Shanghai Tang — the pioneering Hong Kong brand that first draped mandarin jackets on the shoulders of Kate Moss, Princess Diana and Gong Li — is finally entering its turnaround phase.

Founded by the late Sir David Tang, the flamboyant Hong Kong tastemaker, Shanghai Tang once fused Chinese tradition with Pop Art flair, becoming an in-the-know brand for globe-trotting elites in the ’90s. But following Tang’s death in 2017 and a rapid shuffle in ownership — from Richemont to a group of investors led by the Italian textile entrepreneur Alessandro Bastagli — the brand quickly lost its footing amid the evolving luxury landscape.

Six years ago, when Shanghai Tang was acquired by Lunar Capital — a Chinese consumer-focused buyout firm led by Derek Sulger and Jerry Mao — the new owners initiated what they called a “revolution.” Sulger and Mao dismantled the brand’s fragmented supply chains in Hong Kong and Italy, relocated its headquarters to Shanghai, and set in motion a master plan to reinvent the niche legacy label as a modern lifestyle powerhouse.

“When we bought it, it was a very loved brand. There were so many things that could have been improved, but people loved it, and that’s really what we bought. But what is now Shanghai Tang, the brand, was just one small part of what we now consider Shanghai Tang, the group. It’s a part of all things we are emphasizing, one of the most important parts being experiences,” Sulger said in an exclusive interview.

With a name closely associated with old-world glamour, Sulger is keen on building a lifestyle empire around the brand, just as he has with a host of other legacy names. Lunar Capital’s portfolio includes UCCA Group, a fine art-powered retail, education and commercial content company, and Unmi Group, a constellation of fine dining restaurants that began with Da Vittorio Shanghai. Launched the same year the duo purchased Shanghai Tang, Unmi went on to become Louis Vuitton’s main hospitality partner in China, running the luxury brand’s Michelin-starred restaurant The Hall in Chengdu, as well as Le Café Louis Vuitton in Shanghai.

After enlisting Cui Dan, a former veteran editor at GQ China, and later Hu Chunhui, the doyenne of Wuhan’s fashion retail scene, to help with branding and merchandising strategies, Sulger and Mao opted for a trend-driven product plan. Shanghai Tang products such as its Ginger Flower fragrance and the Five Element bracelets have become some of the brand’s recent bestsellers.

“People are hanging these bracelets on their purses as to project good fengshui,” said Sulger, referring to the ancient Chinese wisdom of creating balance and harmony through spatial arrangements. “It’s a functional product in that way. It’s also experiential for us.”

Without a creative director at the helm, the self-proclaimed “new founders” have taken a very hands-on approach to Shanghai Tang.

Every small detail matters. Sulger penned playful copy for the brand’s Playmaker Polo, touting its soft mandarin collar as one that “brings good fengshui when closing deals, hitting the gym, dominating the court, or turning heads over coffee.” Meanwhile in Shanghai, Mao has been busy overseeing the newly established atelier, which counts around 20 skilled garment makers, driving collaborations, and outfitting a circle of friends that include Chinese artists, local entrepreneurs and art world patrons.

Despite an economic slowdown, the company saw its organic sales soar 60 percent last year. With 10 brick-and-mortar stores in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, Shanghai Tang recently expanded into hospitality with two cafés in Shanghai.

For Mao, Shanghai Tang’s brand proposition is extremely exacting yet with an infinitely open-ended question: How can the brand define what Chinese lifestyle is today?

“It’s a mood, an atmosphere,” Mao said. “It is not David Tang wearing a Tang suit and smoking a cigar anymore. We are keen on exploring ways to put Shanghai Tang in a larger context, perhaps it’s under the context of the best museum in the country, it’s about finding the connection between Chinese style and Chinese art, we want to even open a Shanghai Tang hotel,” Mao said.

He was quick to point out Tang’s deep influence in the contemporary Chinese world when he was alive, a storyline that often took a backseat to the bon vivant’s colorful lifestyle and connections to British and Hong Kong elites.

Mao recounts how Tang was one of the earliest supporters of China’s “85 New Wave” movement, which included the first crop of professional artists to graduate from the Central Academy of Fine Arts after the Cultural Revolution. “In fact, UCCA’s founders didn’t start collecting Chinese art until they met David Tang in Hong Kong,” Mao added.

“An art connosieur and a tastemaker with real influence who could build a platform to celebrate his passions is a rarity in China today; that’s what makes Shanghai Tang special,” Mao said. “Shanghai Tang is not a fashion business, it’s a universe of Chinese lifestyles.”

For now, building the brand’s universe means unexpected collaborations; its list of creative crossovers include the Chinese artist Xu Bing, the famed fashion photographer Chen Man, and Jacky Tsai, the Hong Kong artist.

Under its current company structure, Sulger and Mao own Shanghai Tang independently from Lunar’s portfolio of companies. The new structure is meant to help define the future of the brand, which has plans to open a fashion and hospitality flagship in the Middle East and, further down the line, the Shanghai Tang hotel, which will be operated by its hospitality branch called Nocture.

“Just like the projects we are involved in with Louis Vuitton restaurants, where the products are directly integrated with some of the retail experiences, the revenue actually grows in parallel,” Sulger said.

A small luxury empire in the making, Sulger and Mao are confident that extending the brand’s reach into hospitality — an aspirational category — will drive consumer interest.

“Whatever the challenges are, COVID-19, weak economy, bad stock market, the trends, the aspirations and the interests are very clear — people really want experiences, they do want a little bit of an escape, and they really want to sort of surround themselves with aesthetics and feel comfortable. So how you play the trends can become a little bit more interesting,” Sulger said.