Emergence of Asian Americans in the Fashion Scene

As I flip through fashion magazines from the past few years, I notice that the names of Asian American designers are popping up more and more often. Although not as well known as fashion giants like Chanel, Dior, Prada, etc., they are very successful and will still be relevant in years to come, so familiarize yourself with the following designers (I left out Vera Wang because Stephanie already covered her):

One of the most established Asian American designers is Anna Sui. She was born to French-educated Chinese emigrants in 1964 in a suburb of Michigan, where hers was the only Asian family in town. After high school, she moved to New York to attend Parsons School of Design, but dropped out after two years and dove headfirst into the industry. Her first collection was created in 1980, and she ran her label out of her New York apartment for much of the 80s until she premiered her fist runway show in 1991. The following year she opened her first flagship store on Greene Street in Soho and then launched a successful beauty line. Today she has 32 boutiques in five countries and her collection is sold in 300 stores in over 30 countries. Her clothes are always full of energy and are influenced by her current cultural obsession.



Phillip Lim, the creative director of 3.1 Phillip Lim, is much newer to the scene than Anna Sui. His parents were Chinese immigrants and he grew up in Orange County, California. His interests in design stemmed from discovering Katayone Adeli's collection, and afterwards interned and landed a spot on her design team. In 2004, he moved to New York to start his own line with his business partner, Wen Zhou. He describes his work as "classic with a sense of madness."



Another designer who entered the industry at around the same time is Thakoon Panichgul. He was born in Thailand, moved to the U.S. when he was eleven, and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. With a business degree from Boston University, he worked as a merchandiser for J. Crew and a writer covering fashion trends for Harper’s Baazar, and he studied tailoring at Parsons before starting his own line.



Doo-Ri Chung, a Korean-American designer, started her label, Doo.Ri, in 2001. After graduating Parsons with a bachelor in fine arts in fashion, she worked at Geoffrey Beene for six years as head designer. As for her own line, she had been working out of the basement of her parents’ dry-cleaning store in New Jersey before receiving a financial boost from an Ecco Domani award and the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund.



One of the newest and youngest (only 24!) designers is Alexander Wang, a Chinese American born and raised here in San Francisco. At the age of 18, he moved to New York and attended Parsons, but dropped out by his sophomore year to design his own line. His full collection was launched in 2007 and is now selling in over 150 boutiques and retail stores internationally.


There are actually more Asian American designers than the ones mentioned above, such as Richard Chai, Benjamin Cho, Derek Lam, and Peter Som.

POP! Final

For our ETHS 210 final, we had to perform in POP! (Producing Our Power). I was a part of Skit Group number 2. For our performance, we intended to have Angelie sit with a laptop onstage and pretend she was typing out blogs, and have Abby read the blogs backstage as a voice-over, and the rest of us would be in the background, illustrating what she was saying. We did three blogs; Hyphen's letter to the editor, the food unit, and the midterm.

Originally, we planned to have the stage lights dimmed as transitions between the blogs, but the person controlling the lights didn't dim the lights at all and we had to make do. I think the performance might have been better if we'd have more time to practice, actually have seen the stage beforehand, and coordinated with the lights person so they'd know when we wanted the lights dimmed.

It was pretty hard to get together with so many people having conflicting schedules and living so far from school. I remember when working in a group in high school was much easier, since no one had part time jobs and everyone went to school at the same time. Back then, we could say 'Oh let's meet up during lunch!' and everyone would be free, but we don't even have a lunch time now.

Overall, POP! turned out way better than I excepted it to be. Everyone performing did a great job. I just wish I got to see our class' performance. I was nervous before being on stage, but once I got out there, it was pretty fun.

This is Fashion!

Vera Wang is a Chinese American fashion designer, currently living in New York with her husband Arther Becker and her two daughters. She is most well known for her wedding collection, but she also designs other clothing, as well as jewelry, fragrance, eyewear, shoe, and household collections. She attended the Sorbonne in Paris and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a degree in art history. Vera Wang aspired to become a figure skater in the U.S Olympic team, but when she did not make the team, she decided on entering the fashion industry.

Vera started off as a fashion editor for Vogue, and then became the design director for Ralph Lauren. In 1990, she opened her own design studio in New York featuring her bridal gowns; the ones famous today. She has made wedding gowns for many celebrities, including Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Victoria Beckham, Uma Thurman, and the list goes on. She has appeared on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Project Runway and The Apprentice. She creates traditional gowns, as well as modern, short ones and gowns of colors other than white. Her style is elegant, flowy, and very beautiful. She wrote the book Vera Wang on Weddings, published on October, 2001. In June 2005, she won the CFDA (Council of the Fashion Designers of America) Womenswear Designer of the Year award. Currently, Vera Wang has boutiques located in New York, Boston, Beverly Hills, and Waikiki.

The success of Vera Wang shows that being Asian American is not a burden, and that the world is ready for AA celebrities.

