Hong Kong's future of fashion in the limelight these days and though the city is a commercial hub, so far its efforts to become a creative hub have not yielded much success. Most local designers and companies carve a niche by themselves or are backed by investors. However, initiates, such as ‘The Mills Pitch Day’, funded by the Nan Fung Group hopes to change that. At the inaugural edition of the event, eight entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to impress industry judges and bag a HK$200,000 grand prize. Shai Levy, Founder of Seventy Eight Percent, won the prize which, apart from the cash, included, business development opportunities and a mentorship programme.

Fabio Piras, judge and course director at London's Central Saint Martins college said that Levy was the most convincing of all. He had a business, a real product, was at a stage where he needed a lot of investment, and winning this would allow him to have connections beyond what he can achieve by himself.

The competition, which is part of a larger initiative from the conglomerate to support fashion start-ups in Hong Kong hopes that the city may create an atmosphere of innovation that once existed in Hong Kong during its heydays as a manufacturing hub. Cherry Chan, The Mills Executive Director said that they wished to propel businesses forward in the space of technology and fashion and believed that Hong Kong needed such initiatives.