Length of red brocaded silk satin with gilt pattern, manufactured by Fou Wah Weaving Mill in Hong Kong, 1960-1965

Length of red silk woven with a design of five bats surrounding the 'long life' character (shou). This width of silk has both its selvedges intact and is left over from tailoring. There is an inscription woven into the selvedge which reads: 'FOU WAH H. K.'.

Given by Ellen Johnston Laing

The survival into the era of industrial manufacturing of a huge spread of different textile designs and, equally, of high technical standards of production, is exemplified by a series of offcuts from bolts of material purchased in the 1960s in Hong Kong by an American art historian, Ellen Johnston Laing, who donated them to the museum. The precision and high finish of industrial weaving is here put to good effect on these silk fabrics, some bearing designs related to Qing prototypes and some of a more innovative nature, but both aimed equally at a global luxury market. The names woven into the selvedges of the weaving companies attest to the ongoing practice of identifying for customers the name of the manufacturer in a highly competitive market place. These textiles were woven to be made into clothes although the range of garment types for which they were destined, from the neo-traditional qipao to western evening wear, was of an unprecedented variety and richness. Bright silks like these were eminently acceptable gifts from travellers returning from Hong Kong and China, their price advantage over Italian printed silk, for example, making them unmissable bargains.

Fou Wah H.K. was a silk weaving mill founded by Shiu-Cheung Lock (駱肇祥) in Hong Kong in 1948.

Shiu-Cheung Lock was born in 1913 in Hangzhou, China, and passed away in Hong Kong in 1988. Started as an apprentice to a silk workshop specialising in brocaded silk, zhijin (织锦) in Hangzhou, Lock was inspired by the innovative machine-woven brocaded silk made by the Du Jinsheng factory, which was established in 1922 in Hangzhou as China’s first to industrialise silk manufacture for larger-scale production. Lock saw the potential in making silk textiles more commercially viable for the average consumer, he ended up in Shanghai sometime during the mid-1930s to start his own silk factory specializing in a type of gauze-weave silk, known as hangluo.

Shanghai was a major international commercial hub, so he saw the greatest opportunity to showcase his skills in creating textiles that would adorn true connoisseurs who could appreciate the innovation and craftsmanship. There, he served as the factory manager of Fou Kiang Hing Kee Silk Factory (富強興記綢廠) up until 1945, before migrated to Hong Kong due to Chinese Civil War (1927-49) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45).

In 1948, Shiu-Cheung Lock founded Fou Wah Weaving Mill (富華織造廠) on Castle Peak Road in Tsuen Wan so that he could re-introduce the Chinese silk textiles trade to a broader international audience. In the 1960s, Fou Wah’s factory was located at 2-6 Sha Tsui Road in Tsuen Wan while its offices were located at the Pilkem House at 45-51 Pilkem Street.

Lock's experiences in industrial design and production of high-quality silk brocades enabled him to train the local workforce to manufacture the types of silk textiles that were generally associated the with Hangzhou and Shanghai. Given the relative lack of raw silk production in Hong Kong, Fou Wah Weaving Mill primarily imported silk from Japan and Italy and then wove different silk products based on their own designs with over 300 workers and machinery mostly procured from Shanghai.

With the growing popularity of Fou Wah Weaving Mill’s textiles, Lock expanded his operations by opening Tai Hwa Silk Weaving Mill (大華綢廠) in Taiwan with Legislative Yuan member S.T. Chou (周兆棠, 1901-1973) as chairman and fellow silk mill owners from Shanghai – S.Y. Tung (童省予, 1899-) and T.P. Yeh (葉道本, 1890-?) as directors. The factory, which involved 20 technicians and US$124,361 in investments including machinery and materials, commenced production in 1953 and was one of the top 10 silk-weaving mills in Taiwan. Lock's silk textiles manufacturing firms in Hong Kong and Taiwan helped catapult Hong Kong into international renown as a producer and exporter of silk textiles to the rest of the world from the 1950s to 1970s. He eventually passed on control of the businesses' operations to his sons, Kwan-Bui, Kwan-To and Kwan-Tso Lock, so that he could focus on other philanthropic pursuits and other business areas, including silk flower production.

As a firm, Fou Wah Weaving Mill Ltd was dissolved in 2009 and its site in Sha Tsui Road was re-developed into The Octagon by the K. Wah Group in 2014.

FE.53-1999