Cho Cheng
Cho Cheng is a fashion designer and entrepreneur who founded his company Chocheng in New York.
Early life
Born Cho-Cho Chojo Citron Borjigit Cheng in Hong Kong, he is from the Borjigin clan of Mongolia. Cheng was raised by his grandmother, Betty Charnuis, a famous fashion designer in Hong Kong. He later relocated to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design.
Career
Cheng’s grandmother, Betty Char-Nuis Clemos was a renowned Shanghai tailor whose clients included the Soong sisters. She fled China during World War II and worked briefly in New York as a fashion designer for Valentina Schlee. In the late 1950's, she finally settled in Hong Kong and eventually started her own fashion house at the Peninsula Hotel. Apart from being a fashion designer she was also the first Asian retailer to import licensed Paris Haute Couture to Hong Kong. Her frequent trips to Haute Couture shows in Paris would become Cheng’s introduction to the world of fashion. She encouraged Cheng to study fashion design and passed on her company and the whole design archive to him upon her death in 2005.
Throughout the years, Cho Cheng has interned for Sonia Rykiel and Vivienne Westwood. After his graduation, he worked in New York for a brief time and spent most of his time in China to take care of his grandmother’s estate and portfolio. In 2005, Cheng jump started his career when he made a pink bouffant gown for Tinsley Mortimer to attend the Costume Institute Annual Benefit Gala. The gown was well received, particularly by Nicole Kidman, the co-host of the gala. The response and press generated by the gown prompted him to carry on his grandmother’s legacy and start his eponymous fashion company in America. He currently has an atelier in New York, another one in Los Angeles and five stores across China.
Cho Cheng had his first show at Bryant Park during New York fashion week on February 2009.