A needle and thread stitch not just fabric, but also an old relationship between people and things. Anson, a Hong Kong Gen Z woman, dug out a secondhand sewing machine her mother had bought during the pandemic and learned from the very basics of threading and pedaling, making her first dress, which led her into textile craft. About three years ago, she launched a textile culture page, "Chi Yau Workshop," documenting the history of the local garment industry and the current state of cultural preservation.

She found that most of the older women in her family actually knew needlework. Her grandmother was skilled at knitting; she said she "doesn't do it anymore," but a while later knitted her a hat, and could gauge the size by eye. Anson studied a medical field, and after graduating continued learning wedding dress making from a tailor, and also asked a garment worker she had known for years for tips.

One of her focuses is preserving disappearing stalls and craftspeople. Since the year before last, Anson has been collecting information on Hong Kong's clothing alteration, sewing, and knitting supply shops to make a ground-floor map. About 20 to 30 percent of the information came from public recruitment, and the rest she found herself by walking through old districts. She often watches for alteration shops in old-style malls and old streets while riding transport; when she sees one, she takes a photo first, then looks up information online at home. Her wish is for people to get to know them before the older generation of masters retires and the shops close. Once, while browsing an old mall in Kwai Hing, she found a fashion workshop still inside. Although the owner had decided to close, she still bought the sewing machine and several tailor's shears—the scissors the owner had used for work, larger than ordinary women's scissors because the workshop had to cut very thick fabric and meet high output. She doesn't want these tools to become objects in museum display cases, but hopes they can still be touched.

Anson also goes into the community to hold needlework gatherings, inviting the public to bring old clothes and study together how to repair them. Once, a woman made a special trip from Ma On Shan to bring a dress to mend; Anson also deliberately cut several holes in a tablecloth for neighbors to patch, and everyone was very engaged, with different sewing methods: some like visible thread, some prefer understated, some sew from the outside, some from the inside. In her view, mending clothes is like deliberately taking time to care for an item that is often used. She once took a pair of pants she had worn for many years to be repaired, and the tailor felt the fabric and said, "It must have been worn for a long time to be this soft." She has always remembered that sentence.

Looking to the future, she hopes Hong Kong will have more community spaces for exchanging textile craft, so people from different backgrounds can gather to sew, repair, and knit. She is also researching using local plants for weaving and dyeing, trying to restore local craft memories, and exploring the extraction and dye liquor preparation of traditional indigo dyeing. She believes inheritance cannot rely only on regret; it also needs complete craft records and a recognized assessment system, so that those who want to learn have a path to follow. She cites the UK as an example, saying that it systematically records existing and endangered crafts, and some overseas craft societies even have grading systems that specify which skills must be mastered to be considered proficient. "As long as people are still here, the craft still has a chance to be passed on."

Source: Daily Magazine · People | Stitching Together Old Clothes, Human Warmth, and Memory with Needle and Thread: A Gen Z Woman Joins Community Needlework Gatherings · Originally published on 2026-09-10