Hong Kong - Tens of thousands of US dollars was being collected China's earthquake victims Sunday after some of Hong Kong's wealthiest wives emptied their designer wardrobes for charity.

Three thousand pieces of expensive clothing and 1,000 designer handbags with labels including Chanel, Dior and Gucci were snapped up in the first day of a three-day sale that began Saturday.

Hundreds of people queued outside Mandarin Oriental Hotel for hours on Saturday to be among the first to buy the cast-offs of the rich and famous for a fraction of their original price.

Donated items come from society figures including the Chan Yuen-chun, third wife of casino tycoon Stanley Ho, and Susan Tang, mother of Hong Kong's chief secretary Henry Tang.

Bargains on the first day of the sale included a Channel clutch bag purse sold for 60 US dollars, although men's clothes donated by the tycoons themselves proved harder to sell with an overwhelmingly female crowd of buyers.

Hong Kong's wealthy wives, famous for their shopping habits and partying, are known as "tai-tais" and revered rather than ridiculed by ordinary women in the former British colony. (dpa)