Mandy, could tell us a little bit about your background?

I was raised in Coquitlam, and went to school in Coquitlam. After high school I went to Ryerson University and studied a program called graphics communication management. I was there for four years, learned about printing presses, learned about Gutenberg, sniffed some ink…

I also learned all the adobe programs, so I have a little bit of Colour Theory design background so that was pretty cool.

What happened after you were finished at Ryerson?

I worked a year in advertising in downtown Toronto, and that was pretty fun. I’m glad I took that direction instead of going into the print direction because advertising was fun while it lasted.

I don’t know if it is for me anymore but it as good experience in terms of learning about the whole marketing side of business, whereas print was all technology, so it was good to have a balance of both which the program was.

I guess you can translate that into what you are doing now?

I feel it is relevant into what I am entering now, with the fashion business.

You’re working with manufacturing, production, suppliers… It gives you and overall look as to how you start with a concept to get to a finished product.

It seemed as though fashion design wasn’t originally in the cards for you.
Do recall the point where you decided that this was the route that you should take?

I think throughout my life I grew up in a household where it was all about practicality. You need to get a job, you have to work in an office, you have to pay your bills so on and so forth.

I went to a very practical school, where it was all about technical skill. It was all about 90% job placement. It was in the description of the course. And it was in Toronto, so I needed to get as far away from home as possible.

It just got to a point where I did what I thought was right. I was challenged, but in the end I was just paying my bills.

I wanted to do something fun, and I was surrounded by some artsy people, too. When I went to Ryerson, I had friends in fashion design, in photography, theatre, dance. I thought, ‘this is really cool, what they’re doing’. They were doing something that they like.

It got to a point where I thought I wanted to do something for myself.

I really do like technical things, I like making things. I think it as important to be technically inclined and creative too. For example, there are a lot of designers who don’t sew. Yeah you can get away with that, but at the same time I don’t feel you can be directional. Like, if you can’t sew, it limits you as a designer and if you don’t understand how a garment is sewn then and you don’t understand how its supposed to work, because it is a garment in the end, its not art.

Like you aren’t painting an throwing something on someone as a walking piece of art. It’s functional. I feel its important, but I mean other designers have different objectives, like there are a lot of people who make a lot of money at what they do and they never touch a sewing machine. It gets to a point where you’re mass-producing; You aren’t making garments anymore, you’re just designing. I just feel if people know how to sew then they can communicate that to their seamstresses a lot easier.

I guess it gives a greater sense of creative control.

Yeah you can’t just be conceptual. You have to learn how to communicate your concept to the people who are actually turning your garment into a finished product.

The more you know technically, the more it benefits you.

We learned that through school, you just learn by doing. Like a lot of times you just make it up as you go along. At least that’s what happened with me anyways.

The whole collection was done over 6-9 months. You get to the point where you have so many ideas running through your head at one time, so 6-9 months is a long time to stick to one thing.

My original theme was inspired by ribbon and knotting. There is a lot of Chinese and Japanese art that has to do with ribbons. I was really inspired by those really decorative pieces, so I started out like that.

There was one piece that I did incorporate ribbons into it, but that was the only thing.

I started to look at different artwork and movies and it just made a huge turn. I think the ideas started coming when you start to make the garments when you start putting fabric on your mannequin you start to se different shapes and you kind of go from there.

It was a huge learning process and it was not easy.

I think that’s the case with most art too, right? You start out with an initial idea, but that evolves.

Yeah, totally. Mine kind of took a huge 180, but you know, I think it took a turn for the best.

Now what I thought was interesting were your descriptions of your pieces in the program given out at the show.

Oh yes… my descriptions. I’m going to have to explain it, won’t I.

You’re kind of all over the place!

Well that’s me in a nutshell!

I got a sense of elegance, but you also get… Jean-Luc Picard?

Well come on! You always have to have some sort of geeky element.

I mean fashion people are always so serious, and you ask people ‘how would you describe so-and-so’s collection?’ and they always spew out the same words! ‘it was so chic! So feminine! So luxurious!’

Now people can say yours is so Patrick Stewart! Or they’ll say yours is so Next Generation!

See, you’re a Trekkie! Everyone is a Trekkie deep down inside, we just don’t want to admit it!

Besides, Patrick Stewart is kind of hot.

People think that in fashion you need to be so cool, but I’m over that. Why don’t you just let it be what it is and have fun with it?

It doesn’t always have to be so serious. And if you look at all the major designers out there, there is a HUGE sci-fi influence.

Look at Gareth Pugh; he is a genius! He’s doing crazy Kubrick/David Lynch type stuff.

Look at Jean-Paul Gaultier who designed for a lot of movies like The Fifth Element, its totally theatrical and crazy. But when you look at it you totally feel something.

