FULL CIRCLE

Chelsea Chau-Kuok will be the first to admit her mum is more stylish than she is, but she still has a look that’s all her own

- Coco Marett

Chelsea Chau-Kuok is twirling in a green patterned kaftan against a backdrop of sherbet-hued clouds. Kiss by Prince is playing in the background, the sound bouncing off the studio walls. Amid the jewellery dripping from her ears, neck and wrists, I notice a thick, solid jade bangle bound tightly around her left arm.

“I never take it off,” Chau-Kuok later tells me. “I’ve worn one since childhood and have gone through a few over the years. In Chinese tradition, it’s said that jade is supposed to protect you, and when it breaks or shatters, it means it has absorbed bad energy or pain for you.”

In fact, the only time she has ever taken off her jade bracelet was during the birth of one of her and husband Justin Kuok’s two sons, one aged two and the other just six months. After the shoot, Chau-Kuok has to rush to take their two-year-old to a music class. “They’re going to think I’m crazy, walking in there with my hair done and this full face of make-up,” she quips.

I ask if the jade bracelet tradition is one she will pass on to her children. “Definitely! I mean, if I have a girl,” she says coyly with a laugh. A mother-daughter bond over fashion is something that Chau-Kuok knows well. Her mother, Reina Chau, is a fixture in Hong Kong’s social scene and always lands a spot on the city’s best dressed lists, even taking home the most stylish award at the 2012 Tatler Ball.