Clothing Accessories Decor & Gifts Journal Lookbook Archive About Us
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H IS FOR...

HOLLIS (OFFICER)

His photography set the artistic look of Asiatica for decades. Products, models, mailers were so beautiful long before the Internet arrived and we communicated by mail only. His unerring eye and knowledge shows in all his timeless work.

HONG KONG

A magical place. Hot and sticky, chaotic, hustling, delicious, beautiful, entrepreneurial, full of hidden treasure, hustling, ferry-riding etc.

HORSTMANN (Charlotte)

One of the world's most stylish merchants. Proprietor of Hong Kong's most iconic shop, collector and maker of classical Chinese hardwood furniture, charmer, and a significant inspiration for Asiatica. Our invoices are a copy of hers to this day.  

HSIA KUEI

Brilliant Chinese Southern Sung Dynasty landscape painter about whom my Ph.D. dissertation was supposed to be written. Never did it. That left a lot more time for entrepreneurship instead of academia. Their loss!

DETAIL from the hand scroll Pure and Remote View of Streams and Mountains, National Palace Museum Teipei (XIA GUI)

HOTELS

Over 50 years of buying and selling in many places, we have stayed in many hotels: from The Mandarin in Hong Kong with airport limo service to basic ryokans and a public bath next door. Each has had its virtues, humorous moments and faults. My current fave is this one in Kyoto with my bed overlooking a shrine and an automatically beckoning toilet. No English spoken, but a fine Japanese breakfast by pre-arrangement. Here for 2.

HUMOR

A sense of which is essential for life itself. 

READ LAUGH BY DAVID SEDARIS

HAHN (TRAN)

 Dear Hahn was one of our most talented, resourceful, beautiful and responsible employees and the only one who passed away while in our employ. She saw us through the dreadful year of 2008, when virtually our whole crew was laid off. Despite much adversity in her short life she cheered us up daily with her mere presence. We miss her daily.