Of course, you aren’t going to walk down Robson and see someone in a building-structure of an outfit.

Well not yet.

No not yet, Vancouver’s not quite there yet.

Hopefully one day though!

Yeah, but some people look at those designers and say like ‘oh no one’s going to wear that’, but if you look at, it sets the trends and trickles down to the more subdued, contemporary designers.

They look to the huge designers and they wash it down a little bit. It’s the same shapes. It’s not completely off the wall as you think it might be!

But these big designers aren’t boring people. They want do something that you really want see.

I was really inspired by that. I wasn’t big on buying mall brands. I was more interested in the people that got me into the industry were like Gaultier.

Even though you mention, the sci-fi influence, I find there still is an element of practicality in your garments.

For this collection I took into consideration the audience that would be present of the show. I knew media would be there but most people were friends and family of the designers.

And I mean, we’re still a new city.

We’re not super fashion forward, but its getting better.

We’re not London, New York, or Tokyo, so we’re still new and hesitant on grasping new ideas.

Although people still do welcome that and the local designer scene is growing and growing. There are a lot more independent boutiques that you see that are accepting and promoting local designers.

The whole mentality of Vancouver is the green movement, or buy local, organic cotton, which is really great. But we still are kind of new as a fashion city, and I kind of took that into consideration and I still wanted to make garments and not put a piece of canvas down the runway. I wanted to make something that people would understand. I wanted to be accessible, but still me.

I think the worst thing in the world is to be boring. I think the worst thing a designer could be told is that their stuff is ‘boring’.

It seemed to pay off for you though; you ended up winning a bunch of the awards that night.

Oh yeah, all my friends made fun of me. They were like ‘oh, academic? Who’s the nerd who’s going to get this award?” and of course, I walk out

But it was still great.

Could you talk a little bit about your experience of the VCC fashion show?

It was the first time that VCC had a matinee show. So we had our first go at the venue then for students.

Thank God we did that because there were certain things that I saw that needed to be fixed. I thought the night over all went quite well. We were all really nervous about it.

We all had to stay up front, we couldn’t go back stage t fix our garments because that would have been to chaotic. But, it was nice to sit in the audience and see your stuff go down the runway and see how the audience reacted to certain garments.

Yeah it was a fun night, we have all been so stressed for so long, it was a good celebration.

Did you just find a moment where you let go and say “there’s nothing else I can do”?

Yeah you do get to that. A lot of my friends asked how the matinee went and my response was “UGH”, but there is nothing you can do about it so you just let it go.

One of my instructors said that time lines are a good and bad thing at the same time.

You’re always racing against the clock, and you hate it. But if you weren’t on a clock none of your garments would ever get done.

It’s hard to get to the point where you are absolutely 100% fine with it. That was a really hard situation for me to just let go, and hand in the work.

What’s next for you?

I want to freelance illustrate for the time being, so my next big thing is to set up my website. I have a splash page on it.

That was my big thing. I’ve been drawing since I could pick up a pencil. So, that was my first love.

I’ve never really done fashion illustration before. It was one of our teachers, Lisa Gellert, who is so interesting, and a bit of an eccentric character, and I know she knows it, but we all love her for it, that really got me into it. (She’s going to email me when she reads this. But hey Lisa, I looked up “eccentric behavior” on Wikipedia and it says “Eccentricity is often associated with genius, giftedness, or creativity.” So there you go.)

I look at my drawings from the first day of class and compare it to my graduation portfolio, and the difference is amazing. It was her who showed us how to draw a model, despite life drawing being one of the most difficult things to draw, and how to sketch naturally. Through the classes over the two years you really start to see a change.

I want do that, but I don’t want focus on just on fashion, I want to sketch other things too, so I think I want to freelance illustrate for the time being and make clothes on the side.

Right now I need to focus on learning more, maybe work on creating some of my own clothes and see what works and what doesn’t work. And that’s it just for now.

But my next big thing is Vancouver Fashion week. I’m entering the competition with some of the pieces from VCC, so we’ll see how that goes.

Do you have anything you want to say to anyone who is aspiring to be a designer, or even just an artist?

I think the most important thing is to really enjoy what you do and know what you’re good at. Try not to be so afraid of what you’re not good at.

One of the main things I remember from the program is that you need to be patient with yourself. It’s going to be a huge learning progress, and its not going to be really easy. You just need to be patient with yourself.

If you love it enough give it the time to nourish it, and don’t be too hard on yourself. Oh, and balance your life. Don’t let it be everything. It’s hard not to immerse yourself into it. See your friends; see your family… and exercise! You need your health!

Just take the time to just enjoy life.

Model:Belinda Zhu
Photographer: Pasha Khan