Chinese New Year is by far the biggest annual festival in China, with lucky money packets, known as “Lai See”, at the heart of the celebrations. In Hong Kong, over 320 million of these paper packets are given out amongst family and friends as lucky blessings. Every brand produces its own packets in the hope that the public will select theirs to give out amongst loved ones.

Tasked with creating Cathay Pacific’s annual Lai See, our objectives were:

Create a beautiful design, unique to Cathay, that would steal the limelight over rival brands during CNY.

Adhere to Cathay’s pledge of sustainability and somehow inspire a wider sustainability conversation amongst the Hong Kong public.

Budget was minimal. Lai See is typically mas-produced paper, costing a similar amount to a run of basic business cards.

To create Uniform Lai See, we needed to find a designer who could create beautiful bespoke designs from old material. That’s when we discovered Agnes Tsui, Hong Kong’s very own award-winning eco-designer.

His created a contemporary design that implemented key Chinese symbols and elements. This included things such as the “Endless Knot”, a traditional Chinese knotting technique that is believed to bring prosperity and endless happiness.

We then approached a local textile charity, St James Settlement, to hand-make and craft each Lai See. All proceeds from the sales would then be passed back to the charity.

Finally, we launched our Uniform Lai See at the closing ceremony of the world’s biggest fashion upcycling competition, Redress. Redress brings fashion designers from all around the world together in international locations – competing to make new fashion items out of old clothing.

The Lai See was released for sale online and onboard.