ABSTRACT
In a television interview with Sarah Ferguson aired in Hong Kong in December 1997, the American presenter Larry King found himself being presented with a birthday gift. This he began to unwrap and, in order to fill in the pause in talk occasioned by his having to do something other than look at his interlocutor or the camera, King told the duchess to ‘say something’. This she duly did: a full minute of promotion for one David Tang, who was a ‘close friend’ and a ‘lovely man’, and whose new store, Shanghai Tang, just happened to be opening in Manhattan that week. 1 In the meantime, Larry King unwrapped – and, at the duchess’ bidding, put on – a purple velvet jacket, before (again at her bidding) rolling up the sleeves to reveal a gaudy green silk lining for which Shanghai Tang – best described, perhaps, as a purveyor of high-class, oriental kitsch – is well known.
