I'm from Vietnam. I'm also international. I'm not American. I make that very clear that I'm not American. I've been here since I was 16. I stayed in a boarding school all through, not all throughout high school, but like my last two years of high school when I was in the States and then I went to FIT for undergrad. I think I've always been, drawn to the Western media. Surprisingly, Vietnam is very into the Western media and very into pop culture. Then my older brother actually also went to FIT. So I think it's kind of natural for me to just move to America.

My high school was in New York. It was a little bit upstate New York. It was like 30, 40 minutes away from Manhattan. It was up in Westchester. And I lived in a boarding school throughout the last two years of my high school. It was, um, terrifying. I think it was pretty traumatizing because it's a boarding school. I think that's a little bit too political, I would say. It's, it's, more about how that school was. It was not too strict or anything, but I think it's more about like the environment that, the school was giving me. Like, it was kind of challenging to be there. I think everyone had a rough time being in that school. There's no school uniform. As I said, it's not a strict school at all, but there are certain things about the school that could create certain challenges for the kids who stay there. I'm not sure if I can say it right.

My family is actually in fashion. We own a manufacturer in Vietnam and we own a probably one of the biggest fashion brands in Vietnam. So that's where I was raised. I grew up with this. I've been in this industry It's, it's natural for me. It's like higher-end Zara in Vietnam. It's fast fashion, but it's not like H&M because we wanted to sell it for a mass market. Like with the kind of price that people can buy, so it's kind of like Uniqlo. It was actually for office women and then we branch out to men's and kids nowadays, but the brand is known for, middle-aged office women or just like people in their 30s, or 40s, going to work. It's just like office clothes, but it's something that's very big in Vietnam when we started it.

I have a very love-or-hate relationship with fashion. It definitely does not pay well unless you're on the higher end unless you're in the top position. It's a very mentally draining industry, I would say. It's, especially when you're in design, it doesn't pay well, but it's also very, very laboring and you have to put in a lot of effort. And a lot of people don't get recognition for that, I would say. I think a lot of competition. There's a certain toxic environment within the fashion industry. I also interned for some pretty high-end brands and I have gone through certain experiences that I absolutely did not like. It's a little bit political to bring it out sometimes. But I don't actually have another choice ever. I do enjoy it though. And I also chose this career path. I actually never really asked for any other career path.

I don't know my first memory, because I think, I mean, when I was a kid, I didn't think much about it. I started, really liking fashion when I was in early 4th grade, 5th grade. I started exploring my drawing skills a lot more. And my parents started steering me into drawing clothes. And I think every little girl likes drawing clothes back then. I started finding my passion from then. My parents put me in art classes at a very young age. They got me an art tutor at a very young age and then they started teaching me how to, I started knowing how to draw fashion croquis and fashion figures at a very young age. I had an art tutor with me every weekend and then she came by and she let me freely draw whatever I wanted on the clothes. I would say it's muscle memory. It's, it's more about feelings also. Where it's so natural for me or it's, so very easy for me to pick up a pen and it just, it just happened. Sometimes a lot of cigarettes also that, um, I would, when I was in school, I used to, this sounds very weird, but I used to smoke a lot to get inspiration. And at some point, nicotine sort of triggers my brain a little bit and then something just pops in my head and then I have a good idea of something and then I just do it. I'm trying to cut off, cut off from smoking. But that was something that I used to do a lot when I was in school. I think it's something that a lot of art people do because I guess it's like a substance that triggers someone's brain in order for them to actually have an idea of something to do.

Actually my whole family dresses like that. And it came from my brother first, and then my parents started incorporating it into their daily life. And then everyone in my family dressed like that. It's just avant-garde. I don't have much to say about it. I think it's just clean, simple, minimalism, and not too flashy, that's actually not right. It's a little bit flashy, I feel like, in a different way. Very dark wear. Very mythical looking. When we walk out of the street, we look like a cult. I mean, I'm just joking around, but, no, personally, I think it looks very cool. I think definitely there's a lot of eyes on us when we are out on the street. My brother's getting interested in avant-garde around when he was also in high school in New York. I don't really know specifically what got him into it, but yeah, starting from then he kind of introduced my whole family to it and then my whole family got into it. He just brought us to the stores to make us buy clothes for him. I was really young at that point so I didn't didn't really understand what was going on when I first saw avant-garde. I was like "What the fuck is this like, why is it so weird?" We were like, "What is this concept? What is this new thing?" It's obviously not a new thing. We were just not familiar with it since all we did was manufacture clothes for office women. We didn't really have a grasp on that concept. But around like 2014, 2015, that's when we started noticing about it. And then that's when my whole family started having an interest in it, slowly transitioning into it.

We still design and make clothes for office women, but my parents are definitely wearing avant-garde clothes on a daily basis. They will never design for avant-garde fashion. I think our business model is mainly in mass production and for the mass audience, thinking on the business side, that's, that makes more sense than doing avant-garde. Because avant-garde is actually very exclusive and the amount of things that you make are not that many. It's not for everybody, in our family business is a big business, so we only cater to the bigger audience, I would say.

I've grown to love what I'm wearing since I was a kid. And it's not forced or anything. Like my parents don't force me to wear any of that. I've actually grown to love it. I used to wear it before I was 21 when I was in high school. And then like just later on, I started to like getting to know about avant-garde and I like grown to love like The idea of it and the concept of it.