Beyond Ginger Flower and silk dreams: Inside Shanghai Tang’s evolving vision as a lifestyle brand
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Beyond Ginger Flower and silk dreams: Inside Shanghai Tang’s evolving vision as a lifestyle brand
Shanghai Tang co-chairmen Derek Sulger and Jerry Mao are building a future where heritage meets hospitality. For Sulger, Shanghai Tang represents more than a brand; it encapsulates an entire worldview. For Mao, the brand also symbolised an aspiration: “We wanted to be part of this lifestyle’s clash with old-money Europe’” The image of David Tang greeting Princess Diana captured it best, says Mao. The brand is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
If you grew up in or around Hong Kong, chances are you have a Shanghai Tang story. Perhaps it was stepping into one of the brand’s stores, enveloped by the scent of its iconic Ginger Flower fragrance. Or watching your mother carefully fold a jade-green speckled qipao, her eyes lighting with nostalgia. For others, it might be the feel of a Tang jacket—a piece that distils cultural heritage into every elegant line.
Shanghai Tang co-chairmen Derek Sulger and Jerry Mao—who also hold leadership roles at UNMI Hospitality and Beijing’s UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art—certainly have theirs. For Sulger, Shanghai Tang represents more than a brand; it encapsulates an entire worldview. “My earliest memories are tied to that lifestyle and culture—shopping at Shanghai Tang in Hong Kong, watching In the Mood for Love (2000), staying at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok, meeting David Tang at the China Club,” he tells Tatler. “I relive those memories each time I put on a Shanghai Tang jacket, see my wife wearing a fortune necklace, or smell Ginger Flower.”
For Mao, the connection began with Shanghai Tang’s distinct visual language. “For me and many of my peers, our first memory is of the aesthetic—something so unique, modern and irreverent, yet also rooted in cultural elements we inherently understood,” Mao said. For him, the brand also symbolised an aspiration: “We wanted to be part of this lifestyle—where Chinese and Asian cultures clashed evocatively with old-money Europe. The image of David Tang greeting Princess Diana captured it best.”
These personal associations are no coincidence. Over three decades, Shanghai Tang has cultivated something rare in luxury: emotional memory-making. Now, Sulger and Mao are building on that legacy—crafting a future where heritage meets hospitality, and tradition is transformed into tomorrow’s most coveted experiences.
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Source: https://www.tatlerasia.com/style/fashion/shanghai-tang-derek-sulger-jerrry-mao