The Works：The Mills, Pepe Shimada's Cat Art Festival, Clockenflap 2015

As we promised last week, later in today’s show we’re bringing you highlights of this year’s Clockenflap festival. We’re also bringing you something to delight cat lovers, with music and art inspired by our feline friends from Japanese artist, Pepe-San.
First though, Hong Kong’s textile industry has a long history. As early as 1899, Jardine Matheson set up a cotton-spinning, weaving and dyeing company here. After the Second World War, once the Japanese occupation was over, and as wealthy industrialists and workers came here to escape civil war in the mainland, Hong Kong’s manufacturing industries, including the textile industry boomed. By the 1950s, the territory had more than 40 spinning mills. It didn’t last. By the early 1980s, increasing rents in Hong Kong, and cheaper labour and an open door policy on the mainland, encouraged many industrialists to move their production lines to the Pearl River Delta. The once busy factories have now either been redeveloped or adapted to other uses. The Nan Fung Group started as a textile company. Now a property developer, it’s turning three of its former mills in Tsuen Wan into a fashion and creative hub.