Hong Kong jewellery label MIDNIGHTFACTORY and founder and designer Auston Tse were featured by Vogue Hong Kong as part of CENTRESTAGE 2023’s Emerging Designers, in an interview exploring the brand’s design language, storytelling and approach to contemporary jewellery.
Published in September 2023, the Vogue Hong Kong interview looks at the ideas behind MIDNIGHTFACTORY and Auston’s journey in building an independent jewellery brand in Hong Kong.
From the beginning, MIDNIGHTFACTORY has approached jewellery as more than decoration. Each piece is designed as an object that can hold memories, emotions and personal meaning, while remaining wearable in everyday life.
Building the World of MIDNIGHTFACTORY
Speaking with Vogue Hong Kong, Auston describes MIDNIGHTFACTORY as a space for translating personal experiences, emotions and memories into physical objects.
With a background in visual communication, his approach extends beyond jewellery design itself. Product, imagery, storytelling and atmosphere work together to form the wider visual language of the brand.
At the time of the interview, MIDNIGHTFACTORY described this approach through the phrase “Memories of Jewellery”, reflecting the idea that jewellery can become a vessel for experiences and meaning accumulated over time.
Finding a Balance Between Concept and Wearability
One of the central themes of the Vogue interview is the balance between creative expression and commercial design.
Rather than treating conceptual and wearable jewellery as opposites, MIDNIGHTFACTORY seeks to create pieces with an immediate visual appeal while embedding deeper ideas within their forms, materials and surrounding stories.
This approach allows each design to exist on different levels: as an object to wear, as part of a personal style, and as something capable of carrying its own narrative.
Burn Pearls and Chapter 01
Vogue Hong Kong also highlights Chapter 01, one of MIDNIGHTFACTORY’s earliest collections.
Inspired by the emotional aftermath of a fire, the collection explored trauma, imperfection and resilience through jewellery. The Burn Pearls design reimagined pearls with surfaces resembling burn marks, disrupting the traditional association of pearls with delicacy and flawless perfection.
Rather than hiding damage, the design treated its marks as evidence of experience and survival.
This idea became an early expression of themes that continue to appear throughout MIDNIGHTFACTORY: vulnerability, resilience, memory and finding beauty in things that have been changed by what they have lived through.
Jewellery as an Extension of Identity
For Auston, jewellery occupies a distinctive place within fashion because it does not need to fulfil a conventional practical function.
Instead, it can become a physical expression of something intangible: taste, attitude, memory, identity or personal belief.
MIDNIGHTFACTORY therefore approaches jewellery without rigid boundaries around gender or prescribed meaning. The significance of a piece ultimately develops through the person who chooses to wear it.
Designed in Hong Kong
The interview also explores the influence of Hong Kong on Auston’s creative process.
More than a geographical origin, the city forms part of the experiences, memories and emotions behind the brand. These observations are translated into jewellery, imagery and stories, making MIDNIGHTFACTORY a distinctly Hong Kong-born label while allowing its ideas to travel beyond the city.
About MIDNIGHTFACTORY
MIDNIGHTFACTORY is an independent jewellery label founded in Hong Kong in 2021 by designer Auston Tse. Working primarily with 925 sterling silver, the brand creates contemporary jewellery through a dark romantic design language shaped by symbolism, personal narratives and everyday wearability.
Its work explores love, memory, vulnerability, resilience and the things we choose to carry with us.