UME: When did you start modelling and why?
 
Well, the modelling was very recent.  Working in the industry for almost 20 years, it’s interesting that for most of the years I had not asked any photographer to take any photos of myself.  Actually to be very honest, I didn’t trust them to take photos, and I wasn’t comfortable to be in front of the camera.
 
But some years ago I felt a change in myself. In 2012 I had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. That was a wake up call for me and the steps I took reawakened a connection inside myself that I hadn’t previously lived. Deepening care for myself in daily life, I began to feel much more myself, and the protection that I carried with me most of my life began to drop off.  I simply did not want to hide anymore.  I felt my own awesomeness and it felt natural to share it.
 
I worked with a new photographer who came from Russia. I’d never worked with him before, but because of the opportunity, and probably that I didn’t know him so much, and he didn’t know me, I asked if he could take some photos for me. He agreed and that was the beginning of opening the Pandora’s box. 

​UME: What quality is it in the photographer that is so crucial in the relationship between model and photographer?
 
It was absolutely that a photographer had to allow me to be me, but most of the time I didn’t feel that because most of the photographers I worked with I’d known for 15 or more years and I was very different then. But now because of our friendship, our relationship, it felt different.
 
And then there was my hiding as well – I didn’t allow photographers to see who I really was, and then of course they would hold a perception of who they think I am, who they see me to be, so I felt if I stood in front of the camera and they still had that perception of me, the photo would never be true. That’s why I asked a person that I’d never met before to photograph me because I knew he would have a less of a perception.

UME: What do you normally observe happens in fashion shoots? 
 
What I observe is that the photographer is – most of the time – in a supremacist kind of position towards the models. They direct and tell the model what to do, exactly how they want it to be.

The model is in a situation where she is following or trying to fulfil the wishes of the photographer . . . and I see there’s an impossibility in this whole situation.  Basically it is just not true, it’s fake – you might pretend to do something but it’s never really what you want to do – so it’s a lot of acting, which doesn't feel great.
 
So now with my work I liaise between the model and the photographer, understand what the photographer wants, is asking, and then go to the model and see if there’s a way we can actually express that through . . . not from a “putting up” or a fake-ness but from how she feels to express from inside so I am in a kind of a ‘mediator’ position you may say. ​

UME: You are able to bring these amazing qualities and understanding that you have now, to these shoots, this must be incredibly supportive for everyone around you?
 
My job is to bring harmony between everyone within the shoot so that every single party actually works together rather than individually, so there’s a kind of tying together, a flow or an energy that works with every part, and brings those parts all together for the full picture that becomes the end result. The end result comes from what occurs during the process of the shoot.

​UME: So it’s the alchemy, the harmony of the relationship between people that’s actually being reflected through what has been produced. This must have a huge effect on the product?
 
Everything is felt, myself with the team and the people that work in the project, and you can find that in a lot of the testimonials on my website, but we’re now bringing a deeper aspect, and this effect is being felt by people who just look at the product. If they’re not involved with us in the photo shoot for example, it is how they would still get that feeling. ‘Feeling’ is not the main communication tool in the world at the moment, but that is what we’re trying to go deeper with in our photo shoots.  

​UME: Looking at the photos on your website you can feel there’s a beautiful depth that comes with them. You seem to have a way that allows people to truly be themselves.
 
Absolutely, what I see in every single person, is the divineness in them and that there is something gorgeous to be accessed. There does feel to be supremacy, a controlling approach in our industry about what looks cool, what looks good, what looks beautiful and who directs it. I felt that the definition of this – of what beauty is and what cool is – is actually not true. What I’ve done in the past is, I’ve stepped in and directed in a way saying ‘look this is true’ but I’ve found that that is still a control on my part, which I’m letting go of, and now allowing people, holding them knowing and seeing that they have divinity and that if they have the space, they express it as they want to. That’s my role as the mediator in a shoot, allowing that space.  