Hello Kitty and her many accomplishments

Ever wonder how Hello Kitty came to be, and why is she so loved? Hello Kitty is one of Sanrio's many characters. Sanrio was started by Shintaro Tsuji as the Yamanashi Silk Company in 1960. The company produced a line of character merchandise and it wasn't until 1973 that the company was officially established under the name "Sanrio." The word Sanrio comes from "san" (meaning three in Japanese) and "río" (meaning river in Spanish"). He named the company Sanrio to unify the three rivers of the world. Why? I haven't come across this answer yet. Besides selling their famed character goods, Sanrio also takes part in movie production and publishing. Airing on TV Tokyo in Japan, and CBS in the United States in 1991, "The Adventure of Hello Kitty & Friends" is the first ever made Hello Kitty TV series animation in 3D. They also participate in the fast food industry, running a franchise of KFC in Saitama. They own the rights to the Peanuts characters in Japan and in 2002, they began a joint business with the Walt Disney Company for their greeting cards. Recently, Sanrio went Digital launching Sanrio Digital to expand its brand through the Internet, Online Games and Mobile Services such as Big City Dreams on Nintendo DS.

Hello Kitty was created in 1974, a white cat known for her button eyes, a red ribbon on her left ear, and no mouth. In the very beginning, Hello Kitty, did not have a name and was always pictured sitting down. Her creator decided to forgo a particular expression for Hello Kitty because she wanted Hello Kitty to reflect whatever emotion people were feeling as they looked at her. That's the reason why Hello Kitty does not have a mouth! By 1975, Hello Kitty was named and the Sanrio Company released its first Hello Kitty merchandise, a coin purse picturing Hello Kitty's family. Hello Kitty began to evolve over the years, seen in different poses, atmospheres, and clothing. In 1979, the Hello Kitty world uprooted and in the next year, this kitty sold more than a million watches attracting the young population. Further down the road, Hello Kitty didn't just evolve animatedly, but "Americanly". UNICEF awarded Hello Kitty the exclusive title of UNICEF Special Friend of Children and by receiving that award, Sanrio made hello kitty with a more US design. Trying to expand their audience even further, the black and white series attracted the rest of the grown-up populationby 1987. That same year, a more traditional Kitty design appeared on traditional Japan clothing, in school uniform, beach uniform, and wedding gowns.

None the less, as the years gone by, Sanrio never ceased to surprise the world with many different types of Hello Kitty merchandise and characters. Not only was Hello Kitty seen on accessories, but politically. Since 2004 Hello Kitty has been featured on a MasterCard debit card from Legend Credit Inc. The card was released to teach young girls how to shop and use a debit card. And the most interesting yet, May of 2008 named Hello Kitty the ambassador of Japanese tourism in China and Hong Kong. Hello Kitty has been around my entire life, and yet I can't seem to pinpoint the very reason why i love her so much.

Asian American: Best of Both

I drew a comic on being Asian and American, click to full view.

Chinatown After Sunset

On a whim, I went on a walk around Chinatown last evening (with my camera being my only companion).


I started on California Street and walked along Grant Avenue.
Note: This photo was taken at the intersection on Clay, but this one has a better backdrop than the one I took on California, so I'm posting this one instead.


If you look carefully, you can see a man playing an 二胡 (erhu, aka Chinese violin) on the right. According to Stephanie, he's always there.


What.


A senior citizen chats with the man at the newsstand (who didn't seem to be interested in the conversation, if you ask me).


Unaffected by the darkness, a group of men watch on as two compete in a game of chess in Portsmouth Square.


As I walk along Grant, I notice that most of the shops—bazaars filled with a variety of Chinese gifts and stores selling items splattered with San Francisco motifs—cater mainly to tourists.


Waverly Place, an alley nicknamed “Street of the Painted Balconies,” hosts a number of temples. I would've tried to get a picture of one, but wandering around in a dark alley alone didn't seem like a good idea.


Up the hill, on Stockton, the streets are still busy with locals buying groceries for dinner.



I wonder if they have this many boxes to dispose of every night...or maybe I was just lucky.

CalliGRAFFitti

CalliGRAFFitti takes East Asian caliigraphy and twists it with urban American graffiti art to form a whole new type of art. It's a unique clash between being Asian and American, the old and the new, in a sort of a cultural hybrid art form.

In history, traditional Chinese and Japanese calligraphy was reserved only for the educated and is highly respected as an art form. Graffiti originated in Italy as inscriptions and drawings on walls, and writing on sidewalks and walls is still common in Rome today. The Romans consider graffiti to be an art form, but many westerners consider it as vandalism.

CalliGRAFFiti was an exhibition at ProArts gallery Oakland's Jack London Square. It is a collaboration between Minette Lee Mangahas and nine graffiti writers (Apex, Coby Kennedy, Zen One, Toons One, Amend, Desi W.O.M.E, Denz One, and Lucha) from different cities all over America. On Asian elements, like the parasols, they used an urban element, which was spray paint, and painted on calligraphy and graffiti words. The taggers had to learn calligraphy and the calligraphers had to learn how to tag, despite cultural barriers, so it was both an art form and a learning experience for the people involved. The cinder blocks were the opposite; on an urban element, they painted Asian symbols and words. There was also a basketball game, video, and of course other art in this exhibit.

Minette Mangahas was a student of calligraphy for eight years, and she spent the first four years practicing the character for "one". After graduating from one, she proceeded to the CalliGRAFFitti project. She assigned each of her artists a calligraphy character, like "eternity", "earth", or "healing", and together, they perfected writing the characters and created their own interpretations of them.