tonnerre, Amy Marx, Dan Seigel, Yvonne Kurziow, Ira Paperman and George Titterton at Tai Ping Carpets, Edward Fields Carpet Makers and La Manufacture Cogolin, Fanny Iu, Melanie Li, Lee Sing-ping and Tiffany Tsang at the Hong Kong Heritage Project.

Editor: Amelia Allsop

Designer: Sarah Macartney