HK$80

ISS

UE

19 W

INTE

R 2018

THE

QU

INTE

SS

EN

TIAL G

UID

E FO

R H

IGH

-SO

CIE

TY B

RID

ES

WINTER 2018

AN ARTISANAL

AFFAIRLala Curio founder Laura Cheung

and James Wolf’s eclectic wedding in Palm Springs

LOVABLE LOCKSGet creative with your

bridal hairstyle

BOLD AND BEAUTIFULExquisite jewels for both the

ladylike bride and the punk princess

ICING ON THE CAKESweet treats for

your big day

CELEBRATIONS | DIARY OF A DRESS

Diaryof a Dress

An atypical wedding requires dresses that are just as unusual— so Laura Cheung chose two gowns from Marchesa, one

of which is a custom-made creation that was hand-painted by artisans who work with her Lala Curio brand. She takes

Christina Ko through the processPhotography NIKKI RUIZ

MAGICAL MOMENT Laura Cheung at her fitting with Georgina

Chapman, one of the co-founders

of Marchesa

CELEBRATIONS | DIARY OF A DRESS

aura Cheung had only one cardinal requirement when choosing her wedding dress. “I just knew that I didn’t want to wear a white dress,” she says.

“It was this idea of ‘don’t want to do what everyone else does’. Though it still turned out looking quite bridal, I loved it. I cannot be more grateful for it—it worked out.”

Cheung wore two dresses designed by Marchesa: a greyish blue ceremony frock with embroidery and tulle, and a custom-made deep red gown that did double duty. Without the gown’s heavy removable train, it was a tea-length dress appropriate for the tea ceremony before the wedding. With the train, it was a hand-painted whimsical wonder that marked a collaboration between the designer and Lala Curio’s own artisans. It stole the show at the dinner reception.

The Designer“I used to work with Marchesa when I was doing fashion shows in New York. I got introduced to the designers again through Veronica Chou, and Keren Craig was the one who received me, and I literally went for a fitting and picked everything in the first 15 minutes. And then we came up with our idea for the collaboration because that was something I knew I wanted to do. Somehow, when you’re with the right person and the energy is right, it is so fast. We made every decision possible in half an hour. It was like ‘boom, boom, boom’. I’m a pretty fast decision maker.”

The Delivery“The red dress was custom-made. It took half a year, with one fitting. The hand painting of it was a pain, though. I had to wait until they did the form of the dress instead of painting on flat fabric. So when my workshop, which does my hand-painted wallpaper, received it, they were freaking out. They said this thing looks really precious and they didn’t want to mess it up and that it’s really impossible to paint when it’s already ruffled.”

The Details“The dress was already super-elaborate with the embroidery, so I didn’t want to cover it all. I just wanted some flora and fauna crawling up the edges very subtly. It’s very playful, with branches and little birds, because we have hummingbirds also in the embroidery. The design narrative is that it is a magical, celebratory wonderland of love with hummingbirds and intertwining floral vines. It took them a month to rush the painting. It was fast. Maybe even three weeks. The dress is taffeta and really heavy, so it’s not delicate, but the fabric is really high quality and you can feel it.”

The Double Duty“I had a removable train because, in the future, I can wear it again. In fact, this Chinese New Year I will wear it again.”

The Day“My make-up was stoic, regal, almost masculine, like a bronze sculpture. I’m definitely not a pink-cheeks kind of girl. And then I wore it with a tiara from Buccellati, which also had birds in it.”

The Display“I’m going to display the hand-painted dress at Maison & Objet in September. It will be nice to show how the craft can be displayed not only on walls but also in fashion as well. We’re celebrating our craft.”

ATTENTION TO DETAIL Clockwise from top left: Laura with the founders of Marchesa, Keren Craig (left) and Georgina Chapman; Laura in the custom-made red dress featuring hand- painted details by Lala Curio’s artisans; Laura in the greyish blue gown by Marchesa that she wore during the wedding ceremony; a sketch of the red dress

I went for a fitting and picked everything in the first 15 minutes. When

you’re with the right person and the energy

is right, it is so fast

CELEBRATIONS | LAURA AND JAMES

Laura Cheung and James Wolf wed in a wildly creativePalm Springs ceremony that melded old Hollywood charm

with eclectic chinoiserie decor. This is one wedding noteasily forgotten, writes Christina Ko

Bohemian Rhapsody

f you’ve ever set foot in the creative interior design and furnishings den that is Lala Curio in Wan Chai’s Sau Wa Fong, you’d know not to expect a typical white wedding from its owner, Laura Cheung.

There’s a veritable treasure trove of curiosities and an almost theatrical aesthetic inside the much-loved artisans’ paradise that champions the march-to-her-own-beat founder’s personality.

It was therefore unlikely that Laura’s wedding to beau James Wolf would have been run-of-the-mill in any sense of the phrase. This was a ceremony filled with colour, verve and personality—and just a small dash of circus-style hijinks—at Cary Grant’s estate in Palm Springs, California.

Laura and James first met at a dinner party that Laura threw at Happy Valley Racecourse. James had

set his eyes on Laura then, but she was unavailable. However, the timing worked out better for the couple a few years later when they bumped into each other at brunch.

“He was with a really handsome friend,” says Laura. “My girlfriend was checking out his friend, so I invited James and his friend to dinner so that I could put the two of them together.”

While Laura played matchmaker, James saw this as the perfect opportunity to start a courtship, a race that took him around the world from Hong Kong to Macau, Okinawa and New York City.

