Well it’s been a while hasn’t it! Only six months has elapsed since the first instalment. If you didn’t manage to catch Mo Choy in Part one talking about her favourite garment then grab a pew and listen or read it HERE.
In part two Mo reminisces about her childhood, in particular her parents wonderful fashion sense.
I hope you enjoy her trip down memory lane.
“Where do you think you got your style or creativity leanings from? Is it from your family or is it you? Was there anyone else in your family who used to do this kind of thing?”
Mo - “I think on the surface you might say, oh no not really. But when I think about it deeply, my mum always used to make our clothes. I think a lot of people sewed in those days though. But she was always very fashion conscious. I’ve obviously only known her when she lived in England but before, in Hong Kong, I see these photos of her in The fifties and she was just stunning. She used to buy fabric and she’d make herself a really lovely fitted dress and then take a piece to a tailor to have a matching jacket made”.
1:01
“I’m getting goosebumps, actually, hearing you talk about this its amazing”.
Mo - “…and then she’d wear these beautiful Winkle picker (very pointed) shoes with them. Which I have a pair upstairs that I can show you.
…which I’m going to have to see”.
Mo - “In fact, I used to have a little black jacket which went with the dress. When I was a teenager I was rummaging through her old stuff, she kept so much stuff, and anyway I got this jacket and used to wear it a lot as a teen. It was even small on me then. In a way that little jacket and these little winkle picker shoes…I mean the dress was always too small I could never get into that…but it gives me a sort of sense of how she was back then. And she must have been tiny. I see photos of her and to me she looks tall and elegant and really slim. And I think she must have been absolutely tiny. So petite. These shoes are so small and so narrow. I wore them once as a teenager. I went out one evening. and honestly I did so much damage to them I just thought ‘I’m never going to wear them again. That’s just wrong’. They got so battered. I’ve got really small feet but my feet felt enormous in them and I just thought that’s wrong. They’re just too beautiful and tiny”.
The original winkle pickers.
Image description: Black vintage shoes with kitten heel, pointed toes and lace bow.
2:26
“So yes you do! You have your mother. In a sense your mothers legacy”.
Mo - “My mum used to make a lot of clothes for us. I always have this joke that I always matched the curtains. This frilly dress here” (points at photo)
Tiny Mo in aforementioned ‘curtain’ dress. Bless.
“Is this you?
Mo - “That’s me'“.
“Oh I love that!”
Mo - …and its a sort of gold ochre-y corduroy, probably polyester, it was The seventies , but we had curtains in that as well. So I always matched the curtains. My mum used to make clothes all the time and she would just make up stuff”.
“I’m coming back to that”.
Mo’s family in Hong Kong the day her father left for England. Mo wasn’t born until a few years later.
Image description: Black and white family photo. Woman holding toddler next to man in suit and dark glasses. Three young children standing in from of them.
Mo - “But having said that, my dad, was a photographer for a while in Canada. When he was trying to leave Hong Kong he went to Canada for a while and he tried to come to England but said he had to go into catering really, because it just took too much time to set up business and get a reputation in photography. But my mum being very good at making clothes, he would just turn up with a piece of fabric and say ‘Make me a Hawaiian shirt!’. I once showed my husband a photo of my dad in his later years. He was wearing this Hawaiian shirt which had massive dragons, quite nice though - just navy blue on white - and this big clay crucifix on a leather thong around his neck and a baseball cap …
“He sounds like a character…”,
Mo - …with NYC on it. And he said ‘He looks like a gangsta rapper, your dad!’. But he also once turned up with a huge amount of tartan and said to my mum ‘ Make me a kilt’. He had quite an obsession with being Scottish. He wanted to be Scottish. He loved anything Scottish”.
“That’s interesting”.
Mo - As a teenager it was so embarrassing. But when I look back I just think what a character! He was quite amazing. We used to drive around the north of England with his windows wound down blasting out Scottish military band music with me sitting in the back”.
“I always matched the curtains. My mum used to make clothes all the time and she would just make up stuff”.”
5:07
“I’ve got this image of tiny Mo sitting in the back going ‘Oh my God, beam me up Scotty! Literally. Oh my goodness! What a glimpse into your childhood that’s amazing! Thank you so much. Yeah! Well I think we’ve got everything. I could actually sit and talk to you for ages. Thank you very much for inviting me into your home and thank for telling me all that wonderful stuff”.
“I’m going to take pictures of these lovely photos you’ve got on your wall. How old are you there?”
18 year old Mo in her hand knitted cardigan. Just imagine the colours!
Image description: Black and white framed photo. Seated woman with dark neck length hair wearing an oversized cardigan with shoulder pads.
Mo - I am 18 there and a friend of mine who was studying photography at the time asked me to sit for her for some portraits…and that cardigan…you can tell its The eighties can’t you?”
“Yes the shoulder pads…”
Mo - “…by the enormous shoulders”.
“And I’m presuming - I know it’s black and white - but I’m presuming they are very bright… it’s black and very bright colours”.
Mo - “And I knitted that myself.”
“Did you?”
Mo - “Well somebody taught me to cast on, cast off, knit and purl and that’s all I ever learned”.
“Well that’s enough to be fair…”
Mo - “But I never learned to follow a pattern or anything.”
“No I can’t follow a (knitting) pattern I just make things up”.
Mo - “…and I was like that with sewing too. I would just measure things and cut things out and do a bit of maths and hope for the best”.
“That’s the best way to learn!”
Mo - “So I knitted that when I was at sixth form college I think”.
“Wonderful. Wonderful. Well thank you. Thank you so much”.
Mo - “You’re welcome”.
It’s clear that Mo’s love of fashion can be partly attributed to both her parents even if it didn’t seem immediately apparent. I love the rich imagery conjured up by her childhood memories. Embarrassing moments with our parents can often become the memories we hold most dear. At least that’s what I hope my own daughters will think!
Right. I’m off to write a quick gratitude update for now but I’ll be back soon (well, sooner than six months anyway!) with another Remarkable woman. Who will it be, I hear you gasp in wonder? Stay tuned…