Featured on About.com's Teen Fashion Blog!

Hi everyone,

Go check out the article that About.com's Teen Fashion blog wrote about me here.

Also, congratulations to Stephanie, the winner of the $100 Lot 8 Certificate! Thanks so much for commenting guys, I really enjoy reading each and every one of your comments!

Also, look for my QVC lines on TV this weekend.

Love,

Chloe

Part 2 of My Trip to Asia

My trip to China started with a 15 hour plane ride to Guangzhou. I did not sleep one bit.

It was my first time ever in China. I was really excited to be in China. I've already been to Bangkok and Vietnam before, but never China. I was nervous that I was going to be in a country where I didn't speak the language, so I hired an interpreter. I mainly went to Guangzhout to really look into manufacutring and see how their fashion district was run. I was blown away by it because it was GINORMOUS, like 30 buildings of wholesale. I felt like the whole city was a wholesale district. The wholesale district was not just Chinese deisgners but Korean designers too. They dominate. They're pretty much infiltrating the Chinese wholesale market. If you go to trade shows in LA or at Magic in Vegas, half of the designers or venders are Korean manufacturers. It's interesting to see that they're in China also. I want to be Korean!



Let's talk about one of my other favorite subjects besides clothes: food! (Since everyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge eater; I'm hungry every 5 minutes). However I've got to say that Guangzhou food was not that great. I thought Chinese food was always kind of healthy, but it turns out that every dish is flooded with oil. The soup dishes were tasty but oily. I'm going to jump all over the place when I'm writing this post..my impressions of Guangzhou were that it was very very green for a highly-developped city. On the freeway you would have vines hanging. They were very in tune with mother nature and keeping it green. The thing that made me really sad about the city is that it was so developped and underdeveloped at the same time with the rich vs the poor. Literally I'm in a taxi cab, and on the street is like a 70 year old lady carrying a huge bag on her back and two huge bags in her hands. She didn't even have a bike. It was hot, like 98 degrees. Don't travel in Asia in May, June, July, or August or you're going to die. I really got to see what it meant to be a developping country - in China, not everyone is developping at the same time economically. Same thing with vietnam. Hopefully, there will soon be a balance.


Peace out!,
Chloe

The Little Couple on TLC

It was a real pleasure to meet with Jennifer and Bill. I am a fan of their show. I watch a lot of reality tv. I am a little obsessed about it. The" Little Couple" just shows you that reality tv does not always have to be mean, trashy, and competitive. I really admire and respect their amazing love and rapport for each other. You can just see and feel it when you are around them. I think that why the show is so successful.

When I found out Jennifer wanted a dress to be made by me I was very excited and nervous because I usually have a mannequin to drape from. But with her being so tiny, I had to work from scratch. I was smart and asked for a basic gown that she liked so I could make a basic pattern from it and develop from there. I wanted her to feel glamorous and beautiful. I found out Jennifer is like me - she gives and gives and sometimes forget to treat herself. This was her only second custom garment ever besides her wedding dress. I know how hard it is to find clothes my size, and I can not image her challenges. So I was super happy to make something special for her. I picked the Lolita dress out for Jen and was really glad she wanted it also. I did a muslim fitting and somehow I made it too short. In about a few days, I made the gown and we did the second fitting. The gown needed some minor adjustment but overall it was beautiful on her. I had to fly out to Asia for a business trip so I could not be there for a final fitting. But I heard it fit pretty well on the show. I have not seen it because I do not know why, but I just can't watch myself right now.

I have to say Jen and Bill can not be nicer people and the crew that film them. I had a wonderful timing and believe me it it not always so pleasant.

I have to admit I always have a bit of a complex about being short, but after working Jen, I need to just shut up. I really do not have anything to complain about. She and Bill really do have an amazing story, they have gone through so many surgeries for things we take for granted. So when you are feeling down on yourself or feeling self doubt creeping on you, just think of Jen and Bill. They are up against a lot more then us on a daily basis but they are happy and successful. We can all strive to be a little more like them.

