Joyce Ma – 5 things to know about Asia's empress of fashion, but why is her Joyce Boutique chain going private after coronavirus?
Her grandfather owned the Wing On department store but she never planned to pursue a career in fashion – however after marrying young and being a housewife, Ma later emerged as Hong Kong’s doyenne of style
The fashion industry is facing unprecedented challenges with conventional commerce crippled by the coronavirus pandemic. A handful of century-old American department stores such as Barneys have declared bankruptcy, while Macy’s is trying to raise as much as US$5 billion in debt financing to avoid an approaching fate of failure.
Hong Kong is no exception. Months of large-scale protests followed by the hit of Covid-19 have cast a tremendous shadow over the once-prosperous luxury retail hub.
On April 27 this year one of Asia’s pioneering fashion enterprises, Joyce Boutique, was delisted from the Hong Kong stock market and went private, effectively ending its 27-year-long run as a public-listed company.