The past, present and no-future of an industrial heritage : the leather industry on Tai Nan Street, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

Abstract

The topic of this dissertation is about a less known industrial heritage of Hong Kong - the leathercraft retailing shops on Tai Nan Street, popularly referred to as “Leather Street.” When the author first embarked upon the research, she realized that there is more to the history of Tai Nan Street / Leather Street. Tracing the history of the street, she discovered that the leathercraft retailing trade on the street embodies an interesting story of one of Hong Kong’s early industries. The Leather industry in Sham Shui Po flourished from the 1960s and significantly declined since the 1990s. However, the industry experienced a sudden revival in the early 2010s, and its industry nature is shifted from manufacturing in the past to concept store in the present. In this research, the change of industry nature will be investigated and the feasibility on having concept store on reviving or substituting the declining industry will be studied. The research has three goals. Firstly, to understand the transformation of the leather industry through identification of leather retail shops in different period among Tai Nan Street. Second, to investigate the reason why the industry can revive after declination through its transformation of nature. Lastly, to study the reason why the industry cannot sustain through the transformation. This research effort will mainly focus on three areas. Firstly, the history of the leather industry in Sham Shui Po will be studied. The objective is to understand how the industry affected the district in the past and how its original nature made it manifestly superior. Secondly, in order to comprehend how the industry transformation works, investigation on leather shops of different periods will be carried out through research, site visit and interviews with shop owners and operators. Lastly, the reason on the failure of conserving the leather industry will be identified through analysing the data collected through research and interviews with shop owners.