Peace out.

Chloe

San Francisco - Beginning of a Journey

This is the beginning of the journey I took to Asia 5 weeks ago and I'm finally going to blog about it in installments because there's just so much to say.

First stop : San Francisco.

I attended the RAMS event in San Francisco discussing mental health. I met with Hung from Top Chef (winner season 3) and the Victor and Tammy, the brother/sister pair from the Amazing Race Season 14, and Pam from Real World Season 2 (first Asian-American on reality television!). The committee members of the event, which was called Changing Reality: The voices of Asian American TV Stars, asked the panel how the reality show has affected us. What's really interesting about the event is for me, how even to this day, Asian parents still want the typical doctor-lawyer path for their children to aspire to: the safe field, the predictable field. And being on the panel with Pam who is a doctor and Victor and Tammy who are lawyers, it's interesting to be on a panel with the perfect parent dream because Victor & Tammy play piano and speak Chinese. Me and Hung, on the other hand, are fashion designer and chef, respectively. You couldn't get more of polar opposites. The beauty of being on the panel is you can choose to be the doctor or you can choose to be in the creative field. It leads to people to become aware that you can be successful doing something else.


I felt so fat next to Tammy.

I don't think we realise what impact we really have, at least me and Hung, until we get on the internet and read about ourselves or meet one of our fans when they tell us about we have changed their life. Here's a true story: once, someone came up to me and told me that after watching Project Runway, they decided to change their mind from being a doctor to being an architect. You dont realise you have this kind of impact until you hear things like this. I'm glad that the change is becoming more evident, I actually did this other event at an art gallery here in Houston and on the panel was me Lan Tran, a playwright, and Andrew Lam a Vietnamese writer; Dai Huynh food journalist. we were all asian artistic people. We proved that you don't have to be a lawyer or doctor. You can be whatever you want be but work hard at it, because nothing comes easily. Doing what you love doesn't always equate to succes, it's doing what you love and working hard that equates to success.

RAMS is a non-profit mental health facility for all Asians - Chinese, Vietnamese, even a small group of Russians. Mental health, especially in the asian community, is such an unspoken thing. In a way, they're saying that it's okay to be crazy, so I think I'm in good company ;)



Next time, I'll tell you all about my trip to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Guangzhou!

Remember, the first 100 people who leave their name with their email address will be automatically entered to win a lot 8 $100 gift certificate!

Stay tuned,
Chloe

The Rest of the Spring 2010 Collection

Hi everyone, in my last post I gave you a glimpse of my Spring 2010 Collection. Here are some other pieces from my collection - enjoy!







Remember to leave your feedback - the first 100 who leave their name and email will be automatically entered to win a $100 gift certificate to lot 8!

Chloe

Spring 2010 Collection - "Lightness"

Above are two of my inspiration boards for the Spring 2010 "Lightness" collection. An inspiration board is really a tool to narrow down what the theme of the collection should be. You always have so many themes running around in your head, but an inspiration board really forces you to commit to an idea (though I usually end up changing it again ;))

An inspiration board is also just a piece of paper that you can look at all the time. Sometimes an idea will sound right in your head, but when you're combining it with fabric swatches, you realize, Okay that might not work together.

People always ask me how I get inspiration for my new collections. I usually just go on the internet and look for something that I have an instant conection with. This season, there were lots of colors and African themes. As you can tell, it actually morphed into a collection of lightness instead. Sometimes what you start off with is not what you end up with.

Photos from my Spring 2010 Collection:






And finally, here's me wearing the Lolita dress from the collection at the recent Lightness show supporting The Fairy Godmother Project.

Thanks everyone for stopping by, check back soon for more updates!
Leave your name and email in a comment and the first 100 people will be automatically entered to win a $100 gift certificate to Lot 8! Leave me some love!

Chloe