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Gokson draws from her life in retail and an A-list lifestyle to stir up visual excitement in her new Hong Kong restaurant, lounge and sweet shop.
Visual merchandising is a signature item on the design menu at SEVVA. That’s no surprise, really. Fashion and retailing have been a constant for owner Bonnie Gokson. A perennial on best dressed lists, Gokson grew up in a family that counted department stores among its holdings and later honed her brand-building skills working with her sister, Joyce Ma, who founded Joyce Boutiques in Asia. For much of the last five years, she leveraged her aptitude for marketing luxury as Regional Image and Communications Director at Chanel Asia - Pacific.
Though SEVVA is her first proprietary restaurant concept, it’s not her first foray into the hospitality sector. She was creative director for one of Hong Kong’s first private business clubs, Nautilus Club, and a force in her sister’s Joyce’s Café chain. In an interview with VMSD, the entrepreneur-cum-style icon talks about the crossover between retail and restaurant design and how that’s shaping customers’ decisions on where to be seen.
What lessons learned from retail and other restaurants inspired you when you started writing the concept for SEVVA?
BG: “In Central, everything is so slick, polished and modern. What is supposed to be a la moment gets out-dated very fast, especially in Asia. I wanted SEVVA to reflect a residential feel; an atmosphere that oozes life and soul, to be a place with warmth and energy. A place where plenty of sunlight comes through the day, and at night the candlelit ambience and sexy music sets the mood.”
Fashion displays would use props and decoratives to do that. What elements did you and designer Tsao & McKown (New York) select to create that mood?
BG: “I believe in fresh or seductive scents with flowers or candles to create the atmosphere. Our vertical garden wall which stretches 15 feet, gives great energy and life to SEVVA. We have interesting art or coffee tables books plus different decorative objects for guests to enjoy.”
Why did you create two restaurants with separate identities -- Harbourside, which is informal, and Bankside, which is more “fine dining”?
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