Old
Shanghai
is the fusion of tradition and culture new and old…
Tiffany and Renee Tam are the
trendsetting entrepreneurs and designers behind
Old
Shanghai.
What started out as a
traditional family business has flourished into an Asian-inspired lifestyle
brand and retail destination located in San Francisco's Chinatown.
My parents who started the business were first generation immigrants from
China. When they first arrived in San Francisco, they started their business
to service the local immigrants. They offered things that fit the daily
lifestyles of the immigrants at the time. Today, we take a lot of things for
granted like
chopsticks, rice bowls,
tea pots,
stir fry woks… these things
were not always regular household, staple products like they are now.
Over time, my father’s
business changed with the landscape of Chinatown...
Now that we think about
it, the stores have actually changed a lot over the years… it was only in
the last 20 years have we seen such a strong interest in Asian culture. More
and more people from all parts of the world come to Chinatown to find
something Asian.
With this idea in mind, my father, Tiffany and I want Old Shanghai to be the
ultimate showroom in San Francisco for something new, something old, and of
course, something “Asian.” You see some of the home furnishings in our store
and it really takes you back in time.
When I got married a few
years back, my father picked out a few traditional items for me to have in
my
wedding such as these antique rosewood baskets for Chris (my nervous
husband) and his
family packed with gifts and blessings and brought over to
my house to start the wedding day court ship. We first played the
traditional games then Chris had to serenade me, and offer my family gifts
in those large baskets. For my wedding ceremony, I wore the traditional qipao (long dress) and around us, we had much of the antique furniture that
you can find in our showroom. We kept the wedding very “traditional.”
Fast forward to the present and you can see that our concepts and designs
are very much inspired by our traditional values and rich Asian heritage as
well as today’s contemporary
fashions. With every design, we want to keep
the fashion chic but at the same time keep a sense of Asian heritage within
it. Tiffany and I are avid shoppers so designing comes very naturally for
us. We have a lot of
traditional housewares,
clothing, and
accessories, but
where we really let the creative juices flow is when we design our style of
housewares,
clothing, and
accessories. We design it with today’s style
trends in mind.
Tiffany and I started off working in our father’s stores at very young ages and today, we add the something “new” to
Old Shanghai.