The proposal came three years after the couple got together, while they were on a hike up Mount Hinode in Tokyo. “I was hungry and grumpy and was like ‘Why are you making me walk so far?’” says Laura. “But on the top there was a stunning

CELEBRATIONS | LAURA AND JAMES

view and he proposed. I had a can of sake, so I popped the sake and went ‘Yeah!’”

The wedding was held a year later after location scouting across three continents. Japan, where the groom used to live, was the first choice but it was nixed due to the size of the party and the inconvenience for everyone in getting there. Sting’s house in Italy became a possible second option, but that was left by the wayside too because, according to Laura, “we have no particular ties to Italy and we would be choosing a destination that didn’t have a place in our story.”

The couple finally decided on Cary Grant’s former estate, Villa Paradiso, in Palm Springs. It had never been rented out—in fact, it was for sale. “James’ grandfather was a navy admiral,” says Laura. “He was an American war hero and Cary Grant had been in a Hollywood movie called Operation Petticoat honouring James’ grandfather, Admiral Dempsey, and the owner thought the story was quite funny and decided to rent it to us.”

Laura had plenty of event-planning experience from her days working in New York in the fashion industry and she knew exactly what she wanted, so the couple hired a planner simply to make the magic happen.

The welcome dinner, held at the Colony Palms Hotel, was a poolside party featuring eclectic bohemian decor inspired by the palette of Dries Van Noten, including man-sized flowers and fairy-lit teepees flanking a giant neon sign that read “Lala Wolf.”

Guests dined on tacos as they waited for a performance by a mariachi band… which never showed. Luckily, though, unbeknown to the bride, her girlfriends had a surprise performance planned, doffing their pre-bridal best in favour of T-shirts and jeans for a choreographed dance to hit song Despacito.

The next morning, Laura had close personal friend Phil Blandow take portraits inside and around the estate before the tea ceremony with the family and then, later on, during the exchanging of vows. Laura’s father walked her down the aisle as her bridesmaids sang Can’t Help Falling in Love.

“An hour before I had to walk down the aisle, I was super nervous—I-couldn’t-breathe nervous,” says Laura. “Do I smile? Am I serious? Luckily the sun was literally glaring in my eye, like when you’re on stage with a spotlight on you, and then you’re not scared because you can’t see anyone. And then I could see my husband in front.”

“Enjoy every bit of the process. You can never please everyone, so do whatever makes you happy

and your loved ones will be so happy for you” —Laura & James

LAURA AND JAMES | CELEBRATIONS

In vows that they wrote themselves, Laura says, she promised “to pick up our dog Foxxy’s poop because normally James does everything.” She recalls that everyone present had a good laugh at that. “It made it personal and lighter.”

The first official performance of the wedding followed the ceremony as five synchronised swimmers jumped into the pool to entertain the onlooking guests. “It’s so old Hollywood,” says Laura. “For me, at an event, the entertainment is really important to break the time up. You want a wow factor here and there. It really makes people happy and keeps the spirits high.”

At dinner, the couple walked in and were greeted by an explosion of confetti before a DJ-violinist, who was perched three storeys high and balanced on a sway pole, played a rousing set that had guests old and young beaming with surprise and excitement.

The decor was, as expected, Lala to the max. “Lala Curio is very much my personal aesthetic,” says Laura, “and I wanted to be able to display some of our haute crafts we’ve worked so hard on.” This meant agate or rock crystal tree centrepieces, five styles of chinoiserie tablecloths, and objects that included little tiger place-card holders and napkin rings shaped like pagodas. “We also deliberately put all our friends not next to each other,” adds the bride, “so that people really mingled, which they appreciated.”

As a health nut, James ensured all the food was organic and locally sourced, and the menu noted which farms the produce hailed from. The couple’s friends at Smyle Foods made healthy paleo gluten-free desserts—so there was no cake. “We didn’t want anything too conventional,” says Laura.

Besides the performances, “the speeches were incredible,” enthuses the bride. “I don’t

“It was so old Hollywood. At an event, the entertainment is really important to break the time up.

You want a wow factor here and there”

CELEBRATIONS | LAURA AND JAMES

know what happened. The Wolf side all speak so well. But for the Cheungs, it’s not our turf. We were in America with a lot of their friends—but my dad totally killed it. Everyone said they were going to open up a stand-up comedy TV channel for him.”

The after-party was held at a tiki-themed gay dive bar, with hilarious drag queens on hand to entertain. “I’d never seen them before and they were beyond funny—so inappropriate,” laughs Laura. “Our parents and their friends were there and they thought it was hilarious too. People were dancing up a storm.”

Though a far cry from the bride’s original plan—to build a makeshift music festival based on Coachella, in the desert—the dive bar was, she admits, the right decision in the end. “I really enjoyed myself,” she says. “People always say you’ll be so worried making sure things are okay and that people are doing okay, but I totally just enjoyed myself 100 per cent.”

WEDDING DETAILS

BRIDE’S OUTFITS Blue wedding gown and red dress by Marchesa; white dress worn at the

civil ceremony from Ermanno Scervino

BRIDAL JEWELLERY Tiara, cuffs and earrings by Buccellati

GROOM’S OUTFIT Taji Bespoke

PHOTOGRAPHY Phil Blandow

VIDEOGRAPHY Scott Kelley from GRO Productions

EVENT PLANNER Cathy O’Connell from COJ Events

FOOD Tara Lazar from F10 Creative

PERFORMANCES Aqualilies synchronised swimmers, and Lilia Valerie sway pole

violinist and DJ

AFTER-PARTY VENUE Toucans Tiki Lounge