Based in the busy, vibrant city of Hong Kong, fashion and lifestyle luminary Adele Leung owns and manages her unique business. ‘AdeleLeung.hk’ offers a full package of creative services styling, photography, fashion, food and lifestyle.

​A woman who has her finger on the pulse in every aspect of her business, her experience in the fashion industry is hands on and first hand. Adele is a ‘people first person’ and runs her business accordingly – not usual in today’s corporate fashion world.

UME: Your work sounds amazing - what is involved in being a fashion stylist

​Adele: Our work is about people. We are in relationship every step of the way, within the team and with the companies we work with. This is a relationship that is shared with the clients we meet and in the creative work we produce.

Adele: Well, to be very honest I’m not really interested in ‘fashion’.  I really enjoy the expression of beauty, and that to me is a kind of harmony, things coming together so that you can feel the different parts working together to present the whole picture. 

​I’ve always enjoyed looking at things in a different way so that’s my definition of being creative, because I actually am not sure what the world’s definition of creativity means. I feel that being creative is expressing things which can be looked at ‘out of the box’.  So that’s how I have lived my life. You know, before we see something, before it’s visual, it’s actually felt first.  So that’s a very natural feeling inside of me that wants to be expressed out.

​I remember when my parents took me to a shop and I bought a blouse with flowers on and a pair of corduroy pants with a pair of suede ankle lace up boots and I remember, it’s not so much how it looked – that was important as well – but more so it was how it felt when I put everything on my body; the softness of the cotton of the blouse with the lovely kind of velvety feeling of the corduroy pants and the comfort of the shoes, but also how it looked . . . you know that kind of suede . . . the colour the deep browns, the burgundies with the pale yellow blouse . . . again this kind of purpley burgundy colour. 

​Everything just kind of matched together in physicality as well as in feeling.  Those two levels were always important for me  – there was the inner as well as the outer – that they matched and actually spoke in alignment with each other . . . that for me was important. 

​At the age of 17 my parents sent me from my home in Hong Kong to Canada. I studied at university, first as a chemistry major because I felt at the time, that was what my family wanted, but then I went to Chinese studies to learn more about the Chinese culture. 

​At that time I was looking for a job and a friend told me there was a fashion boutique hiring and I felt, oh yeah, I could do that. I went and had an interview and they hired me as a retail customer service person. I really wanted to work there. I could feel in one sense I did it because of a rebellion – as in I know this would not be what my family wanted me to do – but at the same time I felt it was something that really felt natural to me. 

​Absolutely and I really feel it’s necessary for me to do it this way because I’d never studied, I never studied anything that related to fashion or design or photography etc. It’s actually very, very, very helpful to learn this way, to learn everything – by living it basically.

​In the shop I did retail customer service and then buying, and then I left that job, came back to Hong Kong and worked in magazines. From there I started to learn the publication industry. I learnt editing, writing, styling, dealing with people, connecting and working fashion shoots, getting to know the models as well as being a model myself.  

​The magazine felt like it was a kind of an avant-garde way of expressing. It was basically about really speaking your mind, speaking how it felt, finding a different way to express things which felt cool – fashion, music, culture, all of that, and there was a calling inside of me that really, really niggled at me saying ‘you’ve got to express, there are so many things inside of you that you’ve got to express . . . start expressing.’ 

It is customary as a form of greeting here in Hong Kong to ask each other ‘Are you busy?’. The customary answer is to say ‘Yes’, as being busy is our symbol of success and this equates to meaning ‘We are well’.

​I work in the fashion and image industry and everything we do is about creating images. 
Not only are we creating images we are influencing the whole world with the images we create. Every image that is put out consolidates our world in one way or another. 

​At first there was a thirst within me to create but after a while, it was clear that no matter what was created it will never be enough. 

​When the creative process is fulfilled the next stimulation is already in seeking. The unending need for stimulation was clearly destructive to my body. 

​It feels very cold in the office even though there are almost 400 people working here. To keep warm, apart from dressing up warmly and having a light blanket to cover my legs while working, I talk to people.