Designer Tang Pushes Fashion in China

Hong Kong fashion mogul David Tang gestures during an interview at his home in Hong Kong on Tuesday, March 20, 2007. David Tang is famous for founding the Shanghai Tang label that put Mandarin-collared shirts, cheongsam dresses and other Chinese-style fashion on store shelves from New York to Paris. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) (Vincent Yu - AP)

HONG KONG -- David Tang is famous for founding the Shanghai Tang label that put Mandarin-collared shirts, cheongsam dresses and other Chinese-style fashion on boutique shelves from New York to Paris.

But one of his big regrets, he says, is that the clothes aren't more popular in China.

The 52-year-old Hong Kong fashion mogul was recently watching China's legislature on TV, and the one thing that jumped out at him was that most of the lawmakers were wearing near-identical Western clothes, he said.

"Everyone was in a suit and tie," he complained in an interview with The Associated Press. "That seems to me to jar the very essence of Chinese wanting to have a national identity."

For years, Tang has tried to promote a kind of fashionable nationalism. His vehicle was Chinese fashion and lifestyle brand Shanghai Tang _ dubbed the first global luxury brand to have come out of China. The brand now has 24 stores worldwide, including three in Europe and one on New York's Madison Avenue and another in Honolulu.

The Hong Kong-based label may be gaining international recognition, but Tang says its ultimate ambition is to drive the message home _ in his own words, to "saturate the Chinese population with Chinese clothes."

"I think it's rather despondent that China with all its might and cleverness should not have its own sartorial elegance that it deserves," he said.

Tang may be fiercely loyal to Chinese culture, but he doesn't look or sound particularly Chinese at all.

For his interview, Tang was dressed in an untucked white shirt with tiny, bright red buttons over gray suit pants. He sported long tousled, grey-streaked hair. He chewed on his trademark fat cigar, spoke with an arch British accent, and peppered his conversation with Latin phrases like "reductio ad absurdum."

He's a businessman with a mix of talents and interests. Apart from being a designer, a restaurateur, and a Cuban cigar distributor, he's also an avid art collector and a columnist. He was responsible for translating Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" into Chinese.

His next project, he says, is an Internet company so successful it will make him a billionaire. He declined to provide details of his plans.

Tang is more famously known as the best-connected person in Hong Kong, mingling with a vast list of rich and famous people _ including everyone from Princess Diana to Kate Moss to Fidel Castro.