Central District shopping for tourists runs west along Queen’s Road Central, Des Voeux Road Central, Chater Road and Connaught Road Central from Statue Square, opposite the Star Ferry terminal, to the Vehicular Ferry Pier at Jubilee Street. The best British department stores are toward the eastern end of this small zone, such as Whiteaway Laidlaw & Co. on Connaught Road near the General Post Office, and Lane, Crawford’s on Des Voeux Road. Both have Kowloon branches as well, and their prices range from fairly high to forbidding. They are comparable to top-quality department stores in New York or San Francisco, and their marked price is unalterable. No dickering. Even so, they undersell many stores overseas because Hong Kong is with very few exceptions a duty-free port.
The American shopper will need to keep the Comprehensive Certificate of Origin problem in mind constantly as he branches out to other stores, but there’s no harm in looking. The larger Chinese stores in the area include Chinese Arts & Crafts and China Emporium, both on Queen’s Road, and the Shui Hing Co., The Sincere Co. and Wing On, Ltd., all on Des Voeux Road. The Man Yee Building on Des Voeux Road has two floors of shops with radios, typewriters, curios, watches and tape recorders, plus many other articles; they are well worth checking, either to buy or for comparing prices. The Japanese have opened a large department store, Daimaru, at Causeway Bay, just west of the North Point section.
The Gloucester Building at Des Voeux Road and Pedder Street has an extensive shopping arcade with many quality shops. Alexandra House, just across Des Voeux, also has its quota of fine shops, and there are other first-rate stores throughout this area. The streets intersecting with Queen’s Road and Des Voeux Road should not be overlooked either. Only a dozen blocks or so are involved, but the shops are so numerous and their goods so varied that it will take even an industrious shopper a full day to see them and compare prices. Wise tourists looking for values usually spend a day surveying the shops and their merchandise before they are ready to spend a cent. It is a sound procedure, for hundreds of hasty shoppers have prematurely congratulated themselves on a wonderful buy, only to see the same article in another shop the next day for 15 to 25 percent less than they have paid.
What are the good buys in Hong Kong? They particularly include custom-made clothes for men and women, because the workmanship is cheap and the quality high—this applies to coats, suits, dresses and shoes. For women, silk and woolen garments are good buys, especially when they require extensive hand work on beading and embroidery. If planning to wash the garment, make sure that the outer material and the inner lining are pre-shrunk and color-fast.
The Cheongsam, with its side-slit skirt and carefully fitted collar, is worth individual attention here. The Cheongsam is a closely fitted, shape-clinging dress that shows to best advantage on a slim, small-boned Chinese girl. Put the average Western woman in one and she looks beefy, which certainly isn’t the effect she is striving for. If she’s overweight, the sight of her in a Cheongsam is enough to make Chinese children hide behind their mother’s slit-skirt where their howls and giggles won’t be too evident.
Men can get excellent bargains in custom-tailored suits of English woolens, Japanese woolens, Dacron, mixed silk and wool, or cashmere and wool. Pure cashmere looks and feels luxurious in the shop, but it is extremely expensive and doesn’t wear as well as a cashmere-and-wool combination. If the tailor puts in cheap lining, the collar and lapels will look like an elephant’s hide after a few cleanings. If he skimps on the thread, and some do, the suit may pull apart under strenuous circumstances. The worldwide story about the $20 Hong Kong suit that can be perfectly fitted in 24-hours may have been circulated by some show-business comedian trying to impress his friends; it is not, and never was, true.
Assuming that a good Hong Kong tailor is located—and there are scores of them—a man will be able to get the finest kind of custom-made suit for a little less than he would pay for a ready-made suit of the same materials in the United States. That would be around $75 for a pure cashmere sport jacket, $40 for a cashmere-and-wool jacket, $70 for a tuxedo of English worsteds, and $40 to $60 for a suit, with the higher-priced one of English woolen and the cheaper of a lightweight wool. A custom-tailored shirt of Sea Island cotton will cost about $6—considerably less than an American ready-made shirt of the same material.
The chances are that an established Hong Kong tailor will start by asking a higher price for all of these articles. By patient haggling and comparison-shopping, he may be wheedled down by 5 to 20 percent. And don’t be afraid that hard bargaining will drive him out of business; he always allows a comfortable profit margin for himself. Ignore his claims based on the famous people he has made suits for; they may have been given the ultimate in special care at a price far below the going rate for serving to advertise the shop.