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Cho Cheng Char is a fashion designer and entrepreneur who operates his eponymous brand CHOCHENG in London and New York.

Early life
Born ChoJo Char Nuis Borjigit Cheng in Hong Kong, he is from the Borjigin clan of Mongolia. Cho Cheng was raised by his grandmother, Betty Charnuis, a noted fashion designer in Hong Kong. He first moved to New York to study at the Parsons School of Design and later relocated to London to study the Savile Row tailoring trade.

Career
Cho Cheng’s grandmother, Betty Char-Nuis Clemos was a renowned Shanghai tailor whose clients included the Soong sisters. She fled China during World War II and worked briefly in New York as a fashion designer for Valentina Schlee. In the late 1950s, she finally settled in Hong Kong and eventually started her own fashion house at the Peninsula Hotel. In addition to being a fashion designer she was also the first Asian retailer to import licensed Paris Haute Couture to Hong Kong. Her frequent trips to Haute Couture shows in Paris would become Cho’s introduction to the world of fashion. She encouraged Cho to study fashion design and passed on her company and the whole design archive to him upon her death in 2005.

Throughout the years, Cho has interned for Sonia Rykiel and Vivienne Westwood. After his graduation, he worked in New York for a brief time and spent most of his time in China taking care of his grandmother’s estate and portfolio. In 2005, Cho jump-started his career when he made a pink bouffant gown for Tinsley Mortimer to attend the Costume Institute Annual Benefit Gala. The gown was well received, particularly by Nicole Kidman, the co-host of the gala. The response and press generated by the gown prompted him to carry on his grandmother’s legacy and start his eponymous fashion company, CHOCHENG, in New York.

CHOCHENG’s first formal show was at Bryant Park during New York Fashion Week on February 2009. In 2010, he began spending more time in London to further his studies in Savile Row bespoke tailoring and to set up an atelier to manufacture his collections.

Through the CHOCHENG pret-a-porter collection, bespoke service and collaborations with numerous British accessories brands including Launer London, Cho has developed an impressive celebrity and social following including Nicole Kidman, Madonna, Janet Jackson, former first lady Nancy Reagan, Baroness Margaret Thatcher and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II